Lehigh is VERY greek.
When you look at colleges, look at the student life in addition to the academics because you’ll be spending the next 4 years with those people and in that environment
I thought I liked Lehigh at first but then a teacher told me how greek it was and I realized that I probably wouldn’t fit in.
@happy1 Yes, I do understand that they vary from school to school. She likes the idea of replicating the experience her sister is having but at NEU or Lehigh it may not be the same sorority that offers a similar experience.
@katliamom “The reality is that engineers get jobs whether or not they have extensive internship experience.”
There could be value in cooping in that if students have a better understanding of what they are learning, then perhaps they do better in their classes and the school is able to graduate a higher percentage of the engineering majors who start the program? idk
I don’t know about percentages of those who finish engineering at NEU, but I do know that a HUGE incentive to do well in your engineering classes is that the best (most prestigious and most lucrative) co-ops go to the best students. It’s kind of a built-in rewards system at the school.
@HRSMom, it’s true that at Northeastern you pay for only 8 semesters – but with most students doing co-ops in or near Boston, that’s another year of sky-high Boston rents.
Some students get coops a their “dream” companies only to find out that they do not like the corporate culture or whatever. Coop gives students the option to sample employers: large corporation, small company, start up etc.
I’m a bit confused about why you are comparing two such very different institutions with such very different undergrad experiences. (It’s like asking whether calves liver or pineapples will bring better health. What about all the other foods?) What about the myriad other schools that offer Engineering majors and have the sorority your daughter favors? I’m sure there are many. If your D likes the Lehigh suburban location, dominant Greek life, smaller size, etc., why not compare it to other schools with similar characteristics? Ditto re Northeastern. I think putting these two schools head to head is not useful. In most cases they attract different applicants and aren’t really competing with each other.
Lehigh is not really suburban.
@TomSrOfBoston The Lehigh Valley has about 700,000 people and is the third largest population center in PA. Not a true suburb but it is not remote. It is 65 miles to Philly and 80 miles to Manhattan. Lehigh students have a great campus experience and the school’s alumni network is among the best.
It is a traditional, work hard, play hard school that has been considered a top school for decades.
@msullivan15 I was saying that Lehigh is more urban than suburban.
@TomSrOfBoston Urban? I don’t live far and have been to the area schools many times and it is hard to characterize that area.
It has aspects of both an urban area, generally not the best ones, and suburban like the area of Allentown where Muhlenberg is located.
Bethlehem won’t win any beauty contests but the crime rate is much better than Syracuse for example.
So I’m from MA, and I swear half of my friends went to or were thinking about going to Northeastern last year so this is what I learned from them and when I visited. The campus at Northeaster is TINY. Basically its just a quad surrounded by a few buildings and thats IT. You’re basically plunged into the back bay area of Boston which is absolutely beautiful. As a result however, most freshman students are forced to study abroad in their first semester at NU because of the lack of on campus residential area in the fall semesters. My friends are all over Europe right now and from what I’m seeing on Instagram they’re having a blast. Also, Northeastern has connections all over MA. Im going to be a senior in high school, but this year I worked in a lab at U Mass Medical School with a girl from Northeastern who said that the school hooked her up with the opportunity, which sounded really cool.
When we toured Northeastern they said the campus was 75 acres which is tiny. Lehigh has a very large campus of 1600 acres.
I don’t think so:
http://www.northeastern.edu/campusmap/printable/campusmap15.pdf
I wouldn’t say the NEU campus is tiny…certainly not huge, but as big as it realistically could be given its location. It’s a lot bigger than BU’s campus.
Your friends in Europe may be having a blast, but they’re paying an arm and a leg (32k+ for just the semester with no financial aid). This is not a viable option for families that need large sums of aid. The program itself is why many of my friends could not afford Northeastern despite loving the university. I’m not a fan, personally, of the program.
@TomSrOfBoston I was exaggerating a bit, but most of the buildings are pretty close and compared to Lehigh especially it’s pretty small.
@lefty163 you were exaggerating a lot. Urban universities by definition have buildings close together.
Well, they do seem quite different. Originally NEU was not even on the list, but someone suggested that she visit it when she was visiting BU. It turned out that she did not like BU, but did like NEU well.
While they seem different, they do have some similarities. Both schools have good quality engineering programs, as well as providing solid overall educations. Both schools also did a very good job of making a case for themselves when DD2 visited. Remember that I am asking questions, and pointing out differences, but DD2 is driving the bus. lol
Also, she wants to go to school with good students who are within a reasonable range of her level of ability and effort levels. The very best students can make her feel overmatched and frustrated; when the students in a class are significantly weaker, she gets bored. Both of these schools seem to attract a lot of students that are right at her level, which she likes.
Our high school’s Naviance data show that Lehigh and Northeastern have admitted ~70 students from out high school, over the past, 5 years, and averages and range of students from the two schools line up almost identically. That may not be the case with their admits overall, but it seems to be true from our school. She is right in the middle of the admitted students at both schools, but high enough that it is quite likely that she would not be admitted.
Other schools that DD2 also liked, but impressed her a little less were Wisconsin, Case Western, Illinois, and Rose Hulman.
@TomSrOfBoston but I thought you said Lehigh was urban. How can it be so with such a large campus in a suburban sized town? It’s clear you are a huge fan of NEU. It’s a great fit for a small slice of students that want the Boston co-op experience and can afford it. Lehigh serves a different market and as described above is quite different than NEU in most every way.
@clarinetdad16 The OP is the one considering the two schools with her D. They are quite different schools and as I and others have posted the student needs to consider what kind of environment she wants. As for Lehigh’s location it is on a mountaintop overlooking urban Bethlehem, a truly unique location. Check it out on Bing maps.
@TomSrOfBoston what makes Bethlehem “urban”?