<p>Visited NEU yesterday with DD. We made the 10:00 info session, 11:00 Engineering info/tour which went to 2:30, then the general campus tour at 3:00. What an awesome day we had. Besides the weather being perfect, the campus was buzzing with activity. I learned so much about the co-op program - I knew of it vaguely, having lived in the area all my life, but now I am thinking - why doesn't every school do this?</p>
<p>Thanks to everyone who has responded to my questions in the past. After yesterday, NEU is really high on D's list. I'd like to get some additional information/advice from anyone here who thinks they can help out. </p>
<p>My daughter is interested in Chemical Engineering. Her list of schools right now are: Cornell (reach and 1st choice), RPI (received Rensselaer medal), WPI, BU, UNH (state U), Syracuse and NEU. </p>
<p>Her stats are:</p>
<p>GPA: 3.98 uw/4.2 w
Rank: 3/556
SAT's (retaking): M 720; CR 690; W 700
SAT II: Math II 750; Chem 72
AP: Calc AB - 5; also took AP Calc; currently taking AP Chem and AP Calc
BC (school is on block scheduling which limits # of AP courses one can
take)
ECs: 4 years marching band; section leader this year; all 4 years involved
in competition band which has a time commitment of 20+ hrs week first
semester
10 years competitive Dance Team - approx. commitment 10+ hrs/week
year round
Consistently held part time job at same company for last 2 years, 12-15
hrs/week.
NHS
Calculus Award, jr. year
Rensselaer Medalist, jr. year
Voice of Democracy regional winner, jr. year</p>
<p>The questions I have are: Do you think she has a chance to make the honors program at NEU? What about merit aid? I have read on this forum in last year's postings that it seemed as if students in the honors program received less in the way of merit aid than non-honors... anyone familiar with this?</p>
<p>Well your D has a good shot at getting into any of the schools she is looking at, but I would think she has an excellent chance getting into Northeastern's Honors program and should also receive merit aid! Her stats are higher than the school's average and she has strong ECs. If you apply I would encourage early action to help demonstrate interest since their acceptance rate is only around 40% (you may have heard but they received well over 25,000 applications both last year and the year before). Also, they do offer some full-ride scholarships and you have a better chance at those if you apply early as well. In addition, they also offer a $10,000 4-year music scholarship to incoming freshmen that your daughter might also want to consider; you do not need to be a music major but do need to commit to playing with two of their bands/music ensembles (they have a concert band, orchestra, pep band, jazz band and other music ensembles).</p>
<p>I have also heard talk about merit aid sometimes being less for Honors students than non-honors students. I am not at all familiar with how NEU or any other schools actually calculate merit and need aid but my thought on this is that maybe NEU is currently trying to attract as many high achieving students as possible (ie to increase ratings) by giving smaller merit aid to lots of students rather than larger amounts to fewer? Or perhaps they also take need into account to determine the merit amount? So a student with higher stats but also a higher ECF may end up getting a smaller merit award than another student getting a merit award with a lower ECF (even though that student may also be getting grants/loans as well). Just guessing here since I haven't a CLUE how any of it works...perhaps someone else can elaborate more?</p>
<p>Also, another scholarship to look into if you plan to attend Northeastern or one of about a dozen schools with strong co-op programs is a 4-year $5000 scholarship offered by the National Commission for Cooperative Education (NCCE): <a href="http://www.co-op.edu/%5B/url%5D">http://www.co-op.edu/</a> </p>
<p>Again, good luck to your D wherever she ends up!</p>
<p>With no hard experience at this I am only guessing, but my guess is she will be a very strong candidate in engineering with a 1410 (and retaking?) SAT. Aren't they looking for female engineering students? i am trying to remember from the info session. Is the engineering school 20% women at NEU?</p>
<p>As I have posted before, my son is not an engineering major but is in the honors program and received the maximum-$16,000-per year merit scholarship,outside of the full rides. If you look carefully at the NEU website, there are pages which detail the scholarships. The merits are based solely on stats, etc. NOTHING to do with need at all. To give you an idea, we did not qualify for any need based aid. My perception is that the merits are based on stats, gpa, major applying to, geographic region you are coming from, etc. So my son is from CA (which they want), is in the honors program in Criminal Justice (not as competitive a major as some others), and had good stats.
The full rides are pretty specific..ie from a Boston Public School, or in top 2% of applicant pool, etc.
