Northeastern University trip report

Parents Forum
1

<p>We visited Northeastern University in Boston on a brutally hot and muggy day in July. We had no trouble driving right downtown and parking in an underground garage near their visitor/admission department (however, we got there at 9:00 AM, I don’t know if it fills up later – also we used to live in Boston so it was familiar). It is, however, easy to take their public transportation. We were staying with friends in the area and had also toured Worcester Polytech.</p>

<p>Visiting schools in the summer is generally a bad idea – but I know if we wait it might not get done. We did find some students around at Northeastern – mostly across the street in a big Mexican restaurant! Given their slightly unusual schedule, I think a lot of students are there in the summer.</p>

<p>As a little introduction I should say my son is quite intent on being an engineer. He is a “techie” through and through. He does not care if he is in a big city or a corn field. He also does not seem to care if there are few girls. (Although he has a casual girlfriend here at home I don’t think that is entering into that consideration.) He is not interested in sports, school spirit (i.e. football), partying, or Greek. He is a musician and is seeking opportunities to play in a decent orchestra or other ensemble and participate in theater productions. He wants to go to a small college, however this may or may not happen.</p>

<p>Northeastern is, obviously, a very urban campus. It definitely HAS a campus though (unlike some urban schools) and trees and greens. Boston is wonderful, of course. Northeastern is a larger school with 14,730 undergrads and 4,811 grad and law students.</p>

<p>We started with an information session which had a rather unprofessional admissions employee presenting. The presentation was a short video (it was annoying), a power point presentation, and question/answer session. She did a good job explaining, what to me, is the confusing thing about Northeastern – the co-op system.</p>

<p>Northeastern’s claim to fame seems to be their integration of real work experience (co-ops) into their majors. For engineering there would probably be three paid co-op experiences. Kids can make good money during these co-ops, but the important thing is that it allows them to see what is out there in the way of professions, decide whether or not they like their chosen field, and it adds a year or more of real work experience to their resumes right out of college. It’s an interesting approach. At first I was skeptical (picturing my kids in more traditional four year, residential programs) but the idea is growing on me. It seems somehow especially pertinent today. My son is comfortable with the idea. (He read “The World is Flat” this summer and has all these new ideas now…)</p>

<p>Unfortunately we did not get any sense at all how their engineering department is structured. They have an engineering open house event on Wednesdays, and we couldn’t make that (who could? – it seems like a dumb day especially for out-of-towners). Anyway, this is a real problem.</p>

<p>After the information session we went on a campus tour. It was WAY too big of a group! What are colleges thinking making tour groups 50 or more people??? Since we couldn’t hear a thing, and we were all jammed in this wicked-hot group, we broke off toward the end and wandered around on our own. What I did hear on the tour was very standard stuff. Not a lot of buildings were entered. </p>

<p>We tried to find the Electrical and/or Computer Engineering departments, and maybe we were in the right building, I don’t know, but no one was around anyway.</p>

<p>The campus overall is surprisingly nice. At 67 acres it is easily walkable. You are right smack in the middle of Boston, with several “T” stops right on campus. It definitely felt like a campus – not a bunch of buildings in a city. If a kid wants an urban campus Northeastern should be in the running.</p>

<p>Dorms - freshmen housing is across the street, but it is all together in a nice, cozy kind of way. The freshman dorm rooms were small, hot, and had shabby furniture (pretty standard). I think there were two cafeterias over there. Housing is guaranteed for three years for entering freshman. Upperclassmen live in apartment style housing – and at least the part we saw looks REALLY great (and, I believe, really does represent where you’re apt to end up living).</p>

<p>The academic quad seems to consist of mostly 60’s era buildings that are well kept and practical. We went into the new Marino Recreation Center, and it was very nice. The Curry Student Center seemed to be a pretty standard student center; home to lots of student organizations and a lounge etc. There are of course other new buildings such as the Behrakis Health Sciences Center that are really wonderful. A few construction projects are underway (an African American Union and honors housing complex) and planned (more housing for 2009 and beyond). </p>

<p>Academically Northeastern seems to be an up and coming school, while still not highly competitive in terms of admission. It is ranked at 115 by US News (tied with Loyola Chicago, SUNY Buffalo, U Oregon, U San Francisco). Their engineering program is ranked 69th by US News; with U Pittsburgh, SUNY Buffalo and Stony Brook, Boston U, Syracuse U, and Tufts all in that general ranking neighborhood. Be it known that I put practically no weight on these rankings. (Actually I think they are complete BS.) Stats for admitted students are: (mid 50%) GPA 3.4 – 4.0, 1140-1320 SAT. It seems like a very diverse student body. </p>

