Hi, I just received an email invitation for Northeastern’s Preview Day in October. It says it’s invite-only and exclusive, but it is hard to tell if this truly is a targeted recruitment of sorts or if it is more general advertising. If it’s the former, I will register right away because I would love to go to Northeastern (applying EA) if I could remotely afford to attend. If it’s the latter, I won’t because I live a thousand miles away and it would be a pricey visit (had a campus visit this summer, so I know the general terrain). The timing is terrible too – right before everything is due and classes heating up. Anyway, if anyone knows about this, I would appreciate your response. Thanks!
I also got the same email. I had a campus tour booked for the week before. Not sure whether or not I should cancel it do the preview day.
It’s part of overall marketing. Yes, it might be directed – but I sure wouldn’t go to great expense or planning to attend. If I was your parent, I’d advise you to let it pass – 100% since you were there this summer.
@kramer1 You should cancel your tour and go on Preview Day. Attending those invite-only events are the only way to demonstrate interest, besides the essay.
I’m pretty sure that, in an NU adcom’s eyes, attending a regular infosession doesn’t mean as much as attending an invite-only event.
Agreed with above. Do not spend money or valuable time on this event.
@coterie Does Northeastern really care about interest though? I thought bigger schools like NU did not care about demonstrated interest since there are so many applicants.
I also recieved this email and am debating on going, but not sure if it would benefit me since I’ve already toured NU.
@emilyhillers Excellent question. I was lucky enough to have a one-on-one with an admissions officer, and I asked her this question. She admitted that demonstrated interest is not highly considered – a nice way of saying that they don’t really care if you’re interested or not.
However, she said that my attending the exclusive invite-only event would be noted on my application. So, maybe there’s something to attending an invite-only event.
I would suggest not going if you already are going to apply anyway.
There used to be a couple of Fall Open Houses on Saturdays but attendance got so large that they became unwieldy. This invite only Preview Day may be a replacement so that students they are interested in can get a less crowded view of campus.
The best way to show interest would be to submit the optional essay question that is new this year.
Thanks, @coterie for the response! I wonder how many people actually receive this exclusive email. Is it only people near the area (I live outside Boston) or is it beyond that? How do they choose who to invite?
Thanks everyone.
Thanks for the advice.
@TomSrOfBoston @T26E4 @katliamom If a student received travel $ with this invitation, would you consider that real interest?
They have shown real interest in you, be sure to show interest in Northeastern.
@TomSrOfBoston definitely, thanks!
@binky17 several people on CC that I consider to be knowledgeable have said that if a school is throwing money at you (rather than paper or emails), that it is showing actual interest.
My family attended the event on Saturday- which was a picture perfect New England fall day. It was very well done and had a lot of options for customized info sessions throughout the day. Students attending had the option to choose between 5 time slots: College overviews, “Going Global” - about all the international coop and study abroad options, a university honors session, Welcome remarks & University Overview, Campus Tours, My NU Journey (student stories/experiences) and some other college-specific sessions. A lunch at the International Village was also provided (very nice dining hall) -this was great!
We had visited before and are pretty familiar with the school, so didn’t learn alot of new things at this visit, but it was great to see how organized the school was and the sessions were interesting and informative. The campus looked absolutely beautiful- Northeastern couldn’t have asked for better weather.
The one thing we wanted more info on was the changes in the honors program that have been eluded to in the announcement of the discontinuation of the university scholars program. They didn’t give any details on what changes are coming, but did say that they have a brand new director of the Honors program who only started at the school this past July. That explains the late announcement and total lack of information- they were waiting for this new director to start before making decisions and implementing the changes.
They eluded to the fact that there are facets of the university honors program (like faculty mentoring and advising based on common interests) will be part of the enhanced honors program. They said that the existing honors program perks/features will not be taken away (at least they didn’t think so), but new benefits will be added. One of the advisors said “All the details will ** certainly ** be available before May 1st 2017”. Um, I hope so - I would think some type of info would be included in offers that go out to ED and EA applicants in December. But who knows.
Hi @suzyQ7 We didn’t know about the lunch at IV – do you think that was a specific invitation just for prospective honors students, then?
@peopleperson1 No, it was an option when you set up the custom schedule for the preview day. If you selected lunch as one of the time slots, then you got a pass to go to IV. I don’t think it actually said “complementary lunch in IV” it said “Lunch”. You must not have allocated time for lunch, so never got the passes. They could have been clearer with the signups.
Thanks @suzyQ7
@peopleperson1 How did you like the event? Did you learn anything new about the school you didn’t already know?