Northeastern or Santa Clara Business school?

My daughter was accepted for the undergrad business school at Santa Clara and Northeastern. We have not heard about scholarships offers but cost is not a major factor for us. We are US citizens but we live in Thailand so both schools will be far from home. Which one is a better school, have more internship/job opportunities? Also prefer small class sizes. Other issues are dorms, campus safety etc. The major difference to me (besides the weather) is the number of undergraduates and the urban vs suburban. Very tough decision, thank you.

That’s in the eye of the beholder and has so many factors. In the end, both are solid options.

Northeastern will win out in this category with the co-op program. If you aren’t already, make sure you are familiar with it. It works very well for business majors in particular, and you will graduate with a year or more of work experience in the field, which makes a big difference.

A lot of the other fit factors are things only you can decide (weather, suburban/urban, etc).

Has your daughter had a chance to visit either or both schools? (I realize that can be a challenge from Thailand.) Or has she expressed her thoughts on weather and urban vs suburban? These are issues of fit that really only she can answer.

That said, Northeastern is quite safe. There is a strong NUPD presence around campus, and night shuttles to off campus housing (if she ends up moving off campus). If you go the wrong direction out of campus, there are some unsavory areas, but I never felt unsafe in my 5 years at Northeastern.

Northeastern also felt smaller than you might think for 15,000 students. It’s a compact campus, which helps. I also found it easy to create a sense of community and friend groups. Most of my later classes were under 20 or 30 students, and I got to know my professors really well. One class my senior year led to a chance to do summer research on robotic lobsters, in large part because I went to the professor’s office hours and just asked questions about his research. I also had a professor I did research with who has been an incredible mentor to me. I can’t speak to Santa Clara, but from my experience it is possible to get a strong, personal undergraduate experience at Northeastern.