<p>Northeastern is expensive, but I suspect there is more financial aid and merit money available than at other similar schools. Also, paid co-ops can relieve some of the pain. Tuition is $28,735, room and board $10,170. Overall, it did not feel like primarily wealthy kids go there.</p>

<p>For most majors Northeastern appears to be a five year deal: eight semesters of classes and about four semesters of co-ops (you do not pay tuition during co-op, but you may pay R&B especially if you happen to be doing a co-op in Boston). </p>

<p>Two complaints that I read about in their student newspaper (which are of course always full of complaints) - chaos in the international co-op office, and a shortage of courses to register for during summer sessions (whcih matters at this school especially because kids are frequently gone on co-op the fall and winter semesters).</p>

<p>My son came away from this tour not really knowing what to think about this school. There was no mention of music or theater extra-curriculars, and when we asked no one really knew anything about them. He emailed the music director who replied that they do have an orchestra and basically anyone can get in it (which is pretty normal for a school without a music performance major). There is no instrument storage on campus (I wonder if there are practice rooms?) and that is a problem for him.</p>

<p>From my perspective I really liked this school (OK, maybe I just LOVED the idea of living in the middle of Boston :) ), but I think for Northeastern to stay in the running he’ll have to try to get to an Engineering Wednesday and further investigate those specific departments. I’m not sure how or when that will happen. His comment was that “it might not be geeky enough.” I hope he does not underestimate the value of the co-op experience though, especially at a school where it seems to be woven seamlessly into the major.</p>

<p>I do not have great photos due to the too big tour and the fact that I was having heat stroke, but here’s a link to what I do have:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&conn_speed=1&Uc=x43zpxh.5799wl3t&Uy=-2bbs4p&Ux=0%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&conn_speed=1&Uc=x43zpxh.5799wl3t&Uy=-2bbs4p&Ux=0&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I hope someone finds this report helpful.</p>

<p>(Also posted under Northeastern in the alphabetical section.)</p>

2

<p>Weenie, great trip reports. I like reading about the schools' physical surroundings. Helps paint a picture of the place.</p>

3

<p>Have you considered Drexel in Philly? Urban and high on the geeky scale. Many of S's extreme computer nerd friends go there. Don't know about the music, though. It's also a co-op school. Similar stats, I think.</p>

4

<p>If you really love the co-op idea, Drexel does it as well and there would be no complaints of not being "geeky" enough as it's got quite a lot of engineering students. ;)</p>

<p>As for the music thing there is a music industry major and I know that there are piano classes and practice rooms for them, and I know that there are a few theater groups and music groups and whatnot, although I don't know much about them and I don't know if there's any kind of an orchestra.</p>

5

<p>Great report! We visited Northeastern back in April (on Good Friday) and it was mobbed that day, too. Very large group, but we had a wonderful tourguide, so it helped. My D has Northeastern as her #2 choice right now. We all loved the campus, too. She wants to be in the city, and when my husband and I went to college many, many years ago in Boston - Northeastern was nothing like this. We were very impressed. The best thing is that she has a cousin who is a Middler (third year student) at Northeastern, so she is going to do a weekend stay with her in the fall to really get a chance to check out the school.</p>

6

<p>Weenie-
I tried to pm you with d's NEU merit offer details, but your box is full. Can you clear it out and I'll try again?</p>

7

<p>Good luck with your college search! Just wanted to add a couple of comments about Northestern having visited this year myself: the Engineering college's average admission requirements are a little higher than some of the other colleges. From their website:</p>

<p>"For the College of Engineering, the high school transcript is the most important element of an application. The admissions committee will recalculate your grade point average, weighting math, science, honors, and AP courses the heaviest. Engineering applicants must complete four years of math (geometry, algebra 1, algebra 2, and a fourth year of trigonometry and/or analysis and/or pre-calculus). Engineering applicants must also take physics as part of a full sequence of science. The committee recommends students taking the most rigorous math and science curriculum offered by the high school. This year's incoming engineering freshman class averaged a recalculated 3.7 out of 4.0 high school grade point average. </p>

