Would love to hear details you may know about any of these three colleges (Boston University, Boston College & Northeastern). This is a question about these specific colleges and no need to bring in stats about specific students (we can leave out the comments needed financial info, stats info, major info, etc…) We will being using traditional resources to learn about theses schools and I am looking for more - anything you’d like to add that may be obvious or not. Maybe one has a great campus tradition in the spring that the students love? Maybe one has a dining hall that makes amazing chocolate chip cookies? Maybe one has an incredible professor in the engineering department that you have met? Maybe one has a terrible student parking situation (which college doesn’t lol)? Maybe one has a great student radio station that the locals love? You get the idea. We were looking for anything that could add to our conversation here about these schools. No information is too trivial. I hope this can be a FUN thread. Thank you for reading.
If you haven’t already, google comparison threads between these schools (try site:collegeconfidential.com bu bc, etc.). They are sufficiently different that it should not be very difficult to figure out which one fits the student’s personal preferences.
One has the Beanpot trophy for the last 2 years!
Things I love about Northeastern- The tunnel system, the proximity to MFA, two T lines, the spot of the first World Series, the cute Husky, Matthews Arena, close to the Pru. Co-Op.
Things I don’t like- the cost, the freshman dorms- awful, and having to explain why you graduated in 5 years instead of 4.
That is fantastic and just the thing we were looking for. Had to google what the beanpot trophy was and now we know. So fun! Thanks!!! Can’t wait to hear more as thread continues. 
Beanpot Trophy comes with serious bragging rights. COllege hockey has serious fans!
Look at beanpot and national championships.
BC has Uber competitive college football and high level basketball games right on campus. The others do not.
The women’s lacrosse team has played in the NCAA national championship game four years in a row
Women’s sailing won the ncaa title last year.
BC has the most ridiculously gorgeous campus and the fall and spring in campus are spectacular. They plant flowers everywhere.
The stairs from lower campus to upper is called the “million dollar” staircase. The steps are heated so the snow melts. There’s a lot of hills to keep your legs in shape. Lol.
They just completed a brand new 150 million dollar student center for health. Gyms pools fitness classes and dancing rooms. It’s really a impressive facility.
Every year BC has the red bandana football game at night. All the students go. It’s in honor of a bc grsd who wore one all the time and played on one of the sports teams. He was an employee of one of the big investment firms in the World Trade Center. There are pictures of him and stories of survivors of a young man who put on his red bandana and kept going back in to save people. He tragically died. It’s known to have been this young man.
On parents weekend the Boston pops come to the campus and perform for the community. Pops at BC.
As a freshman many students go for a weekend at the cape cod seaside retreat owned by BC for personal reflection and getting to meet other freshman.
They have an active improv and dance community. There is a step group called “sexual chocolate” that’s excellent. Their big performance in Fall is big deal on campus.
The comedy improv group graduated Amy Poehler of Saturday night live and tv fame.
The 300 million dollar Schiller integrated science center is under construction. It will house a state of the arts approach to multidisciplinary sciences. They will offer some new majors including engineering in the next year or two. It aimed to be groundbreaking.
Tom Brady and Julian Edelman have been on campus the past two years and working with football team.
If you live in the newton freshman campus at the law school is like a small liberal arts college experience within the larger school It’s not the most convenient but you make friends for life they say.
There’s more. But for tradition and that sort of thing it’s really different for the other two schools.
It has the best business school of three (Carroll)imho. NEU is top notch too.
Also you live a minimum of three years on campus and many all four. It’s a different experience than the two outside of the classroom.
Good luck !
As @privatebanker has demonstrated BC is that traditional college experience with all the bells and whistles. Very different than NU- sorry I am old school- no NEU for me. If you love the urban feel BU/NU is better vs. traditional college campus of BC. And no football at NU/BU, so if that is important, they are not the schools for you.
Oh- no sorority houses- they aren’t allowed because of an old law on the books that bans women from living together because it could be a brothel??? That is a Boston thing.
I would never bring a car to Northeastern- there is no need and parking is crazy expensive. I don’t know BU’s situation, but I doubt many would bring them for similar reasons.
Not true.
https://thetab.com/us/2017/07/27/everyone-whos-ever-told-you-that-your-school-doesnt-have-sorority-houses-because-theyre-legally-a-brothel-in-this-state-is-a-damn-liar-70303 “So long story short, living in a house with other girls you’re not related to does not make you a prostitute.”
