The following article was written by me, Andrew Guida, freshman (2009), a Computer Science major. I don’t know what you would put it as, but I did a lot of research for it, because this was something that inspired me to defend my school’s honor.

My friend and I got into a heated argument about picking a college. Last year I picked Northeastern over Villanova and URI, and looking back on it and the little research I did, I got incredibly lucky in making the perfect decision. My friend starts out by telling me he’s trying to decide between Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Brown University. I knew he had applied to Norhteastern, so I asked him why he excluded Northeastern. He replied by saying “A degree from Brown or RPI has more weight than a degree from NEU.” He then cited the “fact” that it is harder to get into those two schools than it is to get into Northeastern. It turns out Brown is “harder to get into” based on their percentage of accepted students. However, according to the Princeton Review, Rensselaer accepts 75% of their applicants (of which less than 1/3 actually decide to go there). Northeastern’s accepted percentage has gone down dramatically in the past few years (78.8% in 2000, 42.3% this past fall) due to an increase in the number of applicants. In the last few years, the number of applicants has skyrocketed from 14,760 in fall 2000 to 24,439 in this past fall. (www.facultysenate.neu.edu/meetings/2004-05/12/Appendix%20A.pdf) Whereas Brown’s accepted percentage has gone up, as their applicant pool shrunk by just over 1500 in the past five years. If Northeastern were a company, I would buy their stock. (www.brown.edu/web/facts.shtml) What this research tells me is that Northeastern is a growing university and it is getting better every year, by a lot. Not many people realize it, but Northeastern is climbing all of the ranks. I won’t be surprised when I graduate and see the entering class destroying all of our statistics. I’m lucky I got into this school when I did, a few years later and it will, at this rate, be much harder to get into. Certainly this debunks any reliability in the “harder to get into means a better college” theory because then any big school (Northeastern’s population is 3 times that of Brown’s) yields to any smaller school. And who is to say smaller schools are automatically better? So how did such a smart student manage to make up statistics that weren’t true? Clearly, he didn’t do enough research. Students out of high school are often not able to make informed decisions. The only things they know are the names of colleges that are thrown around as “good colleges”. I understand the temptation in going to a college like Brown or Dartmouth, but I think the decision goes beyond picking them based on how familiar their names are. My decision came down to this: could I learn more about computer science in a classroom or at a real job? I think anybody who knows computer science can tell you that job experience will teach you more. In my opinion, co-op trumps all. Here’s some more research I did and my friend clearly didn’t. I hope my friend does go to Brown, because Brown borrowed the computer science teaching philosophy of Northeastern’s own Matthias Felleisen. Schools such as Brown, WPI, Adelphi, and University of Utah all use Felleisen’s teaching method, and “Not surprisingly, what all those schools have in common are faculty who have studied with, or under Felleisen.” (www.course.com/itlink/postsecondary/archives/winter03/rebel.cfm) In failing to do this research, my friend managed to unknowingly put down his number one choice while putting down Northeastern. So perhaps a little more research is in order before picking a college, or, more importantly, discounting a college. I’m not saying that Northeastern is better than Brown or RPI. I’m not even saying that this particular friend should go to Northeastern. My point is that students need to do more research before picking a college. They don’t all get lucky and end up at the right one like I did. This is just something to think about before people start blaming dropout rates on the schools themselves. We need to promote college searching skills before students are in the wrong school for a year. You wouldn’t drop out if you knew what you were getting into from the start.