<p>To reply to JAGS861:</p>
<p>I don't think a single person made Georgetown University "popular".... I think it was the past two university presidents who made a commitment to their students and faculty thereby raising the caliber of both the student body and the faculty..... I don't even know who Patrick Ewing is!!!</p>
<p>What??</p>
<p>Why do you think Emory is overrated?? It's at rank 20...</p>
<p>In contrast to Ivies, Duke, and other well known Catholic schools-Holy Cross and ND, Gtown has weak alumni giving rate and small endowment. Notre Dame and Holy Cross have giving rates of 50% and much higher endowment per student.</p>
<p>par- if you think holy cross is equivalent to georgetown, you are even more warped than i thought.</p>
<p>Georgetown has been around for over 200 years, and was a prominent university well before Patrick Ewing went there. And for undergrad, Holy Cross isn't intimidated by Georgetown.</p>
<p>When you compare Georgetown to other top schools, you can see that Emory/ND/Vandy/WUSTL are a bit overrated. </p>
<p>This does not mean that George should be ranked higher though (but Emory should be ranked lower :)). Its endowment suffers and offers no strong business/engineering/sciences/tech fields. Most people just go for IR/polisci/and liberal arts.</p>
<p>patrick ewing, one of the best basketball players ever? Georgetown won the ncaa tournament with him (and lost to villanova with him...). I'm sure his jersey is hanging off the ceiling of wherever gtown plays basketball.</p>
<p>I'm not saying that he's the only reason why people know what georgetown is, I'm just saying that georgetown is a lot like duke and notre dame - its really popular due mainly because of success in athletics - even though gtown's athletic success was 25 years ago.</p>
<p>it wasnt too long ago that you would have gotten a very funny look for picking boston college over holy cross. and frankly, some would have given you a funny look for picking georgetown over holy cross, too. what happened? georgetown and boston college joined the big east. holy cross did not. end of story.</p>
<p>eric- i dont think it has that much to do with athletics- for example, people dont pick providence college, also a (catholic?jesuit?) big east school, just because of their teams</p>
<p>providence (and villanova) were NOWHERE on the radar 30 years ago. they now compete with holy cross for students. and im not saying its only athletics. boston college and georgetown have also both benefited greatly from urban renewal on the east coast (living in/near a major city is cool again) and have also improved themselves (boston college has become much more residential, for example). however, discounting athletics isnt being honest to reality.</p>
<p>St. Johns and Seton Hall didn't get much of a bump from the Big East. Also, a LOT of colleges have been aided by sports in becoming more prominent--not just the Catholic ones in the Northeast. A few decades ago U of Miami, Virginia Tech, and even Florida State were just about invisible on the national radar.</p>
<p>technically, a couple of decades ago, most colleges were invisible on the national radar, save for a handful.</p>