I see that in 2013, NU admitted 15,301 students, but only 2,891 enrolled. Why so few?
Since you and I seem to be following similar threads, suggesting that my daughter has a similar school list as you, I think it is because NEU attracts a certain caliber of student, the school is a match leaning towards safety for this type of student so they end up with a few desirable options. Further, because these schools offer merit scholarships of varying amounts students who are looking for merit end up at the school that gives them the best bottom line, especially if they don’t qualify for financial aid. NEU knows how many students they have to accept to get the number of enrollees they need given this pool of student applicants since many will end up elsewhere.
That makes sense. The stats of the admitted students are very impressive. So I can assume most of those students will end up elsewhere, particularly if they didn’t get enough merit aid.
@NorthernMom61, you describe my son’s situation. He got a nice scholarship as a National Merit Finalist, and Honors, and would be very happy to attend NE but the net cost for NE is still quite a bit more than his other top two choices, where he also got merit aid. His current thinking is that NE may not be worth the additional cost.
@Putterer it is very difficult to assess “worth” in these situations. First of all, it’s a matter of affordability and whether your family can afford NEU versus others. Second, it depends on what type of college experience your son is looking for - NEU and its co-op program provides a very specific experience for the pre-professional or pre-grad school student. I noticed in your other posts that your son got into several large state schools. If he is looking for a rah-rah type college experience, complete with big time athletics, then there is no comparison, he should pick one of those schools. But if he is looking to gain real-life experience in his area of interest, which will give him a leg up for jobs and grad school upon graduation, than NEU may be worth the additional cost. Plus, living in Boston is unrivaled in the US in terms of having all of the resources of a big city, but still feeling like a large college town. Like everything else in life, there are tradeoffs, but as I said first, affordability is key - I would not go into debt to send your son to NEU vs those other schools, but if you can do so comfortably, then it may provide interesting tradeoffs for your son.
@Cameron121, Yes “worth” is entirely an individual matter, as is the value of one school compared to another and how finances figure into the picture. We consider ourselves lucky that DS is deciding between thee schools he’d be very happy to attend and are financially feasible, including NEU. My post was intended to confirm @Northernmom61’s hypthothesis (albeit with a data point of one) about one type of student NEU attracts and why they might choose to go elsewhere.
@sbjdorlo what yield % would impress you for Northeastern? Duke is %45.5. Tufts is %37.8. CMU is 30%
Do you consider NEU a peer to these schools? I consider it more of a peer to BU, Brandeis, UofR, Wake Forest, etc and these schools all have yields in the low 20s.
The fact that NEU gives out so much merit aid probably improves yield rate.
Everyone has brought up such valid issues. We were really looking for our daughter to go to school in New England, she wants to study engineering, and since our EFC puts us at self-pay to close to self-pay about everywhere, we were looking at the schools that offer merit and have engineering. That leaves the LACs out of the picture for the most part. However, she does have one geographic outlier. She has received some merit at all of the schools she has applied and been accepted to so far, and it will be a matter of balancing the bottom line. Unfortunately we are in the international category that has one of the highest National Merit cut off scores and she missed by one point. She got commended, but that doesn’t get you that 30,000 scholarship at NEU. We had hoped that maybe she would get into the full tuition scholars program, but that doesn’t look like it is going to happen either, so she will likely attend school elsewhere. As a family, we love many aspects of the NEU program, and we particularly like the positive vibe from the student reviews. It seems to be a great program.
@ormdad, not sure what you mean by your question. I just asked a simple question.
@sbjdorlo I was asking what you meant by “few”.
I am assuming what you meant was few in relation to the number of admitted students. So this is what is called “yield”, the percentage of admitted students that end up enrolling.
My question is, what yield would you expect to see at Northeastern? More like 25%? 30%? Higher? What makes you think that %18.9 is low?
Your question was not just a simple question. I think you also asking “why does such a great school have a low yield?”, or possibly “why do people think Northeastern is such a great school when it’s yield is so low?”
I believe that the yield is low at Northeastern primarily because they are offering spots to high-stats students, and those students are likely to get in to “better” schools, but also less likely to choose a co-op based school. Since NEU started it’s aggressive push to move up in the rankings, it has attracted more students that know less about the co-op program, and this has probably lowered yield somewhat over the years. I have certainly noticed this in our high school- many of my Daughter’s friends applied and when I ask them about the co-op program I get blank stares. My guess is that when these students get in to NEU and learn more about the co-op program, the USNWR ranking becomes less important. Co-op is not for everyone.
