<p>America's</a> Best Colleges - Forbes.com</p>
<p>NEU #568 on a list of 569 schools.</p>
<p>As with any rankings, you need to look closely at the methodology before making a personal judgment as to its usefulness. 25% of this ranking is based on listings in Who's Who...okaaayyyy, I guess this can be a good indicator of how good a school is - if your goal is to be listed in Who's Who. </p>
<p>It is only in the last few years that NEU has even begun to gain a national reputation; through the 1990's it was very much a lower tier regional commuter school, but once it began its climb it sure did climb fast! Many of its programs are also pre-professional, perhaps not exactly the kinds of programs geared towards those who want to get listed in Who's Who? Does this make the QUALITY of the school somehow worse? </p>
<p>Another criteria is the 4-yr grad rates. This is always a killer for NEU in most rankings, since its curriculum is based on a 5-yr undergrad program so as to allow co-op opportunities to its students; most of its students do not enroll with any expectation of graduating within 4 yrs.</p>
<p>However, I suspect that as the school gains a national reputation and increases its overall academic rigor and attracts higher performing students, you may see more and more grads get listed in Who's Who as well as see more alumni contributions that will allow for even better academics, merit scholarships to continue to attract better students and so on. NEU is a newbie in this respect, but give it a few more years and we might see great things. But it should also be given a LOT of credit for what it has accomplished in such a short time. </p>
<p>I'd take certainly take this ranking stuff with a grain of salt...</p>
<p>hah, 568. Ouch.</p>
<p>but ditto to above, the forbes ranking doesn't mean much.</p>
<p>You forget I doubt this considers placement after graduation.NEU is great because say I want a job with NASA. Normally they would require years of work experience. But since you did a co-op, you are already trained and ready to work.</p>
<p>This is a joke...University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is ranked like 530...below Umass Lowell</p>
<p>Yea, and Wabash College/University ranked 12 while Johns Hopkins ranked 81? I don't think so.</p>
<p>All that matters is that Princeton Review ranked NEU #1 in Job Placement Services :)</p>
<p>In like 2002 or something the one time it was ranked.</p>
<p>Test</a> Prep: GMAT, GRE, LSAT, MCAT, SAT, ACT, and More | The Princeton Review</p>
<p>2008 as well :)</p>
<p>Oh, my bad. I was thinking of ranking the Co-Op, not job placement</p>
<p>The USNews rankings are out.. I'm surprised that NU didn't go up at all this year and stayed the same @ #96.</p>
<p>Rankings are as valuable as the paper they are printed on. If you do well at a school, no matter which school it is and you keep that same work ethic and mentality throughout life, you will be successful.</p>
<p>jai66380 I thought it would go up, too.Did you see that NU is #14 on the list of up and coming national universities? so, next year it will move up from 96.</p>
<p>lol All I care about is that I have friends going to Columbia, MIT, Carnegie Mellon (sp?), and Boston University, and out of all of them I'm the only one really happy and content with where I'm going. Names don't mean everything.</p>
<p>Besides, MIT's campus is really ugly and NEU's core is more fun than Columbia's. :)</p>
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jai66380 I thought it would go up, too.Did you see that NU is #14 on the list of up and coming national universities? so, next year it will move up from 96.
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<p>yeah..But it just seems like another one of those rankings that US news has come up with to boost their readership. lol..What I don't get is how they number it... There are a few 9's and then a few 14's... Why'd they skip from 9 to 14? Moreover, why not just do a successive top 20 list? Anyone care to explain? </p>
<p>NU's made a big jump already in last few years.. I think any improvement now would be a little but not by too much..</p>
<p>jai - it's because of ties. there are likely 5 schools that tied for '9th place' so they then skip to 14. I think it will go up over the next few years. Some of the methodology in the USN&WR automatically deflates NU including %who graduate in 4 years. I think it will go up to 80 before this year's freshmen graduate.</p>
<p>hmmm rankings don't mean much but it'd still be nice if it did go up. However, I was expecting it to go up atleast a place or two. I wonder why it didn't go up this year! An upward trend is always nice..</p>
<p>the data are based on 2007 statistics,not 2008.from what I have heard/seen for 2008 it will go up next year.</p>
<p>neuchimie said it best. I also go to NEU, and have friends at all of the "big name" northeast schools. What you will find from attending NU in boston, is that the students "here" way more often than not, seem to have much better experiences at school, while maintaining the same level of academic rigor and post-graduation opportunities as their bostonian competitors. The co-op program is literally what you make it. If you land a good co-op, and do well in it 2 or 3 times in you career there, you'll find the same opportunities as the kids that spend 6-12,000 more /year for a bigger name university.</p>