<p>It may interest Holy Cross fans to know that their college was founded in Worcester in 1843 because the attempt to establish a Jesuit college in Boston at the time was simply not possible, anti-catholic sentiment being what it was, though plans were already made.</p>
<p>The city had to wait twenty years before such a thing could happen there, and – voila, Boston College came into being! – Now, it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to see that had Boston College been successful in its first attempt at founding, the College of the Holy Cross would not exist!</p>
<p>Really, the biggest consideration, when cost is out of the picture, is which school environment a student would better like. This is going to be your home for the next 4 years. I’ve known kids who have loved these school, have picked one over both directions, and some who haven’t liked one or the other. I have two kids and one is more HC than BC in what he wants out of schoos. So really, it comes down to the gut feeling one gets at each college.</p>
<p>I read it somewhere, and I’ll have to find the citation, but I believe the intent all along was to call the new school ‘Boston College’. As an alternate location had to be found, Worcester was chosen, and, for obvious reasons, the name could not include ‘Boston’.</p>
<p>^^you are correct, leanid. The then-fathers of the City of Boston would not allow a college to be built in the City limits, which was to serve the poor, Irish Catholics. Thus, local Bishop and Jesuit leaders found some space west of town (in Worschester) to build their college (1843). </p>
<p>20 years later, the Big City finally relented, and approved a Jesuit college within the city limits (1863). Originally, BC was in Southend, but relocated west to Chestnut Hill (1913).</p>
<p>Again, both great schools under the Jesuit tradition. The question is whether someone wants a LAC experience, or the experience of a medium-sized Uni. (Both of my kids turned up their nose at LACs, most of which are smaller than their high school.)</p>
<p>Just to add one final historical note, Holy Cross was founded by Benedict Joseph Fenwick, SJ, second Bishop of Boston, after his efforts to found a Catholic college in Boston were thwarted by the city’s Protestant civic leaders. He instead opened the College of the Holy Cross 45 miles west of the city in central Massachusetts, Fenwick gave the College the name of his cathedral church, the Cathedral of the Holy Cross. <a href=“http://holycrossboston.com/[/url]”>http://holycrossboston.com/</a></p>
<p>leanid, it’s all semantics…by your data, HC is the school they wanted to have in Boston, so if it had been allowed in Boston there wouldn’t be one in Worcester. So, naming aside, it’s the school that was intended for Boston. And then a 2nd one came later…named Boston College.</p>
<p>This BC vs. HC thing is getting way too out of hand. This thread is over a year old and some HC alum revived it solely to make a statement promoting his alma mater. You are not helping the OP who has already made his decision about 12 months ago.</p>
<p>“leanid, it’s all semantics…by your data, HC is the school they wanted to have in Boston, so if it had been allowed in Boston there wouldn’t be one in Worcester. So, naming aside, it’s the school that was intended for Boston. And then a 2nd one came later…named Boston College.”</p>
<p>finalchild,</p>
<p>I must disagree with that view. Regardless of whether the college that was finally founded in Boston was the first or the second Jesuit one in the state it had to turn out just as Boston College did, given the politics and social conditions of the day, plus the type of students to which it appealed.</p>
<p>It doesn’t matter what it was named – it could have been called the ‘College of the Holy Cross’ --but in character it would be no different than Boston College. Nurture over nature, if you will.</p>
<p>Perhaps, Holy Cross ‘escaped’ the fate meted out to BC, bypassing the scorn, derision and mockery that were its daily fare, compliments of puritanical, “proper Bostonians”, but I’d say, despite its inauspicious early history, BC has managed to come through marvelously well – better, in fact, than Holy Cross has of late (having to deal with far fewer obstacles to its advancement).</p>
<p>Think about competing with Harvard – any college in the country would be ‘up against it’. Now, make that college a catholic, Jesuit one appealing to the sons of Irish immigrants, who were thought to be, by the then protestant establishment, something less than human [reasearch it!]. Now, do you really think that the college established there, be it 1843 or 1863 would have been more like Holy Cross was in its heyday?</p>
<p>Holy Cross is just 40 miles west of Boston and has been competing with Harvard in football since 1901. I really don’t think poor BC had such a different environment than Holy Cross given the relative proximity of the two schools.</p>
<p>Holy Cross has competed against the Ivies since the 1890’s in most major sports. HC played Harvard, Dartmouth, Yale, Brown etc because it was ans is a very selective, national liberal arts school. Boston College was started as a local Boston commuter school for the largley poor Irish immigrant population. From their begiining both schools have vastly different missions imo. HC resembles Colgate more than BC and currently Holy Cross and Colgate are academic and athletic rivals in the Patriot League.</p>
<p>Yes, Boston College was not in the same league as Holy Cross then, and it’s not in the same league now. </p>
<p>BC started as a liberal arts college (and still holds dear the liberal arts credo – as its new humanities building, Stokes Hall, in finely executed gothic style, can attest), but BC had greater aspirations, no doubt partly due to the onerous presence of one Harvard University just across the river. </p>
<p>Indeed, BC became a university in its own right, one that is well-regarded on the national scene and need not fear being upstaged by Holy Cross (or Colgate, though both of these are fine colleges), which chooses to remain a regional college, possibly more content with its past glory and the fact that the Ivy colleges deigned to include it as an athletic opponent – it must feel so proud!</p>
<p>Yes, BC is in a very different league – one that is not dependent on acceptance by the Ivys for its identity. </p>
<p>In the long run, it looks like Boston College will be recognized for being itself, while Holy Cross will be viewed, sadly, as an Ivy wannabe.</p>
<p>Both colleges are run by the New England province of the Jesuits and the colleges are just 40 miles from each other. Clearly, given the proximty the Jesuits needed to differentiate the two Jesuit schools from each other and decided to make the one located in Boston much larger and prominent in sports by joining the high profile ACC to compete with Notre Dame and keep Holy Cross small so it is currently the highest ranked Catholic liberal arts college by far in the USA. This is just good market segmentation by the Jesuits for two colleges n the same geography.</p>
<p>Agreed. These schools aren’t as similar as many think. As Required Details points out, BC is a national university with broad name recognition. HC is a smaller liberal arts school that has a solid regional reputation. Both are great academically, but they are only similar in that they are in MA, have strong liberal arts programs, and are run by jesuits . Other than that, they couldn’t be more different.</p>
<p>In the US News rankings both BC and Holy Cross do well among Catholic colleges:</p>
<p>Among the national universities the University of Notre Dame again led the pack at #19 Georgetown University was next at #22. In the top 100 were Boston College, #31, Fordham University, #53, Marquette University, #82, St. Louis University, #90, and the University of San Diego, #97.</p>
<p>In the rankings for liberal arts colleges College of the Holy Cross ranked highest at #29. St. John’s University (Minn.) and Thomas Aquinas College (Calif.) tied for #71. The College of St. Benedict (Minn.) tied with St. Mary’s College (Ind.) for #90. St. Michael’s College ranked at #99.</p>