<p>Yes, this is shamelessly stolen from many other threads. But it's a nice idea and I'd just like to say I'm willing to provide my perspective on any questions asked.</p>
<p>I'm a rising sophomore at Northeastern. A lot of my freshman life at Northeastern is fresh in my head so I can answer most questions about:</p>
<p>Northeastern’s Greek life is pretty small. I am part of a fraternity, having rushed my spring semester. There are a few social fraternities/sororities, and quite a few academic ones. </p>
<p>I was happy with the Greek life because I rushed a fraternity (Sigma Alpha Epsilon) that was a consortium of schools around Boston, so I met a lot of great people from all over Boston, which is great socially and for networking.</p>
<p>@PinotNoir:
I’m a little bit familiar with the Math department, I was originally studying Economics and Math before I changed the Math to Computer Science. The department is not too bad, depending on what courses you take, the professors do vary. For instance, I had a great calculus professor whereas a course I took on Game Theory had a pretty poor Graduate student teaching the class. Luckily for some of the calculus courses, the textbook that they use was written by a professor at Northeastern so you always have access to the author.</p>
<p>The non-Greek social scene is quite lively. Especially since Greek life is quite a small portion of Northeastern’s population. If you’re a girl, getting into parties off-campus (mainly fraternity/house parties) is not a problem at all. As a guy it is quite a bit harder as you have to be bringing a lot of female friends to be accepted. Although there are also parties up the road from Northeastern in mission hill which usually charge admission and you can enter and drink as much as you please. But since Boston is such a large college town, there are a lot of things constantly going on.</p>
<p>Thank you for doing this!!! Since no one has commented on Canuck44’s question, do you know what they mean by AP verification? AP scores will not be out until Mid-July, so not sure what tey are looking for. Do you?</p>
<p>When did you find out about your housing assignment? Did you find out who your roommate was at that time, or did you not get to meet them until move-in day? Lastly, how is the food at NEU and did you end up using your meal plan?
It’s awesome that you are taking the time to answer these silly questions. =D</p>
<p>Hi! Financial aid (both merit and need-based) will be very important for my son. Do you know if Northeastern is known for providing good merit and need-based packages?</p>
<p>They want your AP scores once you have them in order to register you for the appropriate classes. If you go to an orientation before you get your scores, they will tell you to assume that you will receive credit when registering for classes. They know that AP scores don’t come out until July, so don’t be worried about it (I was in the same boat two years ago).</p>
<p>I went to the first orientation in June (2009). I found out my housing assignment sometime before that, as I met one of my suitemates who was in my orientation group. You should be finding out soon, as just yesterday I received confirmation of my upperclassman housing assignment.</p>
<p>I lived in IV and had a 15 meal plan. I ate twice a day in the IV dining hall, so by the end of the year, I was absolutely sick of it. Now you can use meals at Rebecca’s Cafe, which is conveniently in the middle of campus, so I know I would have diversified my meals more freshman year if that had been an option.</p>
<p>Northeastern provides good merit aid if you’ve got the scores. Don’t know the quality of need-based aid.</p>
<p>BlinkAngel44 answered those questions very nicely!</p>
<p>Last year, I found out my roommate on June 16th, I went to International Student Orientation in September, so my only communication with him was via e-mail. Housing assignments should be coming out this week. I found out my Resident Assistant position last week, and most of my friends found out about their housing today.</p>
<p>I will add though that I strongly recommend a 10 meal per week meal plan. I had the 10 and I only once found myself constrained by it (and that was because I picked up snacks and things at Outtake [A place where you get 8 points for each swipe, and a burger is 2 points etc- You can take these food items away to your dorm - very handy in exam season]) </p>
<p>The thing with Northeastern is that you can always increase your meal plan during the year if you really need it, but you can’t decrease it. Might as well start small and increase if you really need to.</p>
<p>Oh and you get more dining dollars on the 10 meal plan which is very useful for the grocery store (Wollaston’s [which is quite expensive compared to CVS which is 10 minutes away by foot])</p>
<p>Figured it wouldn’t hurt to have two perspectives on the questions, Justin-- sorry to hijack your thread! haha</p>
<p>Yeah-- retrospectively, 10 meals for freshman year is probably the way to go. Ahh I really miss dining dollars You don’t get them with Profiler plans.</p>
<p>Two years ago, I believe the first I found out about my housing assignment was in the mail, right around this time.</p>
<p>I hear that dorms have a receptionist for security reasons.
Do you need to check in with a receptionist every time you exit and enter the building?
Are they very strict in any particular way or would they prevent you from bringing guests to your dorm?</p>
<p>Hi!
I’m wondering if you know anything about Melvin Hall?
I got a single there and I’m wondering what it’s like… pro’s/con’s and also I wanted to know whether there is a kitchen or a common area or something like that… </p>
<p>The “receptionists” are called proctors, and they work for RSO. They handle (with the NU police) all of the security for the residence halls. You need to sign in guests and can only bring in a maximum of 3 people. All guests must have a photo ID, and if they are too young to have one they are supposed to get pre-approved by the Resident Director 24 hours before. You are not allowed to have anyone under 16 stay the night. Guests can’t stay more than three nights. Every time you go in, you need your NUID to swipe in. If you lost it, you need a photo ID to sign yourself in (as if you are a guest of yourself). Proctors have a list of banned people who are not allowed to come into the residence halls, including people in the area who are wanted by the police and also students who have done things that have gotten them banned from returning.</p>
<p>Rules are slightly lax during move-in and move-out (ex: people underage tend to be allowed in without an ID so long as they are with their parents).</p>
<p>This may sound strict- but it’s really not. At BU (and many other colleges), some buildings require you to give up your ID until you leave. In one BU freshman building, you have to get your roommate to sign an approval form if your guest wants to stay the night. And if you have friends at massive public schools who get to come and go as they please, try to remember that you’re in the middle of a city. Not-so-good things happen in cities, and the people that do those things very often will try to run into nearby buildings to hide- including NU dorms. Signing guests in and swiping leaves a record of who came in, and there are cameras everywhere at the entrances. Proctors are there for 24 hours and if anything bad happens they can call the NU Police (or even press a silent alarm).</p>
<p>Don’t mean to rant, but I’m a proctor. And you have no idea how many people will start getting angry at a proctor for just doing their job while saying things like “who do they think will get in, anyway?” or “I just signed in, why does the resident have to come back down?” Trust me, if a resident signs someone in and that person hurts the resident in any way and then tries to get back in using the “I just signed in” logic- you don’t want to be the person who broke the rule and let that person back in, even if it’s a super rare incident.</p>
<p>Thank you very much for clearing that up for me. I apologize for saying receptionist if that was not the proper term to use. I just read on the website</p>
<p>It’s really a security feature of Northeastern, when I first got there I was a little annoyed by it but as time goes on it’s just one of those things that you’re used to and that you’re a little thankful for because you don’t want random people off the street walking into your building.</p>
<p>@Zaphira, I do not know anyone who lived in Melvin hall unfortunately. I’ve looked around on the internet and all I’ve really found is that it’s a fairly quiet hall because it’s small but it does have a common room with pool tables as well as a study area.</p>
<p>I’ve been keeping up with the entering class Facebook page and a huge majority of incoming freshman received their rooming assignments yesterday, I got an email saying my assignment is “pending.” Does this happen every year? Can I expect my assignment soon? Thanks guys :)</p>
You don’t get them with Profiler plans.</p>
You are most welcome to answer as well!</p>