<p>What are the top 5 catholic universities in the country?</p>
<p>I am NOT a fan of the US News and World Report ranking system. However, we used it for a very rough estimate of what was out there and trying to find a best fit for my D.</p>
<p>That being said, some schools that are not highly ranked are in fact excellent schools. And SOME kids would prefer to be the Big Fish in the Little Pond, go to a medium ranked school with higher stats than be one of thousands of high stat kids at an elite school. It depends on the individual. With that caveat I will give you my rundown.</p>
<p>First of all, not all Catholic Schools are the same. A Jesuit school is not the same as a Franciscan, or Sulpician, or Holy Cross Fathers, or Augustinian, or Dominican School. Each has its own flavor, culture, academic prowess, and resources.</p>
<p>In the Jesuit ranks, the best generally are:</p>
<p>Georgetown, Holy Cross, Fordham, Boston College, St. Louis University, Loyola (Chicago), Xavier, Santa Clara, Seattle University. Not necessarily in that order, particularly when you consider program differences. St. Louis University is the number one nutrition/health science program in the nation. Period.</p>
<p>Notre Dame is sort of in a class by itself, and so are the priests who run it. It thinks it is superior to all others. Its superb, their sports are second to none, but frankly their academics while excellent, are not "superior to all others" as they think. </p>
<p>Georgetown is known for basketball and its Walsh School of Foreign Service. Its a great school too.</p>
<p>Fordham is a sleeper in my view. If you look at the bulletin of courses and check out the faculty at Fordham it will blow you away. More than 30 active professors in every faculty imagineable from Columbia, most of them with PhD's from Columbia. About 20 or so from Princeton. About 20 or so from Harvard. 15 or so from UChicago. Many from Georgetown, Brown, Penn, Cornell, WashU in St. Louis. On and on. Its an amazing faculty, if you ask me. WHen I tell people about it they are stunned.</p>
<p>Fr. McShane, the President of Fordham is very open about his intent to restore Fordham to its once lofty perch as the Best Catholic University in the United States. He openly wants to unseat Notre Dame and Georgetown. He believes we have already caught Boston College. Some would say we are ahead of Holy Cross.</p>
<p>But that is sort of a fools errand. You would get an excellent education at ANY Jesuit school, in my humble opinion.</p>
<p>As for the others:</p>
<p>You also have Gonzaga (an up and coming Jesuit School), Creighton, Loyola Los Angeles, Loyola New Orleans, Spring Hill College (Alabama), Wheeling Jesuit. </p>
<p>Providence College is Dominican and also an excellent school. St. Josephs and St. Peters Colleges are also out there.</p>
<p>But generally speaking, with the exception of Notre Dame, the Jesuits are regarded as the best academically. Some prefer a nationally ranked sports program. Some prefer a particular city like Chicago or St. Louis. Speaking of which, St. Louis University is really on the march. They have spent 600 million on new buildings and renovations in the last 20 years. Fr. Biondi is a holy terror and has done a marvelous job there. His programs are rich and deep. The kids there are happy and work hard and GET JOBS. The faculty there is also very strong. </p>
<p>So it sort of depends on what you are looking for in a school, its locale, and the flavor and culture of the school you are seeking.</p>
<p>But Fordham is clearly in the top tier and climbing of not only Jesuit schools but Catholic Schools. It just needs to sell itself better in distant regions and dispel the myth of the burning Bronx. Its a gorgeous campus and the Bronx is not what you think it might be. No, its not Cambridge Massachusetts or uptown Boston (Tufts). But its not that bad either. Dont forget, Duke is in Durham....the real pits.</p>
<p>Do you have to be catholic or any of the christian sub religions to attend Fordham?</p>
<p>Absolutely not!</p>
<p>i really don't like that misconception that Jesuit schools require you to be catholic... i myself was once fooled by that idea... I was so scared of applying to fordham because i thought i would be pressured into religion, but once i came on campus i realized it wasn't the case... and now.. im going there :-)</p>
<p>I noticed you didn't mention Villanova (Augustinian). Because we are a Catholic family we would love to have the Catholic college experience for our D. I don't get enough information from those university websites to adequately understand the differences between the Jesuit, Dominican and Augustinian teaching traditions/theories? Any thoughts?</p>
<p>This thread was brought to my attention and I thought it important to respond.</p>
<p>Rankings, in and of themselves, are only one part of a college search. I believe they have their uses in a students search, they are only one part of a complex process. While I believe that many of the things ratings measure do relate to quality (retention rates, graduation rates, measures of faculty resources, etc), believing that a rating can or should direct your search is a faulty premise.</p>
