<p>BU was ranked 56th by usnews.com. I thought it was better than that. The UW is ranked higher than that. So is BU worth it?</p>
<p>Well, it's my safety and I'm counting on getting a generous scholarship (am applying for the Trustee Scholarship). If you are paying full tuition, no it's not worth it. If you can get a good scholarship then it's better than most state schools.</p>
<p>Yeah, i still want to go there though.</p>
<p>I definitely would not say that BU is NOT worth it. Don't underestimate BU based on one ranking system. The reason BU is only 56th is partially because of their grade deflation. Although it may appear that students in some programs at BU have lower GPA's, therefore bringing BU down in the rankings, the education you'll get at BU will be much greater than the education you'd get at many of those 55 schools "above" BU.</p>
<p>NOT that I agree with the grade deflation. Hehe, some of us need to maintain certain GPA's to keep scholarship money, so it's tough in that respect. But I'm only a freshman here, so I'm still yet to completely understand how it works.</p>
<p>FlixChick, did you get a University Scholarship?</p>
<p>I got the "Dean's Scholarship" - $10K per year. I actually think I deserved the half-tuition, but since I would have gone to BU either way, I was happy to have gotten that much. So anyway, to keep the 10K, I need to maintain a 3.2, which isn't TOO hard; it's just below a B+. Grade deflation does make it a challenge, though.</p>
<p>I called admissions today. They said the acceptance packet will have notification if S has bee awarded a University Scholarship. Invitations to the Honors College are mailed in March. According to the BU website, ED applicants have priority consideration for the University Scholarships. We live in CA so don't expect the packet til Thursday if it was mailed yesterday.</p>
<p>Oh, one more thing. I asked if they knew the # of ED apps and % acceptance rate. No figures yet.</p>
<p>I read in an article that BU doesn't file proper paperwork to be ranked in the top tier. I don't remember where I read it (possibly on wikipedia), and I have no idea how USNews rankings really work, but BU is a lot better than the ranking it recieves, especially for research, etc. It is rumored that they are into the whole grade deflation thing, so.....it's pretty competitive.</p>
<p>people like to underestimate BU...I certainly did before I got in...I called it my safety when I definately realize now that it's my match. Rankings, I think, are complete bull...ask Harvard and Princeton who go back and forth between 1 and 2 each year. Now, honestly...can anyone actually say that Harvard is better than Princeton or vice versa? And rankings are only based on certain criteria, I think a list of 20...you can't rank a college by seeing how it fits into your list! There's so many other factors! So basically, all I have to say about those rankings is...take them with a grain of salt. And honestly, it doesn't matter what school you go to for a college education...as long as you get a good GPA and a good education. There, I've said my piece :-P</p>
<p>This is a very old thread. </p>
<p>I don't know if it's true that BU has refused to cooperate but it seems the biggest part of the rankings are peer assessment and the simple truth is that John Silber was a polarizing force. The faculty and staff were divided, mostly into hate or love, and his wars with the faculty and his pronouncements must have been a real turn-off for the faculty and dean peers across the country. If you look at the academic facts, BU is a very good school. It improved as a school under Silber but it's reputation among its peers took some hits because of his personality.</p>
<p>why would someone bump a thread from 2004? Maybe a BU basher?</p>
<p>Kids choose colleges primarily by factors such as location, social "vibe", fit, academics and cost. The rankings are often based on things like how much endowment money there is and other things that have little to do with quality. The top 25% of BU students, and thats a large number, have stats that are the same as the IVYs. There are many kids that choose BU over schools that are ranked higher in that magazine because most people know how meaningless it is. Honors Programs at many schools, including Stae schools, create an experience for kids at the higher end of an applicant pool. If you look at the stats of kids in the 7 yr MD program or especially the University Professiors Program at BU you'll note that any of them could have gone anywhere but chose BU because it was the right school for them.
Certainly merit scholarships can help tip the scales. With thousands of colleges in the US its hard to believe there will be that big a difference between no. 36 and 75. Still, some people get really caught up in that.</p>
<p>Well, Newsweek put BU in at 65 in the World, which I'll take over 56 in the U.S.! It's clearly not an undergraduate ranking, but at least accounts for research and professors who are experts in their fields, unlike the US NEWS rankings.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14321230/%5B/url%5D">http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14321230/</a></p>
<p>If you read anything about how USNews does the rankings, then you would stop giving them so much credence. The criteria they are judged on are so arbitrary and really don't apply to the undergraduate experience. If you are picking schools based on rank, then you are going about the college process all wrong. Pick schools with programs that interest you in good locations, and leave rankings out of it.</p>
<p>while i am certainly not a supporter of usnews rankings, they do have some merit to them. </p>
<p>unfortuantely, many of you who are saying reasons why BU isn't ranked in the top 50 in the USnews don't know how USnews does its methodology.</p>
<p>there are only 2 really subjective rankings that USnews uses is the Peer Assessment - which accounts for 25% of the ranking, and the selectivity ranking - which i beleive counts for either 5% or 10% of the ranking. size of endowment is not included in the rankings. </p>
<p>is BU a good school? of course it is - but i don't think its a top 50 school. just what school is it better than in that top 50 category.</p>
<p>US News posts its methodology. </p>
<ol>
<li>25% is peer (and there you see the Silber effect). </li>
<li>15% is selectivity (and BU can't gain ground there because you can't be this big and be more selective). Selectivity is 40% top 10% class standing (which BU does well in), 50% test scores and 10% admissions acceptance rate.</li>
<li>20% is faculty resources, which breaks down into faculty compensation (35%), Faculty % with top degree possible in field (15%), full-time faculty %age (5%), Faculty-student ratio (5%), class size of 1-19 students (30%), class size 50+ students (10%). </li>
<li>20% graduation and retention rate - split 80-20 between graduation and retention rates.</li>
<li>10% average $ spent per student.</li>
<li>5% is alumni giving rates (which really penalizes large schools).</li>
<li>5% graduation rate performance - meaning whether people graduate at the rate predicted in 6 years when they began. </li>
</ol>
<p>Anyone with a basic grasp of numbers sees a few basics: larger schools have more issues to overcome than small ones but the single factor which matters is the peer assessment. If an institution is competitive, then one can assume it will score decently, building a base of points, for factors 2 - 7. The schools should then be aligned biased toward the smaller, richer schools within the relevant category. They will simply much more likely to accumulate more points. But the spread of points for 2 - 7 may not be partiularly large for a wide range of schools. The deciding factor is thus the peer assessment and that is where you see the effect of John Silber. He built the university but his wars with deans and faculty and his harrangues about students - even his refusal to put cable in the rooms - continues to cost the school. I would not be surprised if BU does not rise dramatically in the rankings over the next several years. </p>
<p>But . . . I hope it's obvious the rankings are ********.</p>