<p>I kept hearing about how BU is just a bunch of buildings but no one told me that all those buildings put together made for a really nice looking campus on the Charles! The resident houses are gorgeous, the architecture, the old Oxford looking pub underneath the Castle, the BU boat house on the river, the Eli Wiesel Judaic studies building was nice looking too. I was very impressed and thought it was one of the best looking campuses I’ve ever seen. It reminded me a bit of a mix of NYU and Columbia University. </p>
<p>How is not BU considered 3rd in line behind Harvard and MIT for best university in the greater Boston area (I know the other two are in Cambridge)? Or am I wrong and it is generally considered 3rd? </p>
<p>Considering the faculty, the admit rates, the programs, one would think so.</p>
<p>Boston College (Chestnut Hill) and Tufts (Medford) are generally more highly regarded and ranked ahead of BU in the U.S News and World Report “national universities” rankings.</p>
<p>Tufts: #28
Boston College: #31
Boston University: #56</p>
<p>[National</a> University Rankings | Top National Universities | US News Best Colleges](<a href=“http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities]National”>http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities)</p>
<p>Of course BU is still an excellent school.</p>
<p>Don’t pay attention to rankings. Choose a school that is the right fit for you. There are so many factors in the rankings that will have no bearing on your experience. For example, BU is ranked well above Tufts and way above Boston College in the ARWU world rankings of universities, 77th in the world and 44th in the US. That and a couple bucks will get you a cup of coffee. The point is, choose a school that has the program you want, location you want and fit that you want. My daughter chose BU over BC. She liked Boston University more, it was a better fit for her because she wanted to be in Boston, not out in the suburbs. BC felt vanilla to her. I loved BC, but I’m not the one going to college!</p>
<p>@OP - you also asked about acceptance rates and faculty. Of course the best judge is each potential student, who will be living and studying at whichever institution he/she chooses… but rankings and ratings do provide useful guidelines when comparing schools.</p>
<p>From Princeton Review 2010 :</p>
<p>Boston U. percent applicants admitted: 54%
Range SAT Critical Reading: 580-670
Range SAT Math: 600-690
Professors Interesting rating: 78
Quality of Life rating: 82</p>
<p>Boston College percent applicants admitted: 26%
Range SAT Critical Reading: 610 - 700
Range SAT Math: 640- 730
Professors Interesting Rating: 83
Quality of Life rating: 93</p>
<p>Tufts University percent applicants admitted: 26%
Range SAT Critical Reading: 670 - 750
Range SAT Math: 670 - 750
Professors Interesting rating: 83
Quality of Life rating: 85</p>
<p>I agree the BU campus is much nicer than we were originally led to believe, and the area of Boston it’s located in is beautiful.</p>
<p>BU seems to have a better name abroad. No international student I knew, knew of BC or Tufts. BU is ranked much higher than both BC and Tufts in the world rankings too. It’s strange how a university in a major city with such high caliber research and great faculty can be ranked so low nationally. Abroad it’s seen in a much better light.</p>
<p>One of the issues with BU that really skews the rankings is the admit rate/yield. The admit rate is probably so high because the yield is low. The yield is low for several reasons, not the least of which is the cost. If you read these forums, you will hear lots of complaining about the high cost. BU does not meet full need, which means a lot of kids who would choose BU if it was affordable to them end up going someplace cheaper. Another factor in yield being low is that a lot of students who are applying to top 20 schools use BU as a safety school. If they get into their reach school, they go there. By the way, the acceptance/yield rates are factored heavily in the US News rankings. One more factor to consider is that BU includes all admitted student stats in their reporting, including CGS where other schools with similar programs do not include those student’s stats in their reporting, ie. NYU and Emory. From the research that I have done, it doesn’t look like BU cared too much about playing the rankings game.</p>
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<p>They need to (play it). BU includes CGS, and so its admissions and yield are skewed. Columbia does not include its CGS, and so its admissions and yield are equally as skewed (but favorably).</p>
<p>If BU played the rankings game, it would receive a larger pool of competitive applications from people desirous of attending a “higher ranked” school. Of course, some of these applications would fall by the wayside if they chose even higher ranked schools, but at least BU could dramatically improve its applicant pool. In spite of all the moralistic ranting about rankings that goes on this forum, the fact is that people who use this forum are very very very well-versed in rankings, care about them, and permit them to influence where they may apply and what to choose if accepted. BU should just man up and deal with it. Otherwise, they will remain everyone’s safety school.</p>
<p>Very true. BU should play the rankings game instead of being the country’s top safety school. </p>
<p>As I said before, there is no reason why a major research university in a big city like Boston with such high caliber faculty and graduate programs should be ranked so low. Considering all that I listed, BU is definitely number 3 in the Boston area, behind Harvard and MIT, in terms of high research. </p>
<p>Living abroad for a while, I learned that a lot of international students thought of BU as an NYU or UCLA of sorts. It’s good reputation abroad is the reason for the high number of international students on campus. If you consider all the world rankings like AWRU, Times, QS and even Newsweek’s old Global Universities list, BU is in a much higher rank in comparison to it’s US New’s ranking.</p>
<p>Having visited both NYU and UCLA, along with BU, my son far preferred BU over the other two, and so did I. NYU has no campus and seemed to lack school spirit, while we regarded BU as something of a hybrid: a city environment, which my son wants, but still something of a campus with much more of a collegiate feel. As OP said, a mix of NYU and Columbia.</p>
<p>The conversation in this post is so refreshingly reasonable and informed, even considering the different points of view presented. The posters must all be adults with some life experience :)</p>