<p>Which one is more prestigious/well-known</p>
<p>It depends on where you are; BC is more well known in New England and W&M in the South.</p>
<p>for sheer name recognition, count baseball caps: do you see more W&M or BC caps. I live in Washington, pretty close to W&M, and I see waaaaay more BC caps. I’ve no horse in this race.</p>
<p>By the public? Perhaps Boston College. But the public probably thinks BC’s a better school than universities like Brown and Dartmouth since they’re not familiar with them. If we’re talking about Adcoms, and academically, I think W&M is more respected. </p>
<p>W&M is the second oldest school in the U.S. behind Harvard and it claims (along with Harvard and Penn) to be the country’s first university. It also happens to be the alma mater of several U.S. presidents and founding fathers. In fact, given its age and rich history, I’ve often wondered why W&M isn’t more prestigious than it is. The only thing I could guess is that it might have to do with its change to a public university, which happened a little over a hundred years ago.</p>
<p>Assuming you’re a Virginia resident, and you didn’t get into UVa, I’d pick W&M; if not, between BC and W&M, i’d factor in price, location, and fit to come up with a decision.</p>
<p>It depends on whether you want to go to grad school. W&M has a stellar reputation (close to Ivy or Ivy-level depending on the field) for academics who will choose their PHD program candidates. BC doesn’t (in fact, I know quite a few academics who frown on it due to, apparently a certain “culture”, whatever that means…) However if your goal is to find a job in the business world right after graduation, BC wins hands down. For name recognition in the “outside public”, BC wins also. For professional school I’d say they’re even.
W&M is very intellectual (like UChicago, Reed…), totally unconcerned about football, in a charming town. BC is… the opposite*. It’s actually sort of strange that one would apply to both.</p>
<p>town/city, not that Boston isn’t charming :)</p>