Guessing your high school must also be Catholic, since they clearly aren’t partner schools for geographic proximity reasons, correct?
I’m glad you can visit and hope that helps bring the decision into focus!
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No wrong choice. Just curious what other schools accepted you and are affordable? If you don’t mind sharing. This group might see something you might’ve overlooked.
S20 really liked NE and I believe Boston is a great city for students. I’m not a fan of first semester in Oakland though.
That said, I know too many ND grads. They all have great things to say about the school and the opportunities it provided. I would lean ND unless you really don’t enjoy your visit.
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This would be the deciding factor in our home. We would want our student to start college where they are actually going to BE for four years, and it sounds like Notre Dame is where you can do that.
These are both private universities. So your state of residence doesn’t really matter…but do you want to stay in CA for an additional year? If so, why aren’t some CA publics on your list?
Then perhaps the Northeastern coop program is for you. BUT I want to add, we know a bunch of Notre Dame grads who certainly started great careers after their undergrad graduations. So there is that.
For sure. You have to weigh your options and how they appeal to you.
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Do a deep dive into the plan of study at ND. There are theology and philosophy requirements and you won’t start into your major until later in the process. Lots of religious symbolism throughout campus. I think you’ll have a much better sense after you visit. Our experience has been that people either love it or hate it. Very much a fit school.
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The Oakland campus has extensive offerings in CS, it’s near Silicon Valley after all. Northeastern also offers Boston CS students a semester in Oakland to gain access to SV companies.
WLU Transfer General Spot 30 This describes CS at Oakland, despite the odd name.
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For this student, it’s a year, not a semester.
While it may be productive for an upper class CS major to spend time in Oakland to try to make connections in Silicon Valley, I’m not seeing the benefit for a freshman.
And technically, isn’t Silicon Valley 40-50 miles away from NE’s Oakland campus? By public transportation, it’s about 2.5-3 hours away at best. Students are not actually in Silicon Valley when they’re in Oakland even if NE wants to market it that way.
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Shuttles are provided to the San Jose area for site visits. Many SV people are adjuncts at Oakland.
NEU has had a satellite campus in San Jose for quite a while; it’s a non-residential site that offers only masters degrees, but I would guess that it probably provides a base for such excursions.
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Nice to know. I’m glad to see that they do that.
I still don’t see the benefit for 18-year-olds just a year out of high school.
Yes… I have found myself in the position of defending Northeastern on this thread, because I’ve felt that some of the expressed concerns have been unfounded. But at the same time, as I have already said, I do feel as if the Northeastern experience could end up feeling quite fragmented, and I agree that they’re overselling the benefits of Silicon Valley semi-adjacency, especially for first-year students.
The former Mills campus is lovely. But I have looked for information about the makeup of the student population, and none is provided. How many students on this campus are there for all four years? How many are transitioning to Boston in the second year? How many are Boston-based students doing a semester in Oakland? Without understanding the comings and goings of the peer group, it’s hard to get a sense of what the experience within this cohort would be like.
Notre Dame, on the other hand, is well-known for providing a very strong residential experience, both in terms of the “social engineering” of the house system, and in terms of the overall sense of belonging and school spirit that students experience. (That is, of course, providing that the specific student feels a good fit with ND’s religious context, values, and overall "vibe.)
I’m looking forward to hearing OP’s impressions from the ND visit. As much as I appreciate the strengths of Northeastern, I feel as if a strong sense of “fit” from the ND visit would make that school more of a win for this student. But it could certainly go either way depending on what one prefers; and there may be someone who can answer the aforementioned questions about NEU Oakland if it’s still in contention after the ND campus visit.
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