<p>…Continued…Veritas, maybe you can fill in the blanks below to give a true apples vs. apples picture:</p>
<p>BC Admitted ACT: 30-33
ND Admitted ACT: 32-34 </p>
<p>BC Admitted SAT: 1960-2230
ND Admitted SAT: ???-??? (1390-1490)</p>
<p>BC Enrolled ACT: 28-32
ND Enrolled ACT: ??-??</p>
<p>BC Enrolled SAT: 1920-2130, or (1250-1430)
ND Enrolled SAT: ???-???</p>
<p>ND has “better sports programs”?!</p>
<p>Let’s see, BC has beaten ND in football 6 out of the last 7 meetings. BC has 4 national championships in hockey to ND’s none. BC won its third title in 2008 over — yep, ND.
BC has a perrenially top ranked sailing program, with a clutch of national championships…</p>
<p>ND has…? (besides ancient history)</p>
<p>Leanid, the [Notre Dame has a] “nicer campus” part was also a bit of a stretch.</p>
<p>Oh man, Schmaltz. I feel like a buffoon. I hurriedly pulled those statistics this morning without even stopping to look for the difference between ADMITTED and ENROLLED. So, thanks for pointing out the error in my stats. Hopefully we can find some enrolled numbers from both to compare. </p>
<p>Worth noting, if BC and ND start with the same Admit profiles I would expect ND to end up with the better Enrolled profile since their yield is about [twice</a> that of BC](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-notre-dame/710118-any-news-what-yield-class-2013-a.html]twice”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-notre-dame/710118-any-news-what-yield-class-2013-a.html). I’d be interested to see what story the stats tell. While we’re on that topic, I think a historical graph of median ranges would also be pretty cool if someone could pull it together. People talk about BC ‘closing the gap’ with ND so it’d be neat to see that visually represented. As I’ve mentioned throughout this thread, we’re talking pretty miniscule differences between two pretty great schools.</p>
<p>No prob. I don’t think anybody is saying BC is “better” than ND. But it does ruffle the feathers a bit when people say BC is 2 notches below. This is a cautionary tale re stats for the applicants out there. You see something “objective” like this:</p>
<p>BC 28-32, ND 32-34</p>
<p>and you think it’s a slam dunk for ND. </p>
<p>Then you read closer and find out one is for admitted stats and one is for enrolled stats (admitted stats are always higher than enrolled). And if you read between the lines, you’ll also see that ND has an engineering and architecture schools (BC doesn’t), and BC has a nursing and education schools (ND doesn’t). If you back out these stats, and make the comparison just the arts and sciences and business schools, you’ll see that the people in an accounting class or an advanced English class at both schools are pretty much the same people.</p>
<p>I just checked Collegeboard.com. I only saw “enrolled” stats for a recent freshman class:</p>
<p>BC Enrolled ACT: 29-32
ND Enrolled ACT: 31-34</p>
<p>BC Enrolled SAT: 1880-2150 (cr 610-700, m 640-730, w 630-720)
ND Enrolled SAT: 1970-2240 (cr 650-750, m 680-760, w 640-730)</p>
<p>These differ a bit from the schools’ web sites…anybody know which is usually more accurate? I have read on CC about all sorts of games schools play with stats like these…like not counting scholarship athletes’ scores, superscoring vs. best single sitting, etc. But any way you slice it, ND’s stats are better than BC’s. I’ve never seen anybody dispute that. But there remains the question of how much the gap is, and if it reflects a noticible difference in the classroom.</p>
<p>Per this website, which I believe takes its feed from the IPEDS database, the 25/75 average SAT for enrolled students is:</p>
<p>BC: 1340
ND: 1410</p>
<p><a href=“https://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg01_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=144[/url]”>https://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg01_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=144</a>
<a href=“https://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg01_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=1774[/url]”>https://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg01_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=1774</a></p>
