I’m not originally from the Northeast, but I find the disdain for Northeastern amusing.
My BIL, an Amherst and Columbia grad, said the same thing about NYU: “NYU is not an elite university.”
I don’t know the history behind it, but there definitely seem to be some strong opinions about how these schools are perceived.
This appears to be true for many viewers of the rankings and for some media reporting on them. What U.S. News has done is to lay a statistical model over a diverse data set and publish the results. It then largely ignores its own rankings in its guidebook, which people offer don’t bother to read. Perceptions of precision are not the fault of U.S. News.
To the established academic elite, these schools are the “nouveau riche”, to use an old term. Or perhaps the “barbarians at the gate”! Northeastern was criticized for not having a Classics department. It never has nor likely ever will. Classics is not what they are all about and that bothers the “elite establishment.”
People remember history, from when they were kids. It’s the same with USC and BU. Many on the West Coast don’t see USC as a big deal, given a 2.8 and 1070 superscore SAT could get in 30 years ago.
Colleges transform, but people’s belief systems don’t. Younger kids that see today’s rankings will see it differently but until us older folks are gone…
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After having been classified as regional universities in previous versions, Rollins entered the National Liberal Arts Colleges category at #74 and SUNY–Geneseo entered this category ar #100.
St. Lawrence rose to 49th in the National Liberal Arts Colleges category.
That’s a good thing. I mean, I’d compare all against one another - but if you put these guys against other perceived liked schools - at least there’s a benchmark.
It’s like they have more groupings so they can create more happy campers - top 5 schools. Top 5 Regional North Universities, Top 5 Regional North Colleges, etc.
The more schools that feature them - we’re top 5 or 10 in this - now they have 50 top schools singing their praises.
Brilliant actually…
Parents, admit it. The first thing you do when you see this list is check where your own alma mater is 
The other amusing thing is seeing the contortions US News goes through by establishing tied rankings so that schools can be considered “T20”, etc. Northeastern gets a lot of bad rep, but guess what, they saw this coming decades ago and acted accordingly - they are light years beyond similar tier schools in marketing, enrollment management, and national/global presence.
Actually who may care the most about rankings are the college administration and especially the development offices!
I’m sure just like in my industry, having a high JD Power and cars on Consumer Reports…these are “benchmarks” they can tie to - bonuses, doing well, whatever,
A college is no doubt no different.
Well, one reading would be elitist. Of course, this is the reason many still aim at ivies.
another could be age. My stepmom was amazed at how selective nyu had become when D19 got in, because as a lifelong New Yorker it was still a safety school in her mind. (And she was proud as punch when my sister got into Stern for her MBA a couple of years later.)
By the Boston rate I refer to the published 5-6% (fall freshman acceptance to Boston campus). The rates mentioned above that people are seeing through Naviance/Maia (SJ2727 reporting 75%, Aimlesscat reporting 68%) are per-HS and include students accepted to both Boston and non-Boston destinations. Of course we don’t know the overall non-Boston rate, as it isn’t published.
Yup, it sounds like a fine school with a lot to offer. It’s not an insult to the school that it has a higher acceptance rate than it advertises.
Sorry, I misunderstood. I thought you were referring to acceptance rates of Boston area applicants versus applicants form other regions of the country.
Of course this is a very small selection of schools. As I said earlier, I know our school punches above its weight with a number of colleges (although this is admittedly by far the sharpest difference). As far as our school is concerned, I don’t think high-performing Bay Area public schools are where northeastern gets most of its applicants from, so I’m not sure how much you can infer for a general trend. It does however speak to individual applicants being able to judge their chances at a particular school far better from their own school data than general admit rates.
It is often age. My wife’s bestie is a NYU alum from the old days. She (the bestie alum, not my wife), thinks it is ridiculous the way people talk about NYU in relation to their kids because she still thinks of it as a practically anybody can get in their school and not a big deal place to be an alum of. We have told her, but she still can’t really seem to get her head around it. I think without kids in the college admissions mix, the drastic shift is really hard for some people To conceptualize.
It’s a lot more than just the national, LAC, and regional rankings. They have dozens of ranking categories, likely over 100. For example, a recent press release from CMU about the new USNWR results is at Carnegie Mellon University Reaches Historic High at No. 14 in U.S. News Rankings, Takes No. 1 Spot for Computer Science - News - Carnegie Mellon University . CMU mentions the following:
This has happened with other higher-ranked schools too. When I said something a while back when one of my neighbors mentioned having gone to Stanford (she’s in her 70s now I think) she was quite dismissive about it - saying something like, in her day “everyone” from NorCal went to either Stanford or Cal.
I note in the modern era of online publishing, merely mentioning/linking your latest US News “triumphs” is essentially free (although I think you have to pay a licensing fee to use their badge thing). So it doesn’t necessarily need to have a big expected marketing benefit to justify the minimal cost.
It’s estimated that colleges pay millions of dollars annually to license badges. I find it difficult to support that spend, but I get the marketing pressure. I sure hope some of these schools have data that paying for those badges is net positive ROI!
There are some actual numbers of licensing fees paid in this article:
Thank you! I knew I had seen something about that, but could not recollect where.