<p>The way I look at it, there are plenty of people who do just fine even if a top 20 school (or top whatever # school) was never in their sights, whether that’s because they applied and didn’t get in or never wished to apply in the first place. I don’t get how it’s so important to choose the top school you get into if another school appeals to you more, whatever its rank. “Getting out of dodge” may not be the best reason from an academic perspective, but if it lands you in a place where you’re intellectually and socially engaged, what difference does it make?</p>
<p>^ I can go with never wished to apply which is not the same as getting in, being able to afford and claiming only Boston has the culture.</p>
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<p>Don’t get me started on people’s prejudices and misinformation about where to find culture in this great country of ours.</p>
<p>In case you missed it, I was asking for a reason to go to NEU other than the Boston location/culture. It is not the same thing as prejudice or misinformation. You do send a kid to a college for education?</p>
<p>I don’t know much about Vanderbilt or the city. Being in Houston, I do know this.</p>
<p>Rice has every museum in Houston within walking distance since it is right next to museum district. Rice also has within walking distance, two medical schools, the best medical center in the world in smallest area etc. Rice will also have internships for every major.</p>
<p>Nashville is the perfect college city, in my opinion. Houston is also fabulous and my daughter (Rice '07) loved all the cultural opportunities both on and off the Rice campus. Cost of living in both Houston and Nashville is so much less than Boston, which is nice, too.</p>
<p>OP: I think I would feel as you do. One does not want one’s child to throw away a great opportunity for what considers a lesser one.</p>
<p>Do you have money on the table? </p>
<p>You may not want to dictate by saying, “my money, my choice,” although I do know parents who would have.</p>
<p>You have to decide how far you are willing to go in influencing the decision. I would certainly say my piece if it were me.</p>
<p>And then I’d let it go, I guess, knowing I was the one unwilling to be an autocrat.</p>
<p>My guess is that your D wants to go away and prefers Rice to Vanderbilt so her default option which is in a wonderful city is NEU.</p>
<p>I am sure the education at NEU is fine. I think the student body at the other schools, particularly Rice, to be a better fit with your D.</p>
<p>Once you have laid this out, not much more you can do.</p>
<p>I will say that we are in a suburb of NYC (a distinct suburb) and DD decided to attend Barnard even though her friends went further away. It happened that she was the only one to take junior year abroad (London – she’s not a language person) so she ended up further away.</p>
<p>She did not regret her decision.</p>
<p>One plus for her is that she has been able to maintain and even blend in some cases high school and college friendships. Now that she has graduated folks are coming back to the area so she is not separated from any of her good friends.</p>
<p>I can understand your D’s POV. If she has always been levelheaded, you don’t really have the grounds to step in now.</p>
<p>You decide your own limits and then accept and move on.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
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<p>My kids wanted to go from the West Coast to the East Coast–they saw college as a great time to broaden their horizons, educationally AND geographically. </p>
<p>They didn’t have trouble adjusting to the snowy weather (we’re talking Southern California girls dealing with Boston and NH), came to love hockey and the Red Sox and now have lots of friends hailing from Boston and New York City.</p>
<p>I’d support her decision wholeheartedly! If she does well at Northeastern, I can’t imagine that she will be hurt career-wise in the long run.</p>
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<p>No, I didn’t “miss it.” I was agreeing with you that Boston is not the be all and end all for culture. I’d want a kid to choose a school for educational reasons, too, but I don’t think choosing a school based on location is the worst thing in the world, if (as I’ve said) that location inspires and excites a person’s desire to learn. I can well imagine being inspired by Houston or Nashville. I can also see how leaving one’s home region could be liberating and intellectually invigorating in and of itself.</p>
<p>Hmmm… I think a lot of people on this thread aren’t as aware of Northeastern as they should be. Northeastern is a “hot” school. They have one of the highest numbers of applicants in the country, and for good reason. They were the first to really pioneer “co-op” (aka internships) and they are still probably the best at it - their network of connections is deep and nationwide. Their acceptance rate has plunged as their applications have skyrocketed (last year they only accepted 38% of their applicants). They have one of the best post-college-employment rates of any major university.</p>
<p>They have an actual campus, several contiguous blocks, with a little bit of grass and some trees, right in the heart of Boston. Their facilities are new and well-maintained.</p>
