@TomSrOfBoston This was an enlightening article: https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2014/08/26/how-northeastern-gamed-the-college-rankings/. Do other colleges do unethical things? Unfortunately yes, and I am sure they do this to survive. Other colleges were listed in this article. And, U.S. News makes no apology for their list. ““You can love us or hate us, but we’re not going away,” says U.S. News editor Brian Kelly. “University officials realized we’re much more valuable to them than not.” He deflects criticism, saying, “It’s not up to us to solve problems. We’re just putting data out there.” He does, however, admit that the rankings system can be gamed.” Forbes has a list and so forth and so on. This was another great article about merit: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/1/16526202/college-scholarship-tycoon-game . An eye-opening experience for certain, and it will be a different experience for my daughters, as I am a much wiser parent now. And, I didn’t go into this as a Bambi.
@ohiocollegemom @TomSrOfBoston while my kids have not been CS majors at NEU, I know the school has been talking a lot about their CCIS Meaningful Minor program where a kid in any department can get a basic understanding of coding and computer technology that would be applicable to whatever their major is, on the premise that in this digital age, all students will need some level of CS literacy in their work. That could be what the Dean was talking about.
https://www.ccis.northeastern.edu/academics/undergraduate/ccis-meaningful-minors/
@twicemama To clarify, the speaker was not the Dean. I did not get the impression it was a minor in CS. She was definitely energized and excited about the department. CS is it’s own college and therefore, their budget is allocated to their department. That is a plus. Some of the other prospective students picked up on the comment and asked questions like, if I am the kind of kid who has years of programming, will I be challenged at NEU? I was not alone in that feeling. The kids on the panel did their best but I think they were really tired. It was Saturday. 
@TomSrOfBoston I agree. It’s about the money and other colleges are doing the same thing. I tried to post links to two articles about gaming the system. One from Boston Magazine about NEU and another, in general, from Vox about the merit scholarship game. But my post got deleted.
My D is in same boat with regards to NMF- I too think it hurt her in regards to NU, in the end she got waitlisted (so if she gets in now they won’t give her any money for it)- I feel bad as she really wanted to go tho NU but I talked her out of applying ED to apply to an IVY ED as a stretch- I guess I’ll feel like I let her down with bad advice for the coming years- hopefully she won’t blame me forever
This is absolutely the case and the point of the introductory curriculum here. However, that doesn’t mean that the applicant quality isn’t more competitive for CS, simply that CS extracurriculars are not the driving force of accepted/denied or success within the major once accepted. I can’t say how closely the college and admissions work either, which could also affect it. That comment is accurate though, sans the “or interest” part. You’ve gotta be interested to take the course - no one’s forcing that or anything. I think that was a likely misquote, but the general philosophy holds - you don’t need prior experience or be “good with computers” to learn and become skilled in CS. Some of the top students often come in with very little practical computer skills, but it goes to show that CS is simply not that. As you go through the major though, you tend to pick up those practical skills over time.
The curriculum is actually so unique that it can even be a harder to come in with prior experience, at least for the first semester. You have to unlearn a lot of bad practices, where people without experience are tabula rasa.
The problem is that it’s been pretty consistently shown that caring about the numbers leads to a better education reputation, more money to improve the education quality, etc. I’m sure that there’s a very careful calculation going on here: the number of top students missed out on is probably made up for in the increased resources / reputation / academics in the long term. The reality of the college landscape today is that schools have limited spots and top applicants are becoming more common, which means that the schools have more qualified applicants they can accept and have to reject many. The result is that applicants need more and more applications in order to have viable choices, which only causes more rejections. That’s why yield management has become a really tough problem, as seen with the overenrollment of Northeastern/BU/BC last year. From their perspective, it’s probably better to deny a few very qualified applicants than have to worry about huge overenrollment.
Frankly, the pattern won’t change unless there is a drastic change to the college application process. I could see some sort of ranked list single application + financial preferences document working, where you know the applicant’s other options and their admission results and thus can better predict yield and even logically withdraw applications for students based on preferences/financials, but that’s a huge system that I don’t see happening anytime soon.
@ohiocollegemom
Understood. I was kind of commenting on the goal of making everyone coders… with two kids, not CS, there, the meaningful minor idea has gotten a fair amount of play and excitement, and I think a valuable opportunity for non CS majors. What I can say though is that for both of my kids, their CS friends have had great experiences and great coops with all the top CS firms.
@ohiocollegemom That Boston Magazine article from 2014 is linked to several times each year in this forum. The article itself is favorable to Northeastern despite the click bait headline.
My daughter took Fundies 1 (the intro to comp sci class) as an elective her senior year - it fits the everybody should learn to code model. Freshman year she took an intro Comp Sci class - which is not meant for majors or minors - CS and its applications - where they learned excel and access (database) - it was excellent. But my daughter had an interesting attitude in choosing electives, mixing useful stuff with stuff that interested her. So she took Japanese culture and film noir and also took public speaking and intro to accounting.
@quinntheeskimo Maybe ED would not have worked out either. For schools that are need-aware, the student is competing with other family’s wealth or lack of it. That’s an impossible situation to control. We do the best we can as parents, and I am sure your daughter will not blame you!
Think of it this way: Each need-aware school wants the best students it can afford, so it accepts students need blind until the financial aid budget it depleted, then it accepts full-pay students. Need-blind or need-aware is moot for most applicants anyway; if you like the school and the NPC suggests you can afford it, and the CDS suggests you have a chance, then you apply.
Context on CCIS statement " we will take anyone…even if they can’t code"… CCIS teaches coding as a problem solving thought process using their own languages as building blocks for attacking all programming challenges. They do not narrow in on one base language like Java or Python. So - having base experience in one of those languages does not necessarily give CCIS students (applicants) an upper hand. Those who are experienced coders learn new programming paradigms and are indeed challenged (CCIS mom of 4th year student and TA).
Is anyone still waiting on financial aid packages? They requested a couple documents back in mid March but still have not sent final package. I called last week and they said soon. Wondering if anyone else is in same situation. Thanks
Hi im an international student and I’ll be applying for the 1 nov EA deadline just wanted to know which one is harder the marketing major or the media major. Is a transfer from the media major to the marketing major possible. Or is it better if I apply undeclared.
Admissions are not done by major, apply to the one you want to study. Transferring between any college or major is a very simple and relatively easy process. While admissions stats are not released by colleges or majors, neither marketing or media/screen studies will be more competitive, with those likely being things like CS/Business/Engineering.