Having recently completed the college selection process that involved a lot of scrutiny, Northeastern was one of those schools we looked at. We were very impressed by their number one ranked co-op program, which adds a fifth year of internships (at no tuition) to the curriculum where 50% of students are offered jobs as a result of those engagement.
Their acceptance rate was listed as highly selective, and we were impressed by what they had to say at the information sessions at the school.
However, when I asked a business associate who graduated from BU about Northeastern, he scoffed, and said it was a horrible school in a much worse part of the city with higher crime (as referenced by the availability of the vacant lots turned into dorms). He was certainly influenced by the Northeastern of his 1990 graduation, but perhaps there were some lingering truths in his judgment.
Needless to say, while Northeastern "gamed" the system, reducing admissions to become much more selective, adding dorms to attract better students, limiting class size to increase rankings, and building a better physical infrastructure all can contribute to a better university.
The school has become so competitive that admitted students at the tail end of their admissions process are required to begin their student experience by studying a semester abroad at one of 5 campuses in Ireland, London, Greece, or Australia during freshman year. I imagine that by doing so, they avoid any attrition from freshman to sophomore year by adding the study abroad students to their Boston campus population.