If your daughter is interested, she should apply EA, then wait and see what the merit offer looks like. You don't have to decide re EA until you know about what other RD acceptances you have and what those financial offers are...</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for all the wonderful, positive feedback. Ebeeee, My daughter has definitely decided to apply EA. She is also going back to visit for a "women in engineering day" later this month. </p>
<p>Merit aid is pretty important as we are in the bracket of earning too much to quality, and too little to afford 40k+ per year, you know how it goes. Is there any need to even submit the FAFSA to NEU if all you are hoping for is merit aid? I have heard on these boards that sometimes even though you don't think you can qualify, you should file. Sorry if these questions aren't really specific to NEU, just applications in general.</p>
<p>NJRes you bring up some good points about the ratio of male/female. You know this is the first question I asked at other schools, such as RPI, where the ratio is such a factor. But at NEU with the population there, it didn't seem that important, so I totally forgot to ask. But it would be nice if they are looking to up the female population in engineering.</p>
<p>Scansmom, I am really interested in that music scholarship you mention. I didn't see it any where on the website, any idea how I can get more info on that?</p>
<p>re: music scholarship I remember students applying in the summer...they were talking it up at the parent/student orientation I went to in July before my son enrolled...I couldn't find the scholarship information on the website either but here is a link to information about bands: </p>
<p>re: FAFSA, I filed anyway, and filed profile through collegeboard. Knew ahead of time we weren't going to get any money but had been told to file regardless...</p>
<p>There is a fact sheet on NEU's COE web page which lists stats for incoming 2001 engineering freshman as 82% men and 18% women, I would guess this hasn't increased much and that they would love to see their female numbers rise.</p>
<p>With respect to the music scholarship, we found out about this sort of by chance as it is not listed with other scholarship info. There is some info about it on the music dept's web page:</p>
<p>although it is still info for the current school year not next year. For this current year there were auditions in April, August and Sept so even if you could not audition earlier (as was our case since we are from Minnesota) you could still audition after arriving on campus in the fall. It was also possible to send a videotape in August rather than appear personally although you would still be required to come back for a personal audition in Sept if they selected you as a candidate based on your tape. My son did not audition until Sept. after he got to school; he emailed the band director to set up his audition and I have not heard anything from him yet about whether/how scholarship announcements are made (no surprise there what with his AS and all but we weren't really counting on it either since he is good but not that good--I was just proud that he actually set it up and auditioned without me there to walk him through it all! Although the money would have been very nice - compared to the loans we are taking out - I was more concerned about him getting into some ECs to help him develop friendships etc). Your best bet is to contact the music dept or the band director (Prof. Allen Feinstein, <a href="mailto:a.feinstein@neu.edu">a.feinstein@neu.edu</a>) to find out more about the scholarship. </p>
<p>Also, if you are accepted and do choose NEU, in addition to the Honors dorms there is also a Women's Engineering live/learn floor in the dorms (although the Honors suite-style dorms would no doubt be first choice!).</p>
<p>I am a current freshman at NEU. What you have heard is true. I was not accepted into the honors program, but I received a significantly larger merit scholarships than most of the people in honors.</p>
<p>Feel free to ask me any general questions you have about NEU & its application process.</p>
<p>monomania87, that's interesting. Any idea why? Did you receive a particular scholarship? Did you apply EA or RD? Are you in the engineering school? I'm sure I will have more questions.</p>
<p>sorry it took so long to reply. unfortunately, i have no idea why this phenomenon occurs. i was awarded two academic scholarships, of which the dean's scholarship is the significantly larger one. i am in the pharmacy program, which i hear is slightly harder to get into than other programs (although i'm not sure if this is true or not). i applied to northeastern RD. i'll definitelyget back to you sooner if you have other questions.</p>
<p>Renewable merit aid and grants cover the equivalent of 4 years/8 semesters even if you are on a 5-year co-op plan; it will obviously be distributed differently during the times you are on co-op and taking summer sessions but does cover all 4 years of schooling required to graduate. I was also told that grants are renewed for the same amount as the first year. With respect to need-based aid, I beleive they only meet about 66% need. Using my case as an example, FAFSA EFC was $13,000; S rec'd $11,000 merit, $6,000 grant, and about $5,000 in student (Perkins/Stafford) loans. Since COA is over $40,000 there is still quite a bit beyond EFC that we are responsible for out-of-pocket (you probably know better than me if this is a good deal or a bad deal). On the other hand, this cost is also spread out over 5 years instead of 4.</p>
<p>I do not have much info re co-op salaries and haven't found much on NEU's web page, although I understand that they are fairly competitive. My S is in the College of Engineering and they post a range of $13.50 for engineering sophomores to $18 for seniors, but of course it all depends on type of job, type of company, whether full-time/part-time, geographic location, etc.</p>
<p>
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I do not have much info re co-op salaries and haven't found much on NEU's web page, although I understand that they are fairly competitive. My S is in the College of Engineering and they post a range of $13.50 for engineering sophomores to $18 for seniors, but of course it all depends on type of job, type of company, whether full-time/part-time, geographic location, etc.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>They tell us that the average coop salary, among all the colleges, is $14/hour. I don't know if that factors in those who have to take unpaid coops or anything though. Another important thing to know is that you don't get financial aid on coop. Generally you're just paying room and board, and the room is about $2500-$5000 per semester, but your scholarship doesn't apply then.</p>