<p>The committee also considers the SAT in evaluating the applicant. The incoming freshman class averaged 1270 (Math=660, Verbal=610). The SAT is not weighed as heavily as the high school transcript. SAT II's are not required for admission." </p>

<p>Northeastern also has an Honors program where your son may be more likely to find more of the geeky types he seeks, as well as an Engineering floor in one of the freshman dorms. And, unlike other freshman, Honors students can live in the apartment style dorms available to upperclassmen.</p>

<p>My son will be an engineering freshman in the fall. We have visited the school twice now; we are from the midwest so we actually waited until he was accepted and recently went to summer orientation. Both visits included engineering-specific infromation sessions which provided opportunities to see the engineering buildings, talk to professors and students and hear about engineering co-ops, which was all VERY helpful to help us, so an Engineering Day visit could certainly benefit you. In addition, some of the engineering students we met certainly fell into the geeky category in the sense that they were very passionate about their areas of interest. This was the one thing that impressed me about many of the students we met on our visits--they were all very ambitious and driven and have had some very interesting and challenging co-op opportunities (of course they were hand selected to demonstrate the positive aspects of the school, but still I came away very impressed with the caliber of students we saw).</p>

<p>My son is also interested in playing in the jazz band. The school does offer a variety of bands and ensembles to non-music majors, including orchestra, jazz band, pep band, etc. They also offer a renewable music scholarship (which non-music majors can audition for), as well as a variety of merit scholarships that top students are automatically considered for, including full-rides and a wide range of partial scholarships. If you decide to attend Northeastern another scholarship to apply for is one offered by NCCE to students at a select number of schools with co-op programs.</p>

<p>Another thing to keep in mind with respect the number of enrolled students: most students do co-ops at Northeastern so the total numbers are a little deceiving since in the last 3 years the number of students in class is cut down nearly in half (they divide the students into two groups that rotate co-op times so while one group is on co-op the other is in class).</p>

8

<p>Thanks for the interesting report, weenie.</p>

<p>A couple of thoughts/qx. What instrument does your kid play? My S does drums and, while there was no instrument storage for him on his chosen campus, there were drum practice rooms to which he obtained a key by either signing up for private lessons (credit), or an ensemble (credit).</p>

<p>Lehigh has a co-op program for Engineering. I think it might be more "selective" (the program not the school, which is also probably more selective) than NEU, but it is worth looking into. My memory is vague, but it might be that you need a certain GPA to be selected for the coop. It involves working during one (or two?) spring/fall terms and taking courses during one (or two?) summer terms. There was an exciting range of companies participating and good pay during the internships.</p>

<p>Although I can't disagree that $38,000 is expensive, it seems that a large number of schools are exceeding that by $5-10,000 for the coming academic year.</p>

9

<p>Compares to our visit to Northeastern in April, and we were also left wondering about music rooms (S#2 is not likely to take his drums with him from CA to Boston...).</p>

10

<p>Thanks for all the great feedback everybody!</p>

<p>I should probably have mentioned the other schools my son is thinking about.</p>

<p>Schools he's visited:
RPI - Probably his first choice, would need merit money
RIT - Liked a lot, awfully close to home...
Penn State - I don't think so, too big
Northeastern - see my other report
U Michigan - Probably too expensive and he is unlikely to qualify for $ (but he liked it)
Case Western - He likes, but I don't like the scholarship GPA requirements (and that assumes he'd qualify for a scholarship!)</p>

<p>Schools he will be looking at:
Univ Pittsburgh
Univ Delaware
Purdue
Ohio University Athens</p>

<p>Schools he might apply to without visiting:
Georgia Tech
Virginia Tech
Lehigh (he's cool on this one)
Lafayette (he's cool on this one too)</p>

<p>Schools that are not on his list:
MIT - Too reachy
CalTech - Too reachy
Olin - Probably too reachy and he isn't interested
Drexel - He doesn't like what he's read (firm)</p>

<p>He doesn't really want to be down south, although lately he's been talking about Georgia Tech. He does not want to be in California or west coast (too far from home). </p>

<p>While a very good student, and really good SAT scores, he will need merit money at any of the $40K+ schools. We simply will not pay that much. He also refuses to take SAT IIs. (This one is a little stuborn and he has opinions! Horrors!) So, he will apply to mostly match or safety schools.</p>

11

<p>Pitt, NEU and RPI offered very good merit money when my son was looking at them. You are also correct about co-ops paying pretty decent money which increases as the student gains more experience. My son is entering his senior year and is making $22/hour at his co-op job this summer. Of course, having to pay for an apartment and food eats into that quite a bit.</p>