I do not agree that the low yield can be completely explained by high stats students having “better” options. There are lots of lower stats students who get in without merit aid and insufficient need based aid that chose to go to a state school or a private with better aid.
Some students have posted on CC in the past that they were turned off by all the talk about coop after attending admitted student days. NU emphasises coop and other forms of experiential learning at info sessions and admitted student days so that students know what to expect.
If an admitted student is turned off by this it means that Northeastern is not a good fit for them.
BTW, Boston University has a similar yield and they do not have the coop factor.
For both schools I believe the major reason for not attending comes down to bottom line cost.
Agree with points made by @ormdad and @TomSrOfBoston. NEU is not going to have a yield north of 30% while it is focusing on competing with higher-ranked schools for high-stats students and possibly downplaying coop to seem more like them. Many (but not all of course) of those kids will go elsewhere. When yield becomes important there are enrollment management tools (such as focusing more on likely-for-NEU type of students).
I would have guessed that NEU’s yield would have gone down a little more than BU’s (because of the co-op issue), but they are in lock-step.
There does seem to be a general trend of decreasing yield, probably due to the increase in # of applications submitted per student (shotgunning). Schools like Tufts and CMU and to a lesser extent UofR appear to be benefiting from something (fewer spots in HYPSM etc?) while everyone else seems to be losing out.
Institution Name 2006 2014 % Chg
Drexel University 32 8 -75%
University of Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh Cam 34 26 -24%
Boston University 24 19 -21%
Northeastern University 24 19 -21%
Case Western Reserve University 20 16 -20%
University of Massachusetts-Amherst 26 21 -19%
Stony Brook University 27 23 -15%
Wake Forest University 36 31 -14%
Brandeis University 26 24 -8%
New York University 37 35 -5%
University of Southern California 32 31 -3%
University of Rochester 23 24 4%
Tufts University 31 38 23%
Carnegie Mellon University 22 30 36%
To my point earlier- what is a “low” yield? I personally don’t see that much difference between UofR’s 24% and Northeastern’s 19%. Given NEU’s increased visibility, and UofR’s relative obscurity outside of academic circles, I’m guessing the relative “desirability” is about the same (e.g. UofR is more self-selective). You just cannot compare yield unless you are talking about HYPSM etc.
Speaking as a current Northeastern third year student (or “middler”), and someone really hoping my younger sibling who applied this year will come here, I cannot say enough good things about the school. NU wasn’t my top choice when I applied here, but on the other side of two coops at the second best hospital in the world, things look a lot different. My resume when I graduate will put me head and shoulders above applicants from any school that doesn’t have the coop program. Student life here is what you make of it; if you want to have an exciting, involved experience in college, you can. In my (admittedly biased) opinion, Northeastern is an extremely up-and-coming school, and anyone who was admitted should consider it very strongly 
@alixkay88 Your positivism and that of other current NEU students who have posted here makes the school sound like a fantastic option for our daughter. The co-op is also desireable. We are yet to see if she gets admitted or if she will get a merit scholarship offer, but given the high price tag, I doubt it will be quite enough and that will be disappointing. NEU is expensive, and Boston is an expensive city on top of that. This makes me grateful that she has already been admitted to several schools with enough merit that she would be happy to attend.
Wondering if the NUin admits are factored into yield. Probably not.
I think it’s a combination of factors OP.
I do agree that many apply with no idea what coop means and how much a part of the school it is. It isn’t internships.
There is school spirit-but no football team. There is a nice campus but it is not a typical college experience. It is definitely not for many who apply. I think people apply due to the location and that it has become more desirable in no small part to these rankings. Once people take a look for real-and I think that these days that happens much more after acceptances than before for many schools-they decide no.
I think money is a huge factor everywhere. It’s an expensive school as are most private schools in the area.
My son is there and he loves it-but he also received a full tuition scholarship. Would he have picked it otherwise? I do not think he would have.
My daughter did not apply because she likes the program but does not like the location. If she had would I be willing to be full pay since that is more than likely what she would have been-tough to say. I do know though that the coop is everything they say it is and it’s even better. I do think I would be willing to pay a lot more to send her here than any other school in the area because NEU had no equal in what they do-which is coop.
I know these kids have so many great options and I hope they all end up as happy as my son is-it’s been almost perfect for him.