@Coloradomama I have to disagree with your generalization about business coops being not great. Out of thousands completed? Sure, there is bound to be less than fabulous ones. That’s life. How many awful jobs have you had? I’ve had quite a few. My husband works at a boutique investment firm in Boston and they hire many a NEU coop student. He has personally mentored several. A close friend’s son works at Goldman, hired after his last NEU coop. Do have first hand experience with Northeastern coops other than reddit threads? I feel that to make broad sweeping statements that business coops are bad is wrong.
My daughter went to W&M and had an incredible college experience. That being said, I will validate what someone said above that most of the kids land in DC. Nevertheless, it’s a special place to go to school and I can see why you prefer the vibe.
Just going to second/highlight a few things here:
- This should completely boil down to fit between two very good and very different schools.
- A business student doing grad school will absolutely want work experience before, regardless of where you attend.
- Co-op's generally are far from lackluster, though top spots can be competitive and not all co-op's are perfect. Just like any full-time job, you have to work to find the right fit and work for you, and sometimes even a "bad" co-op experience can help you figure out what you want professionally.
- An advantage of co-op that may be of interest is that co-op can allow you to "test drive" many different types of careers and company forms - whether it be big firms, startups, being on the east/west coast, etc. Those can mean that after 3 co-op's you have a better idea of what you want to do post-grad. Even at W&M it would probably be a good idea to do that via internships.
Thanks for your comment. How do I know what the right “fit” for me is? I know there is some level of uncertainty to everything but I don’t want to end up going to Northeastern then finding out that I belong at W&M (or vice versa).
Did you attend admitted student’s day at Northeastern? My decided to commit to NEU at that point. He was very interested in the undergraduate research projects as well as the coops. A number of students described how they changed their focus based on research and coops. The focus of the day was on academics. Our tour guide was friendly and informative. She was on coop but living on campus. She said she did miss her best friend who was doing an out of town coop but noted that it is easy to keep in touch with texting and FaceTime.
My son also really enjoyed Boston. He likes the compact city where you can walk and take public transportation. We stayed over until Monday and campus was bustling.
Because my son will start in the fall, I can’t speak to what his experience will be like.
Good luck! College is such a great time of life. I like to think that many students, including my son, will like their college just because it is college - your first chance to be independent and choose your own path.
@collegeperson18 This is one of the toughest decisions a young person has to make. The wondering about the path not taken can be overwhelming. If you want a truly traditional college experience, choose W&M. It is an historically rich campus filled with traditions that are absent from NEU. Walking across campus as a class to begin and end your 4 years, Yule log ceremony, homecoming parade, running down DOG street, ringing the bell in Wren when graduating, fall football games, frisbee in the Sunken Garden, a Cheese Shop sandwich, are just a sampling of the distinct college experiences W&M has to offer. If you are crave adventure and experience, choose Northeastern. NEU takes the world head on from the start - exploring and experimenting with life outside the campus confines. Boston and the world is the campus for NEU. It is not the liberal arts “bubble.”
You will be challenged wherever you end up. If you want tradition for the next 4 years, W&M will not disappoint you! Again best wishes for great success!
Can anyone comment on grade deflation at W&M? I’ve heard that grading can be harsh
W&M is a wonderful school, but what you wrote above has some truth to it.
@collegeperson18 you can see a lot of information on grades at gradeinflation.com. You can see that W&M, like almost all schools, has actually had grade inflation, and 2014 average GPA was 3.33, which is pretty high. I don’t see Northeastern on that site.