<p>The overcrowded bus issues going back and forth to Newton are a definite pain in the neck and a major drawback. Most BC students say that it is something you just suck up during freshman year and put up with and that the negative memories subside and is largely forgotten by the time you are a senior and it is a distant memory.</p>
<p>you can usually avoid having to wait extra time for the bus by. leaving a little early. for example, both me and my roommate have 9am class. she leaves our dorm at about 8:25 and gets right on the bus. i leave at 8:35 or 8:40 and sometimes i have to wait for another bus. but usually at that time there is another bus waiting right behind the full one so its not really an issue. </p>
<p>the overcrowding is more of an annoyance, you forget about the crammed bus by that afternoon. advice, dont try to eat on the bus unless you have a seat. thats just downright irritating to everyone around you.</p>
<p>at all the stops there are little vestibules that will block you from the rain/wind. but then again in the morning near 9 and 10 theres so many people there that you cant all fit under. again, its not a big deal and you forget about how sucky the bus is by the time you get to class. it stops running at 2am which can get annoying on the weekends but oh are weekend rides on the bus fun. its a complete sh** show, hysterical.</p>
<p>I seem to recall hearing about the controversy surrounding forced busing in Boston. Looks like BC is in favor of it.</p>
<p>"I seem to recall hearing about the controversy surrounding forced busing in Boston. Looks like BC is in favor of it."</p>
<p>Uh? You mean the 1980s busing issue that happed 20 years ago! What the heck are you talking about? BC bus system is privately own by BC, it has nothing to do with the city of Boston.</p>
<p>That was a joke son! ;-></p>
<p>Ha ha, laughing belatedly to a really bad joke.</p>
<p>Is it possible to walk from Newton to class? Are there side walks? Is it safe to do so? Since an average walking speed is 3 mph, traversing 1.5 miles would make it a 30 minute walk.</p>
<p>yes, there are sidewalks on the side of the road so that you'll be able to walk to class, but many students don't walk to class</p>
<p>There is no town of Chestnut Hill. It's just a neighborhood and a zip code. Most of the main BC campus is in Newton, and it straddles the Newton/Boston line (so some of it is in Boston). All of the Newton camus is in Netwon as well. The new Brighton Campus (which BC bought from the Boston archdiosisis--spelling?), is just across the street from the main campus, and is pretty much all in Boston.</p>
<p>The forced bussing debacle hit its peak in the 1970's.</p>
<p>In its 2008 The Best 361 Colleges, The Princeton Review awarded Holy Cross a 98/100 academic rating - the highest of any Catholic institution of higher education, including Georgetown University, University of Notre Dame, and Boston College.</p>
<p>In its 2008 The Best 361 Colleges, The Princeton Review awarded Yale University a 95/100 for academics. Does anyone feel like turning down Yale because it scores a a 95/100 on a for-profit ranking?</p>
<p>On the same note, Cal Tech scores a 78 while MIT scores a 99. Anyone wants to explain this? I can see the headline on NYT already, students flee Cal Tech for University of New Hampshire (79/100) for better education.</p>
<p>Anyone who has bothered looking into ranking would know that Princeton Review is one of the most absurd college guides out there.</p>
<p>About Princeton Review's Methodology on Academic Rating:</p>
<p>Academic Rating
How hard students work and how much they get back for their efforts, on a scale of 60-99. This rating is calculated from student survey results and statistical information reported by administrators. Factors weighed include how many hours students study outside of the classroom and the quality of students the school attracts. We also considered students' assessments of their professors, class size, student-teacher ratio, use of teaching assistants, amount of class discussion, registration, and resources.</p>
<p>Princeton Review's Objective:
How hard students work and how much they get back for their efforts</p>
<p>Problems: This is a terribly unclear and ambiguous objective. How do you define how hard a student works? Hours? There are on average 40 something majors at a given university, each of them has a different workload and work hour, so how do you calculate what is the adequate amount for each of them is? Second, is the hour only assigned to class related materials or does it include outside extracurricular activity that relates to the subject? </p>
<p>Next, what exactly does "how much they get back for their efforts" mean? Grades, intellectual growth, enlightenment, a post-graduate job</p>
<p>So this is how Princeton Review determines its academic rating:
How many hours students study outside of the classroom (depends on major)
The quality of students the school attracts (subjective, what's the quality? SAT and ACT score? If it's not tangible, then what are the intangibles? Carnegie Hall cello player versus Olympic gold medal for skateboarding?)
Students' assessments of their professors, (subjective)
class size (objective)
student-teacher ratio (objective)
use of teaching assistants (objective)
amount of class discussion (...how the heck do you measure this? subjective/objective?)
registration (biase against larger schools)
resources (objective)</p>
<p>Many of these criteria are clearly weighted, but how are they weighted? How much does "class discussion" compare against "registration," or "class size" stack up to "student-professor ratio"? What makes one better than the other.</p>
<p>Finally, the method of getting information is terribly unclear:
This rating is calculated from student survey results and statistical information reported by administrators. Evaluations of teachers are kept confidential and are used by the Dean and the teachers to make improvement on teaching or to decide who gets tenured (if quality of teaching is a factor). Now how does Princeton Review how does it evaluate all of them? What factor gets weighted more than other? </p>
<p>All of these are a Pandora box. You have no idea how everything is determined. It's like looking at the ingredients for soap. You can read all the chemical's names, but you don’t know how it’s put together. All you have is the final product. How do you judge a 98 St. John and compare that to a 96 to Reed College (both colleges are famous for their students’ intellectual prowess). What does a 78 from Cal Tech tell you about Cal Tech that makes it so “inferior” to a 99 of MIT? </p>
<p>This is the problem with college ranking, they give you some supposedly “objective standards” but do not really explain what they mean.</p>
<p>I think the reason Holy Cross is rated higher is because it is much smaller than Boston College which results in much smaller class sizes (10-19 versus 20-29) and because it is strictly undergraduate so undergraduate students get all of the attention of the professors and there are no graduate students doing any teaching.</p>
<p>Is it possible to walk from Newton to class? Are there side walks? Is it safe to do so? Since an average walking speed is 3 mph, traversing 1.5 miles would make it a 30 minute walk.</p>
<p>yeah, its really easy to walk from newton to class. if you dont mind getting up early or want a nice walk on a warm day go for it. i dont think many people do it though. ive walked home from a couple of football games cause i didnt feel like waiting for the bus and sometimes i walk home from working out at the plex. chestnut hill/newton is very safe i feel. it seems like all families. i still woudlnt walk by myself at night for obvious reasons but otherwise i think its fine. and ive never timed it but the walk does not seem like it takes a half hour.</p>
<p>I think I will just walk to class every day since I really hate waiting around for busses and fighting crowds. This way I can leave when I want plus I will get 15 miles of brisk walking in every week so I will get my exercise automatically as well.</p>
<p>If you have not experienced Boston winters, I don't think you will be doing a lot of walking!</p>
<p>How cold are the winters in Boston? How much snow do you get?</p>
<p>^We haven't seen that much snow recently. Last year was pretty light on the snow (for New England standard). This year, however, it's cold pretty early on and right now I'm sandwhiched between two blankets as I'm typing this.</p>
<p>It's cold in Boston, bring your winter gear. If you end up on Newton, you likely will not be walking to the main campus in the winter but I have friends who walked on nice days this fall - it takes about 30 mins or so. As for your question about safety, Newton was voted the safest city in America a couple of years' ago and is really safe.</p>