12

<p>NEU's music problem is that it is sandwiched between the New England Conservatory (literally adjacent) and Berklee College of Music around the corner. NEC does classical, Berklee contemporary. Both are excellent, but don't make much room for outsiders. </p>

<p>At least you know the listening would be great in town.</p>

13

<p>Interested in your trip report. Both my H and I are NU engineering graduates, and my oldest S is an engineering major at Pitt. NU has changed greatly in the 25 years or so since we graduated, much better reputation nationally, campus is no longer in a bad neighborhood, tuition has gone way up, etc.</p>

<p>I can't speak highly enough about the co-op program. It gives kids the opportunity to figure out if they reallly like engineering, and gives them the opportunity to make some money and puts something on their resumes. I graduated in the middle of a recession in the early 80's and went to work for my co-op company. A lot of kids in my class did.</p>

<p>That being said, my S went to Pitt because NU didn't have the major he was interested in. We also thought it would be too close to home and thought he should be more than a 30 minute train ride away. We were wrong on both accounts. He changed his major and would have been fine in Boston. NU would do a better job at helping with a co-op job than Pitt. And Boston is a great place to go to school.</p>

14

<p>"NEU's music problem is that it is sandwiched between the New England Conservatory (literally adjacent) and Berklee College of Music around the corner. NEC does classical, Berklee contemporary. Both are excellent, but don't make much room for outsiders."</p>

<p>I could be wrong about this, but I remember reading somewhere that Northeastern students can cross-register for classes at NEC. You should probably confirm this with the admissions department at NU.</p>

15

<p>You might consider Rice - just a suggestion.</p>

<p>It's a small school, with good engineering programs, within Houston city limits, but not really in the city, with really good opportunities to do music and theater for non-majors.</p>

<p>And even without merit/need aid, it's a heck of a lot cheaper than some of the other schools on his list.</p>

16

<p>Great trip report. Have you considered University of Cincinnati? I know when I say Cincinnati, you probably are thinking...huh!</p>

<p>First, they began the whole coop movement in 1906. Northeastern modeled their program after that of Cincinnati. Not only do they have a terrific coop program,both with national and international offerings, but they are MUCH less expensive than Northeastern. Their tuition for out of state folks is $23,000 ,but they do give most kids, especially reasonably smart out of state kids, at least a $5,000 yearly scholarship. Thus, the tuition really is around $18,000 or less depending on the Cincinnatus scholarship results.</p>

<p>Being a large state school, they also have 125 majors to choose from ( atleast this is the boast of admissions). They also have duel major opportunities, and a strong honors program.</p>

<p>Room and board is also less expensive at around $8,200. They also waive all room and tuition charges during coops! Honestly, you will save about $12,000 a year at Cincinnati for arguably the same education, and I think a possibly better education.</p>

<p>They are on a quarter system; thus, your son can take a lot more offerings than what is offered in a semester oriented school. Quarters also do lend itself well to coops. </p>

<p>In addition, they have all new buildings and facilities and a fabulous music program even for non majors. Cincinnati Conservatory is one of the best in the world rivaling that of Oberlin, Bard and even Julliard. Thus, you son would get a lot of musical opportunities in marching band, pit band and orchestra. He might even be able to take lessons there.</p>

<p>They also have a new athletic facility that is state of the art wih fabulous athletic equipment of all sorts, a large climbing wall, and several pools with currents that can be used either for exercise by swiming against the current or for fun, by swimming with the current.</p>

<p>Honestly, check it out. You will be surprised.</p>

17

<p>The problem with Rice is, um, Houston.</p>

<p>The problem with U. Cinn. is, um, Cincinnati. </p>

<p>Both cities have their "charms" (but personally, I think you have to look hard for such things in Houston...) but neither is a great college town compared to Boston.</p>

<p>OTOH, Rice is very well endowed and has relatively low costs.</p>

18

<p>As a native New Yorker, I feel reasonably competent at judging Houston. I quite like it.</p>

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<p>newmassdad, Cincinnati has over 1 billion in endowment!</p>

20

<p>Weenie,
I read both of your recent trip reports with much interest. My D seems to be looking at a lot of the same schools as your son. I'll be waiting for your upcoming Pitt report; we are going there in Oct. What about URoch or BU? Did he have any interest there?<br>
Karri</p>