This is a rumor in MANY cities and states – PA, SC, Tennessee…There are sorority houses in these states. Even SNopes says it is false. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/brothel-laws-sororities/
Such a law would be considered unconstitutional now (if one ever existed) as discriminatory because of gender. Many cities do limit the number of unrelated people who can live in a residence (male or female), but of course apartment buildings, sororities, fraternity, rooming houses have variances for those. In Boulder, the limit is 5 per lease (so my nephew lived with his ‘brother’ to be the 6th resident), and there are 10 sorority houses in Boulder with 70+ girls living together.
Ha! I had heard it was one of those Blue Laws that had been repealed, but since my sorority had been on campus for a long time- it was the reason.
The real reason is probably that it would be too expensive- it definitely would be today. I was thrilled that we didn’t have a house because I didn’t want to live in one!
Oh well- file it under Urban Legends of BU and Northeastern 
I miss the annual Beanpot tournament! Heck, I even miss the Commonwealth Ave. The year that I started my employment at BU – way back when John Silver was BU’s Dictator/President but well past someone tried to assassinate this tough Texan, three students got hit by cars in three days in a row on Commonwealth Ave. BU was known as the “Sidewalk University” for a good reason. One crazy Boston driver on the Commonwealth Ave tried to scare me off the street once, intentionally and literally speeding about a foot into me, and I made sure that he had a day to remember for the rest of his life.
I remember walking into a pre-arranged BU faculty housing for a cultural shock of my life a couple days before the start of my employment with the university. What a dumpsite I walked into. If that’s how they treated their own faculty, I didn’t even want to find out about what the student dorms were like. To make the experience even more exciting, I’d come “home” to find the signs that someone else has been visiting my abode at will during the day. Turned out to be my Pakistan neighbor who had lived in my place prior but had kept a key. A threatening letter to the university ensued and the resolution.
I also remember going to the BU’s indoor swimming pool to teach my pastor/friend how to swim. We all used one locker to store our clothes, and I used my own combo lock. After trying to teach my friend how to swim, I realized he was hopeless, so we quit the session in just 30 minutes. When we returned to the locker, to my shock, I found someone else’s combo lock. In just 30 minutes, someone came and took our wallets inside the locker and replaced it with his own combo lock. Excellent job, I had to admire. Spent a good hour at the BU Police station. Just a waste of time.
Such great memories…
Oh, back then, we didn’t have digital journal articles as we do today. At BU libraries, just about all major business related print journals were purloined via razor slice means. Thank goodness for the digital age, equal access to all. Two things I learned at BU: 1) never trust business school students, and 2) never leave anything out of your sight even for a bathroom break.
It should be noted that BU’s swimming pool experience is vastly different today 
Big tuition price inflation, lots of development, and wealthier students have improved all 3 schools quite a lot in many years.
Based on the description you gave and questions you’re asking, it seems like you’re picturing a lot of BC. No one dares to bring a car to Northeastern or BU, and the school and student bodies are much more focused on Boston than a campus really. BC is far enough away from Boston that you end up having a separate social life/town than Boston itself, though students do go into the city on occasions. Not nearly the way BU/Northeastern students do, it’s just the way proximity works.
As much as small detail isn’t bad, these schools are all so radically different that I would first focus on the big points. Suburban traditional college experience near a city with some religious influence, a practical focus with a top co-op program in the heart of a city with a campus feel, or a full on city school with a balance between practical and liberal arts. The cookies at any of these won’t change how you feel about those big major factors
As others have noted, BC is a more “traditional” college experience…collegiate gothic architecture, classic quads, almost all students living on campus for at least three years. ACC football and basketball with tailgates, school spirit etc. The student body tends to be affluent, “preppy”, sporty, achiever types. About 1/4 of BC students went to Catholic HS, another 1/4 to prep schools. BU has some of this demographic but overall has a much more eclectic cultural vibe/global feel. Ethnic/racial minorities are the majority at both BU and Northeastern. Both BU and Northeastern have large international student populations (over 20% of undergrads). BU and Northeastern are larger (both have 17K+ undergrad) and the campuses are much less defined. For many students, this is a big asset, and the City of Boston is more integral to the student experience at BU and Northeastern. All three schools have strong academics. Northeastern, because of the well known coop program, is more pre-professional/vocational in its focus, although all three schools have excellent outcomes/job placement. Boston Marathon Monday is a beloved tradition at both BC and BU (the race route goes by both campuses). BC has a nice convocation the first month of freshman year, where the students dress up and walk across campus…the same walk is done on graduation day. As noted above, the Beanpot is a cherished hockey rivalry involving all three schools (plus Harvard).