However, it appears to be a fairly recent thing at Northeastern for BA/BS degree program plans to have a nominal completion time of four years rather than five years, with greater course loads in non-co-op semesters and summers than before. Indeed, the 2023-2024 common data set section B lists 0 fall 2017 frosh graduating in four years, so the change from a nominal five year to a nominal four year program must be more recent than that.
I think Northeastern is great - and listen, we have a variety of colleges. Some are square peg, round hole. It’s not for everyone.
I think it’s biggest differentiator to Drexel is it’s created this exclusivity - hence it’s low acceptance rate.
But it also heavily targets EDs - over half students are admitted this way.
And it’s built up a - no one can get in here - but guess what - we’ll give you a 2nd bite at this exclusive apple - with Oakland, London, etc.
They are a marketing dream. They should be a Harvard Business Case study.
Drexel is non-exclusive and they know it.
Now the yield stinks - but if they’re going enough students to enroll - no problem. Case Western also has a very low yield - although not Drexel low - but close - and people think it’s tip top.
I think one thing Northeastern does with co op - if you’re an engineer, every school has them. Are set up for them.
But what if you’re poli sci or sociology or business? Not every school has them.
I do wonder - where athletes fit in with the co ops? Can a baksetball player co op in the spring as an example?
Northeastern posts a 5.2% acceptance rate for Boston campus for Fall, 2024.
Northeastern posts record-low acceptance rate of 5.2 percent (bostonglobe.com)
Again, a paywall. Not sure why the Boston Globe is giving Northeastern so much coverage this year. They are not complaining.
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Northeastern’s campus (and the buildings they have acquired over the last ten years) allowed the last “hasn’t yet gentrified” part of Boston to join the gentrification club. That’s why so much coverage. BC acquires another piece of property- yawn. It means that another pricey part of Newton/Chestnut Hill is being transferred from one non-profit entity to another non-profit entity. BC won’t drive property values near its campus because they are already sky high. Hence the interest in Northeastern…
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I would agree that it has been a more recent shift for folks to only plan on 1-2 coops and to still graduate within 4 years. Both my Ds graduated NU (2017 and 2022) and did 2-3 coops in five years. That was always the plan at the time.
NU has coop advisors in every college and program. Not all are paid internships or are certainly not paid like engineering or CS. My two Ds graduated NU in non engineering degrees (architecture and poli sci) and both had great coops, inc international for Poli sci.
I do think where the comprehensive Coop program comes into play is that not only are coops offered for all areas of study at NU, each student has a coop advisor and a coop class that walks them through developing a resume/portfolio (for those jobs that require it), interview skills, professional emailing, how to carry yourself in a professional setting, how to look for jobs of interest. Yes, students have to do the work, but they are also guided. My two Ds graduated NU and neither went to work for companies they did coops for. But they were so far ahead of their peers that had not had any of this training - they had confidence, they had skills and know-how about how to approach the job seeking world, they had experience in negotiating some salaries… and most importantly, they had already had some experience in looking for nuanced things like company culture etc that they could look into before working at a new job. Compared to their friends who were at other schools, they were so far ahead of the game because of their coop experience. Plus at coops, NU requires companies to give students real work for 6 months… it gives students time at a coop to actually be involved in larger projects etc. Internships can be lower level work load and for shorter time so you can’t get into any deep work. All that plays into showing your experience level when looking for a real job. And this all is especially important in non-engineering/CS fields I think.
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This Huntington News article discusses Northeastern’s low acceptance rate from the perspective of current students:
From the article:
“Boston University and MIT, received 78,750 and 28,232 first-year applications, respectively, but have no alternative entry programs akin to N.U.in or Global Scholars”
Boston University has the CGS program, an alternative entry program. They enroll 600 students in January who then spend summer term in London. Those students do not factor into their published stats. BU is also test optional.
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