<p>Again, the graduation rate done by USNews is six years, so a five year program doesn’t affect it. Our retention rate isn’t that great though.</p>
<p>I agree with above that grad programs help attract professors, but they aren’t huge for the undergraduate rankings because of schools like BC. BU is definitely NOT just higher because it has a med school and a law school. </p>
<p>Lower admission rates? As in have less students, aka less tuition? You haven’t even started classes yet. How in the world could you be certain that less students means more resources? And Northeastern’s claim to fame is our career services, and we have an amazing post-graduation job rate. We don’t need less students.</p>
<p>No offense, but “Consider a Med School”? There are four medicial schools in the entire state. Northeastern is surrounded by hospitals that are already attached to medical schools, including BU’s and Harvard’s med schools right down the street. Not to mention the fact that it’d be near impossible for Northeastern to come up with the funds for faculty, staff, land, construction, permits, administration… We’ve already made it clear we aren’t rolling in the dough. It’s not like they just create entire schools and colleges out of thin air in order to bump the rankings some. </p>
<p>Are you aware of what an economic crisis is? Just because the administration wants to build something doesn’t mean they can afford to. We, just like everyone else, took a hit on donations in the past few years. We had to put hold on WVK because of it, and I haven’t heard anything about starting up building for it anytime soon. And expand into the city? What, like we own the place? You aren’t even a student yet, so you have no idea how hard Northeastern tries to work with the neighborhoods around us. We get in a lot of trouble for having so many students in Roxbury and Mission Hill, and a lot of the universities in the area have been hit by fines because we are all way over our student body numbers that the city of Boston approved. Plus when IV was built Roxbury threw a fit. I remember all of the tour guides talking about how the residents were really angry that we were just dumping a thousand students into their land. You can’t just build and expand whenever you want. We are an urban school, so we have to work within the limits of the city. We don’t have the luxury of just buying up the farm next door. And ask any student and they’ll tell you they’d rather be in the city and not get another dorm built than be in the middle of nowhere like massive schools like UF and UConn are.</p>