Transferring to Northeastern

Hello all,

I’m putting in a Transfer application to Northeastern for Fall 2018. I have a 3.92 GPA in Civil Engineering at Clarkson University.

Clubs:
-Associated General Contractors
-Clarkson University Student Association
-American Society of Civil Engineers
-American Chemical Society
-Steel Bridge
-Humans vs Zombies
-Admissions Tour Guide
-Potentially tutoring
-Potentially either research or being a TA(I’m in talks to do research, had an offer to be a TA but funding got pulled so that’s in limbo at the moment)

High school I didn’t do as well- 3.4 GPA, 1430-ish on SATs, 32 on ACT. I was sick for a month in Sophomore year, and as a result took a huge hit to my GPA(I wrote about this).

What are my chances for acceptance, and what should I look for as far as financial aid goes?

Thanks for any help!

GPA is really good, but engineering is one of the more competitive majors at Northeastern. They value college grades more than high school for transfers so the GPA/test scores from then shouldn’t matter too much beyond them thinking you’re capable of succeeding here, which it seems like to me.

Financial aid for transfers is historically pretty bad (at all schools, not just here) so I would expect less than what you currently receive at Clarkson (or your net cost to go up, depending on how Clarkson’s sticker price compares to NU.)

For what it’s worth, I think Northeastern over-enrolled this freshman class/the yield was too high; we currently have NUin freshman living at the Midtown Hotel instead of in a dorm/university owned/leased properties, which is pretty crazy. They may not take a ton of transfers for space reasons.

Thanks for the info-although worrying, it’s helpful to have.

For financial aid, I’m currently receiving a bit over 30k from Clarkson(which cuts the cost roughly in half). My threshold of whether or not Northeastern is worth it is whether they can bring it within 10k of where I’m at now(which would require around 20k in merit aid). I’m not optimistic that it’s likely they’ll give me that much, but part of why I’m on this forum is to figure out how well-founded that pessimism is. I guess, what’s the maximum a transfer can expect from a university like Northeastern? Bonus points if you can give a ballpark for someone in my position.

As for the over-enrollment, that’s worrying. While Northeastern isn’t a very feasible choice for me(due to financial reasons) it’s definitely my top choice. Unfortunately, with either law school or graduate school in my future plans, I need to weigh finances carefully, which seems like it’s going to exclude Northeastern(that being said, I’ll wait until the cards are dealt before conclusively saying that).

Pessimism is very well founded. Northeastern is spending less and less on merit aid lately just as the school profile is rising (full tuition university scholars program has been eliminated for example), and I can’t imagine they’re offering much merit if at all to transfers, especially not in the range of $20k/year. It seems like the merit money is mainly to be able to include those students’ scores in entering class profiles, which don’t count for transfers. Financial aid is possible, but I wouldn’t bank on any merit.

Clarkson is a good engineering school I believe so if it’s going to be financially reasonable and NU isn’t, I’d stay there (or transfer somewhere with an affordable price.) You’re smart to think of grad school!

That’s disconcerting. While I’m looking at other schools for transferring, I had thought Northeastern would give the most money.

Clarkson is good, yes, but it’s become a bit clear how lack of funding is affecting the school, and quite frankly, other schools have better engineering programs. While grad school is a good option, I want to keep my undergraduate schooling affordable as I’m worried as to the expenses of graduate school.

@Aran888888

Clarkson is a private university. Are they having financial problems?

Enrollment is down this year. It doesn’t constitute ‘financial problems’ in the serious sense, but many departments have received budget cuts; a TA position I was pushing hard for got pulled out from under me(and the current other TA) because the department pulled funding.

Clarkson seems to quite generous with merit and aid. Northeastern, not so much.

I was rather impressed when my son looked at Clarkson, it seems like the kids come out of there and do pretty well for themselves. My son was thinking of playing a sport there and studying in the Clarkson business school, but he ended up enrolling at Northeastern. I can assure you that Clarkson was a much better deal money wise. Northeastern has gotten more competitive and they are only giving $$ to people who can help them improve in certain areas like high GPA/test scores, minorities, poor, first gen etc.

I would stick with Clarkson and their generous aid and finish your undergrad degree without a lot of debt. You are probably not going to get a much higher paying Civ Engineering job from Northeastern vs Clarkson to offset the higher tuition costs. I’d save your money and maybe go to a good grad school if possible.

Good luck with your decision.

I’m currently looking to get the best setup for graduate school, hence why I’m looking at other schools. While Clarkson’s employment rate after graduation is great, that’s simply not the path I’m going down. Obviously yes, I’m remaining cognizant of the costs of other schools, but at the end of the day I want the best quality education(not necessarily the best career options, I’ll get those out of grad school) from the undergraduate institution I choose to attend. Once I’m in graduate school or law school, I’ll look at employment rates and whatnot.