<p>Finding the right college is, I believe, more like finding that person you want to spend the rest of your life with. I would hope you wouldnt use some type of metric to do this. My hope for you is that the colleges you put on your list are all ones that you would feel delighted to attend. And, should you attend, delighted to look back upon and say I went there with pride and affection.</p>
<p>Falling for the ratings game is falling for a false promise. That promise being that a higher rated college is some sort of guarantee of a better education and a better life post graduation. This is just not so.</p>
<p>There are lots of students who have the educational achievement to be successful at Fordham. But, we know many of them would be miserable here. The experiences they seek or need to enjoy college just arent available here but are available at many other colleges. The quest you are on is more about you and less about a ranking or others perceptions of what defines a good college.</p>
<p>With all that said, it is admittedly difficult to buck this trend. Most of your friends, family, neighbors, etc believe in the rankings game. My hope is that youll have the courage to keep it all in perspective and your parents will support you.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>Peter Farrell
Director of Admission
Fordham University</p>
<p>I did not leave out Villanova intentionally. I was simply trying to give a rough overview of Catholic schools in the U.S. Perhaps I missed the mark which prompted Mr. Farrell to respond. He said it more succinctly than I did, that rankings are a game of sorts and not a good indicator or success at a particular school. I agree with him completely that fit is the most important factor in college admissions, both for the school and the student.</p>
<p>The other point I was trying to emphasize and may have been misunderstood is that Fordham's President is indeed very ambitious and wants to continue to raise the bar of excellence at Fordham, part of which will be exemplified in the admissions process. His ambition is a good thing and something I applaud. I did not mean to imply that he is a supporter of the college ranking "system", such as you see in US News and World Report.</p>
<p>Mr. Farrell says that rankings are only one part of the college search process and I concur with that assessment. Its a blunt instrument at best. What I was trying to say is that it is important for some people to know and for others its simply irrelevant. In my D's case, it simply was not that important. We were looking for a fit that had more to do with the depth of a program (course offerings and faculty) and the culture of the school.</p>
<p>Just last evening I was at a large social event in my community. The topic of colleges inevitably came up concerning my D. When I mentioned Fordham some people knew precisely who (and what) we were talking about, with applause for my D. Still some others had only a vague understanding. In that sense, a broad brush ranking is helpful to illuminate the uninformed. Followed by information published by the school.</p>
<p>I also hope that my commentary about the credentials of Fordham's faculty was not misunderstood as a sort of foolish faculty "ranking". I can tell you that one of my D's favorite and BEST teachers in her 12 years of schooling did not go to an elite name school. So you can have superb teachers/professors from even relatively obscure schools. On the other hand, I do think that Fordham's faculty is superb, both by reputation as well as credentials. And that was as much a part of my D's decision process as anything else.</p>
<p>To the extent I appeared to pit one school against another, I apologize for that impression. Perhaps I was inartful in my attempt to praise all catholic schools, whether its BC, Villanova, Providence, Holy Cross or Fordham, or any other. Perhaps you can attest it to school pride and ordinary (and hopefully healthy) school competition. I will say again as I said before that you can get an outstanding education at many schools, certainly any Jesuit university. Where one decides to apply and/or attend is a personal decision.</p>
<p>And I am glad that Fordham is on its toes and keeps up with the threads here. CC is a great and highly informative forum in my opinion. Like all such sites, it can be filled with errors and omissions (including my own.) But its a good thing on the whole and a great way to communicate with people about schools.</p>
<p>Most schools closely monitor their ranking in all the major news media and published works. They often advertise their rankings in their own marketing material or on their websites. Some schools are trying really hard to get away from the ranking problem, and that is to be applauded in my view. But I think it is very, very difficult to avoid.</p>
<p>Students and parents alike are very adept at finding out CDS data as well. Why do they do that? I think its because the college admissions process has become so hyper competitive they are seeking as much information as they can before they make their applications, to gauge their likelihood of admission.</p>
<p>In a perfect world, every student would get accepted (and be able to attend and afford) their "dream school" or "favorite school." But its not a perfect world and college admissions is an increasingly competitive process.</p>