<p>Does anyone know? i personally think NEU deserves higher rankings.</p>
<p>Actually, Northeastern has been surging in the rankings within the past few years. I'm not exactly sure, but I know its gone up a lot, like over 60 spots within just a year. So I would expect it to be even higher in the near future.</p>
<p>From 2007 to 2008, it moved up from 98 to 96. I'm not too familiar with its ranking before 98. I've said this in a couple of threads, but the business school ranking dropped from 26 to 34 and the engineering ranking might have slipped down one.</p>
<p>A decade ago NEU was largely a regional commuter school , it was not even in any "top" rankings and was considered a safety for top students in the area. I think beginning around 2000 the school made a decision to try to increase its rankings and work on raising its academic reputation, nationally. It finally broke into US News top 100 around 2006 and that was with a jump up of around 17 spots in just one year. In 2000 average SAT was below 1100 (out of 1600) and this year I saw that it was up to 1250. </p>
<p>Mind you, it has always had a good reputation as a co-op school but one that was geared more towards trade/professional programs and not pure academics. NEU should be commended for trying to also raise its academic reputation while at the same time not losing sight of its primary educational mission to provide a good experiential learning environment. </p>
<p>It would not be surprising to me at all to see NEU begin to plateau in the rankings given the unique aspects of this school. Any school in the US News top 100 is a great school and carries a certain amount of national name recognition and I don't think NEU expects to get much higher than what they are, and perhaps that is not even possible given their unique educational program and the types of students they hope to attract. Co-op is not for everyone and it is great that we are finally seeing more and more students from around the country (including high performing students) beginning to apply because of what this school offers and not just as a "safety."</p>
<p>[and no, this is NOT a paid advertisement...]</p>
<p>Some time ago there was a post that discussed this question. They pointed out that certain statistics like student/faculty ratio, % who graduate in four years etc don't really fit the NEU profile since it's a five-year program and 25% of the students are not in classes each semester. Unless USNews compensates for this NEU probably won't climb much higher.</p>
<p>Depending on who is listing the ratings, NEU is higher in some than others</p>
<p>the word is increasingly getting out that the USNW rankings are bogus. i think that's where you're getting your stats. so look into other sources. there's a wonderful CC thread started by moderator, tokenadult, if you can find it. it's called originally "168 most noteworthy colleges", and he later increased the number. in it he shows what ratings he used, and it's a terrific resource.</p>
<p>thank your explainations.</p>
<p>thanks for your explainations!</p>
<p>I actually just took a look at the US News rankings for top Universities overall. I was a bit surprised to see Northeastern so low. I had only been looking at the Business Week rankings for Top Undergrad B Schools in consulting for my colleges. NEU was ranked well into the 30's, which was great.</p>
<p>so if it's low on USNWR, it means the "old boy" presidents didn't endorse it, and they don't like their level of endowment. such high-ended statistics to shoot down schools! ;)</p>
<p>The rankings (as many always say) are skewed and you have to take them with a grain of salt. Also, since Northeastern has a "non-traditional" style with the integration of coop and class and students are in class for 6 months and not all at once it makes it difficult for our faculty student ratio and other stats to be compared to other schools. </p>
<p>Another thing is US News and World Report take peer evaluations which means basically they take our reputation from other higher ed officials into account and the fact that NU has transformed so quickly and some people still perceive NU as it was 5-10 + years ago hurts our ranking. </p>
<p>The best way to decide on where to go is to visit campus, talk to students, talk to faculty, walk around and observe the happenings, and then decide if it fits you.</p>
<p>In addition, I think many rankings look at graduation rates and since NEU's co-op program is BASED ON graduating in 5 yrs instead of 4 like most schools, so comparing their grad rates to rates at 4 yr programs is like comparing apples and oranges.</p>
<p>One of the reason NEU is ranked lower than it (probably) should be is that the most influential ranking, USNews&WorldReport, judges in part on how many students graduate in 4 years. Since NEU's programs are 5 years, it does not fit into that criteria well.</p>
<p>can someone pls explain to me why in the usnews ranking, the numbers are all weird? like ok i understand two schools both getting rank number 9 (columbia and chicago) but why is the next on the list number 11 and not 10?? =S
this situation repeats for the entirety of the list...</p>
<p>because there are two schools that rank 9th....therefore the next would be 11.</p>