What is NU.in?

bhmomma
Thu, 17 Mar 2016 17:11:51 +0000

@clarinetDad16, I read that article when it first came out. I take exception to the title but the content is worth a read. In the face of declining financial resources and without a huge endowment, the president at the time took a hard assessment of the current status of NU and where it needed to be. He acknowledged that ranking were a huge influencer of perceptions and admissions. To get from where they were to where they needed to be academically and reputationally he needed to fully understand what the rankings were measuring.
So he decreased class size, increased the number of classes with small enrollments, turned some parking lots into new libraries, new dorms. Used both the Common App and merit $$ to attract more and stronger candidates. All very positive changes for the STUDENTS! He also argued that the coop model should not be discounted when calculating 4 year grad rate or spending per student (since a significant number are off campus). No where is NUin discussed.

In point of fact several universities are named as truly manipulating or even falsifying data. NU isn’t one of them.

I have counciled my own children and students that if a grading rubric is given, it makes sense to understand it, and hold yourself to it. I am not a fan of playing the ratings game on a personal level. There’s a wide wide world out there, and many fine colleges to choose from, but to say the improvement NU made did not positively impact the students’ experience in addition to the financial health of the U would be patently false.