<p>Is Boston College gaining more prestige/respect? From what I've seen, most people see it as a party school. However, browsing through the admissions decisions thread(s), I noticed many candidates that I would have thought would have been accepted based purely off of stats were not accepted. Students with verrrry high SATs were rejected. Is this just yield-management, a truly holistic process, or an attempt to raise the standards at BC? I'm just curious. Also (if I remember correctly) the admitted students profile posted CR and Math scores of just over or around 700 each. Obviously not all of these kids, or even most of them, will attend BC, but those numbers really impressed me.</p>
<p>We do indeed have a good time at BC, but we’re hardly just a party school. I’m not sure what you mean by “trying to up it’s game”, what university in the world isn’t trying to improve itself? It shouldn’t really be a surprise. In terms of admissions, the applicant pool grows every year, so it gets harder and harder to get in, no matter who you are. I know plenty of qualified kids who did not get accepted, and plenty who did. I also know kids who turned down what would generally be considered more prestigious schools in order to attend BC (Cornell, JHU, Duke, to list a few).</p>
<p>I guess it just seems that the applicant pool is becoming increasingly competitive. Years ago, I feel as if students would be more likely to choose schools like Duke and Hopkins over BC, but a good amount are attending BC now. I’m not sure if it’s something the university is doing or just a matter of circumstance but it seems like BC is becoming a better and better school each year (which should be the goal, right?). I wasn’t trying to say that I thought it was a party school. If anything, I was commenting on it’s perceived rise in the academic world.</p>
<p>BC has been on an upward trajectory for many years (when I was a Boston-area college student in the 70’s, it was just the local school for Catholic kids, with no prestige at all). But with more and more applicants nationwide every year, it seems every college is benefiting from being able to enroll better qualified students and thereby enhance their reputation for the next round. (I wonder if any colleges are on downward trajectories these days, other than those with severe financial difficulties.)</p>
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<p>JHU and BC do not have a particularly high overlap of applicants. I would venture to say that ~80% of applicants will probably choose Duke over BC.</p>
<p>In terms of reputation/prestige/selectivity, BC has definitely made significant improvements in the last decade if we’re looking at rankings, average SAT scores, and admitted numbers. I would probably say that it’s the east coast counterpart to USC.</p>
<p>MommaJ,</p>
<p>The picture you present of BC in the 70’s is innacurate to some extent. While it may have had a larger proportion of Catholics then, it drew its students from a good number of states – it was hardly the ‘little commuter college’ that outsiders like to think – a holdover from its pre-residential era. I was there then and I was certainly not a “local” student, nor were many of the others I knew. In fact, a fair number of us had lived or were living abroad at the time.</p>
<p>Granted, BC’s reputation then was modest outside of Catholic higher education circles, but its academics were solid and demanding, and had been before my time. This modesty and lack of “prestige”, as you put it, can be directly attributed to its precarious financial position – on the verge of insolvency when I first set foot on campus. It was of necessity that its programs were ‘low-profile’, yet ask any alumnus of that time and he or she will tell you that the education they received there was solid and in numerous cases exceptional. BC did well with what resources it had.</p>
<p>Today…well, the contrast between then and now is night and day. But, not due so much to a dramatic rise in its academic rigor as it is to the ample resources it now has at hand. Undoubtedly, there is some ‘new wealth’ syndrome at play there, where a bit of ‘flash’ pops up now and then, but by and large BC’s administrators have done an admirable job of advancing the college along the smoother path on which it now travels. </p>
<p>It is, indeed, living up to its motto: “Ever to Excel” (borrowed from The Illiad)</p>
<p>I think tufts may be the school trying hard to shore up it’s rep.
bc not so much!</p>
<p>Every single honor roll Catholic school kid in the this area, and I suspect in the Boston, New England, Philly and other NE and Mid Atlantic area applies to BC. And these states have some mighty high SATs. I used to live in the Midwest, and BC rarely appeared on the college lists. It was Notre Dame, when it came to the Catholic schools, and more local names. So BC will tend to accept those kids to give the school some geographic diversity. it can fill its rosters three times over with the same high scoring kids with very similar profiles. It wants diversity.</p>
<p>Leanid: </p>
<p>According to articles in the school newspaper, BC had a LOT of commuters in the 70’s, so it that sense it was a lot more local. Now BC only has one or two commuters each year.</p>
<p>And there is no doubt that academic rigor has risen at BC . Rigor has risen at all colleges, particularly in competitive programs like premed. Back in the 1970’s for example, one could walk up and register at USC on the first day of class. Now it is one of the most competitive admits.</p>
<p>And yes, the BC admin has been brilliant in bringing the college back from the brink of default.</p>
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Why would anyone choose BC over Hopkins or Duke? Name one thing BC does better. No offense but its not even one of the 5 best schools in its own state…</p>
<p>@leanid, I never said BC didn’t have “solid and demanding” academics in the 70’s–just said it didn’t have prestige–a modest reputation, as you put it yourself. As for the student body, I grew up in Mass., and in my high school non-Catholics would never have considered attending. The change has indeed been amazing, probably one of the steepest trajectories of any college.</p>
<p>Golnboy:</p>
<p>Money is one reason. BC gives out a dozen full tuition scholarships every year.</p>
<p>Mom: the steep trajectory winners have to be USC and WashU. :)</p>
<p>@goldenboy</p>
<p>You’d have to ask them, but I do have friends who turned down JHU for BC. But I’d fair to say that on the most part, as askjeeves has stated, people will choose JHU or Duke.</p>
<p>Pretty sure BC has a better business program than either duke or JHU</p>
<p>It seems like every year there on cc there is a student (or two) who turn down an Ivy admit for BC. (The most recent one I remember was Penn, for example.)</p>
<p>“Name one thing BC does better. No offense but its not even one of the 5 best schools in its own state”</p>
<p>goldenboy,</p>
<p>I’ll name one thing BC does better, it has made it a primary mission to instill in its student body a willingness, a desire – maybe even a calling – to go into the world to make it a better place FOR OTHERS rather than for themselves and their cohorts. Service to one’s fellow man is the ultimate goal prized by the Jesuit ethos. Education is the tool toward that end. You can understand that.</p>
<p>As for BC not being among the top five in Massachusetts, give me a break! There are any number of colleges out there that might ‘best’ BC and not be in the top five in the state where education started and has been its pride for a long, long time.</p>
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Uh nope, not even close to Duke’s…</p>
<p>[Best</a> Business School Rankings | MBA Program Rankings | US News](<a href=“http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-business-schools/mba-rankings]Best”>http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-business-schools/mba-rankings)</p>
<p>Duke: #12
BC: #37</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure Johns Hopkins doesn’t even have an MBA program but I’m not sure.</p>
<p>Undergraduate, where I think Duke doesn’t have a business school</p>
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<p>Jesus. It never ceases to amaze me how sensitive goldenboy gets whenever Duke is being compared (or simply even mentioned in the same sentence) to another school. Without fail, the thread always takes a turn for the worst and immediately will go off topic once this happens. First of all, I never said anything about students choosing BC over JHU, so let’s just get that out of the way.</p>
<p>You have to be an idiot to think that ALL BC/Duke cross admits will choose the latter. I already stated that an overwhelming majority will probably choose Duke. As bluebayou stated (this might be some sort of surprise to you), money is actually a factor in the college selection process.</p>
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Lofty words, but it 'd be interesting to learn how that works out in practice. Do BC grads work for non-profits, volunteer in their communities, etc. at a higher rate than other grads? I suspect the statistics say they behave like every other set of college grads.</p>