Acceptance rates: BC 27%, Wellesley 22%, BU 19%, Northeastern 18%, Tufts 15%, (Boston, Lawrence: loans, house)

[BostonMike7]

Originally Posted by bostonguy1960

A friend's grandson is at NU in engineering, and already has a co-op internship early in his studies, which I think is normal there under their co-op program.

I believe they require 2 or 3 Co-ops during their college years, so their program is rather well-known regionally. Most of the resumes that come across my desk are NU resumes, and often already have 1 Co-op under their belt. My current engineering co-op is from NU and they've all been exceptional students.

[GeoffD]

Originally Posted by bostonguy1960

And someone ten years ago told me that BU is a state school! I was so "insulted," as it costs so much more than most state schools, though admittedly no better or even less so than certain state schools.

It's a pretty short list of state schools that are superior to Boston University. Outside of California, maybe a half dozen. My sister did her undergrad there other than a year at Amherst College. My mother got her PhD there back in the dark ages. I took a couple of summer courses there.



Personally, I've always thought that 50th and 75th percentile SAT scores were a better way of measuring the likely quality of the academics. I'd cite MIT as an example. They're not going to get many applicants with less than a 750 SAT Math score. Admission percentage is kind of moot. If you're not in the top 1% percentile, you wouldn't apply because you know you wouldn't be able to handle the work load. You can't game that to improve your US News ranking.

[robr2]

Originally Posted by BostonMike7

I believe they require 2 or 3 Co-ops during their college years, so their program is rather well-known regionally. Most of the resumes that come across my desk are NU resumes, and often already have 1 Co-op under their belt. My current engineering co-op is from NU and they've all been exceptional students.

Co-op is no longer required at NU but almost all the students do at least one.

[BostonMike7]

Originally Posted by robr2

Co-op is no longer required at NU but almost all the students do at least one.

According to my co-op, it's required unless you take the "Co-op experience class", whatever that is.

[yellowstatus]

MIT has a strong engineering program. I would expect that it is more selective than BC. The focus on science and technology fields can be a big draw compared to a more generalist college like Harvard. As other people have indicated, acceptance rate is an imperfect indicator of average student body quality, but better than nothing.

[Idontwanttocheckmymessage]

Northeastern is widely popular now, not only with kids from the Boston suburbs but nationally as well. I have a senior graduating from high school this year and one who graduated in 2017. Back in 2017, Northeastern was the #1 most popular school — it received more applications from students in my child’s graduating class than any other school. We were living in one of the powerhouse MA school districts at the time.

There was also incredible buzz about Northeastern nationally at the time. It was being discovered by students and families from all across the country who absolutely fell in love with Northeastern. It’s Boston + the co-ops. The kids want co-ops and Northeastern is the only school that is structured around co-ops.

In 2021, Northeastern is still incredibly popular. As are BU and UMass Amherst. Locally and nationally. Not so much BC. I personally didn’t hear much of anything about BC through two college admissions cycles. Not much buzz at all.

[Shrewsburried]

Originally Posted by Idontwanttocheckmymessage

There was also incredible buzz about Northeastern nationally at the time. It was being discovered by students and families from all across the country who absolutely fell in love with Northeastern. It’s Boston + the co-ops. The kids want co-ops and Northeastern is the only school that is structured around co-ops.

Being an industrial designer in greater Boston, I’ve worked with a number of Northeastern MEs and agree with you and others regarding their CO-OP focused program.

In my field, DAAP (the design/architecture school within U. Cincinnati) has effectively replicated Northeastern’s ME undergrad program for design and has found similar success. Our NU ME and DAAP Design CO-OPs are incredibly skilled by the time their third CO-OP rolls around. In the design community DAAP receives far more respect than legacy institutions (e.g., RISD, Carnegie Mellon).

I’m a huge proponent of universities treating certain skilled labor training as hybrid apprenticeships. It’s very hard to replicate a real world R&D effort in the vacuum of higher ed ... totally different culture.

[rranger]

Originally Posted by Shrewsburried

In the design community DAAP receives far more respect than legacy institutions (e.g., RISD, Carnegie Mellon).

Hmmm... I'd love to know what field you're in since, honestly, this somehow doesn't ring true to me ... even in 2021 with all the weirdness our planet is going through.

[CrowGirl]

It seems like applying to college has changed a lot since I was going through it. When I was applying to college in the late 80s. every application was different, applications had to be done in hard copy rather than online, application fees could be high and you had to pay for SAT reports to be sent to each school after X number (I can't remember the number). With the common application, online applications and breaks in fees related to COVID and other reasons, some of the barriers to applying to lots of schools are no longer there. Anecdotally from my friends with kids now applying it seems like students are applying to a lot more schools now then they did in the 80s. So that will increase the number of applications acrpss the board. And with more applications I would think there would be smaller acceptance rates. It can't be easy for the schools trying to set their incoming classes to an appropriate sixe.

[Shrewsburried]

Originally Posted by rranger

Hmmm... I'd love to know what field you're in since, honestly, this somehow doesn't ring true to me ... even in 2021 with all the weirdness our planet is going through.

Industrial Design (not to be confused with Industrial Design Engineering).

DAAP/U Cinci’s program remains the best of the bunch. Art Center is very good too, I just don’t stumble across a lot of grads on the East coast as many of the ID grads are transport focused and they stay LA based, or end up in MI or abroad.