<p>For many years, Northeastern was a commuter school where the blue-collar of Boston went to earn money while they got their degree. But those days are long gone - Northeastern can now house nearly all of its students on-campus. It is a national university drawing students from the entire country and world, and it is rapidly climbing in the rankings. There are plenty of good reasons to choose it. </p>
<p>I can see the OP’s concern that her child is going so far away, but other posters please do not assume that there are no good reasons to go there other than to “get away from Texas” and please stop saying, “Its too bad she didn’t apply to other Boston schools.” NEU got more applications than BU last year, and based on what’s in the news these days about BU, I’d pick NEU anyway.</p>
<p>(FWIW, neither I nor anyone in my family have attended NEU, but I know a lot of students there now and they are bright kids).</p>
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:eek: What? Are you kidding? How do you think Boston got its nickname “The Hub”? All Bostonians know for certain that Boston is the hub of the universe. :p</p>
<p>Actually, Northeastern’s acceptance rate last year was 34% and they still ended up 300 students overenroled. They also had a 95% freshman retention rate. Their freshman stats profile now exceeds that of BU.</p>
<p>Northeastern isn’t in the same league with Rice and Vanderbilt, no matter how you want to spin it.</p>
<p>No one is saying that it is.</p>
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<p>That would be extremely difficult as the very nature of PhD admissions tends to be very personalized and subjective depending on both the individual applicant and the potential Professors he/she hopes to be doing academic research with. Academic and even personal “fit” with potential advisors/department are extremely important. Not too surprising considering admission is done directly by Profs within the academic department in question and/or maybe an advanced grad student or two. </p>
<p>Moreover, sample sizes are extremely small as most respectable PhD programs admit less than a dozen candidates/year during good years and most college grads don’t apply for/attend PhD programs. </p>
<p>They could also have years where they admit no one depending on factors such as no candidates had suitable research interests which meshed with those of present faculty, department faculty aren’t taking any new students that year due to having too many PhD advisees, reductions in fellowship budget, all applicants that year were perceived as too weak/unprepared/lacking the passion/seriousness needed for sustained commitment to the field, etc. </p>
<p>It isn’t like undergrad or professional school admissions which tend to be handled more centrally by dedicated admissions staff with widely varying input from faculty members.</p>
<p>My daughter just this week choose Northeastern’s Honors Program over Tufts. My husband and I support her decision. We feel that the co-op experience and the benefits of honors (special opportunities and resources) make it the right place for her. You need to look past rank and instead at fit when making these decisions. Also, “being in Boston” is not a stupid reason in my opinion. Your child has to live at their school for 4 years and location is important in that living experience.</p>
<p>I totally agree, kiddie. My H chose Oberlin over UPenn many years ago and he couldn’t have chosen better. The school and the people he met there shaped his future in the best possible way. For someone else, UPenn would have been the better choice.</p>
<p>I have 3 anecdotal stories about NEU- friends son attended graduated in 2008 and landed a very good job with Merck. He loved his time at NEU.</p>
<p>Niece attended and while she was also accepted at some “better schools” choose NEU because of Boston and also because her very good friend was at Harvard. Both girls ended up at the same med school after graduating.
Know another student at NEU majoring in architecture- has worked at a firm since her co-op and they have asked her to stay on when she graduates.</p>
<p>All 3 were very good students with so called better options but attending NEU worked out well. I will say like MOWC I am also a huge fan of Rice and Vanderbilt.</p>
<p>For anyone interested in data, research clearly shows that what a student does once they get to college is a whole lot more important than what college they go to. It really doesn’t matter all that much what college you pick; you can get an equivalent education almost anywhere; and with a couple of narrow exceptions, you will have equivalent career opportunities with a degree from most any college.</p>
<p>annasdad- my personal experience tells me that is true.</p>
<p>We’ve encouraged our kids to look outside of our general geographical region. The US is a big place and has so much to offer and college is a great time to take advantage of living somewhere new while having a bit of a safety net in the college itself. Why not? If they go 1/2 way across the country, sure, I’ll miss them, but how much do you plan to visit your kids if they go to school 30 minutes away? Does it really make a difference where they are? You shouldn’t be visiting them that much to begin with really.</p>