<p>Schmaltz- my intention was hardly to ruffle any feathers. I know people from both schools and have far more positives than negatives to say about each. They are schools in the truest fullest sense of the word, whereas so many top universities today focus on the mind and nothing further. My mention of notches should probably be contextualized by noting that I’ve been talking about law schools ad nauseam of late, and those discussions usually take the character of discussing how Harvard-Yale-Stanford are a “notch” above Columbia-Chicago-NYU. How much that matters is really a question of how big your “notch” is. As I hope my law school example illustrates, my “notch” is pretty fine when discussing differences between ND and BC. As you said, “ND’s stats are better than BC’s” and the value of that is in the eye of the beholder. That’s the extent of the argument I was trying make when I misreferenced admitted vs. enrolled stats.</p>
<p>Good explanation, Veritas…</p>
<p>I am too tired to make this a really well written post so please excuse and no flaming…
What about revealed preference between ND and BC? As of admissions 3 cycles ago, I was pretty well convinced the actual student body was, stats wise, stronger at ND. I don’t have those numbers immediately at hand. As noted above, we are talking nuances of degrees.</p>
<p>BC is a beautiful campus, but it appeared quite small to me compare to ND’s >1000 acres. Intensity of Catholicism?–probably close (Georgetown, hmmm?). ND is in a complete bubble. South Bend doesn’t really affect the on-campus (85%) of students all that much. Chicago is 1+ hours away. If the city is a big issue for OP, and likes Boston, then that could well be a determining factor.</p>
<p>Back to the revealed preference issue, many students at ND consider BC as “back-up” college. For whatever reason, I believe most students cross-admitted chose ND.</p>
<p>Harvard cleans up on cross-admits with Columbia, but that doesn’t make Columbia a third-rate college. There’s no doubt ND is MUCH more famous than BC coast to coast, and has more students who grow up with it as their first choice (thus the higher yield). All of which tells us zero about the size of the academic gap and the tangible classroom differences.</p>
<p>I don’t understand where the resentment against BC comes from…just as the successes of Caltech, Stanford, and Berkeley all aid each other in dispelling the conception that California schools are academic lightweights; and the successes of top liberal arts colleges help each other dispell any notions that they are insignificant academic boutiques; the increased profiles of BC and Georgetown help ND dispell any sentiments that Catholic colleges are necessarily inferior to secular schools.</p>
<p>I don’t think anyone said BC was “third-rate”. To the contrary, the posts indicated that the differences in various qualities were quite minute and that each school was very good.</p>
<p>Notre Dame has a fantastic campus and its national alumni network rivals the best of the Ivies.</p>
<p>There is definitely a tangible emphasis on religion at ND, while at BC it stands more in the background, unless a student seeks it out. BC (sometimes referred to as “Barely Catholic”) is certainly more secular-minded. Yes, there are crucifixes around BC – even a “Mary in the half-shell” to pray to on campus – but ND has chapels in EVERY dorm! Furthermore it has that artistically atrocious mural known as “Touchdown Jesus” benignly gazing down on the ND flock. Religious oppression anyone?..</p>
<p>One has to wonder how and to what extent those ND students with their (not negligible) higher academic stats are affected in their drive and clarity of thought by the ubiquity of that God-centered environment. It has to be quite a challenge for them – perhaps that’s why they need the higher stats! ;)</p>
<p>Leanid, no reason to bait the ND folks…and certainly no need to mock their faith. It’s GOOD that each of the top Catholic schools (ND, GTown, Holy Cross, Fordham, BC etc.) has its own distinct character.</p>
<p>Only questioning, my dear Schmaltz, not condemning. Who is to say, after all, what is best – religion or secularism?</p>
<p>Scmaltz, please don’t claim that total secularization is just a “distinct character.” From a Catholic perspective, the school is expected to follow the faith completely – not doing so is objectively bad.</p>
<p>Hey Baelor, why don’t you go give Obama another honorary degree?</p>
<p>All you are saying is that ND is not really Catholic. I agree with you. I just also believe that BC and Georgetown are even less so.</p>
<p>Nice try though.</p>
<p>Notre Dame people don’t understand how anyone could choose anywhere else for college. The mere idea of comparison upsets them. That’s why they’re so angry. They also are the most pretentious football fans in the country, but they’ve had no NCs during current student’s lifetime, despite playing weaker and weaker schedules.</p>