<p>"umm, BC includes birth control thru its health insurance…</p>
<p>BC Health Insurance Covers Birth Control | The Observer at Boston College"</p>
<p>but they don’t hand out bags of condoms and pills during orientation…</p>
<p>"but they don’t hand out bags of condoms and pills during orientation… "</p>
<p>Yeah, BC is soooo uptight. It should be “Here’s your map of the BC campus, here’s your dorm key, here’s a gross of condoms, here’s a gallon of KY, here’s your ball gag…”</p>
<p>par72,</p>
<p>Football success is what put Notre Dame on the map, and it has benefitted handsomely from it, but let’s give BC’s academics a bit more credit for its rigorous Jesuit curriculum over that of the Fathers/Brothers of the Holy Cross – an upstart order by comparison (founded in 1842 vs 1535 for the Jesuits).</p>
<p>Saying either school is religious is funny. Neither school is very religious anymore. You’ll see a priest or two on campus, and a cross or two, but it is widely known that both schools are pretty much secular universities now.</p>
<p>Par72 likes to pretend Holy Cross is on the same page as Georgetown, ND or BC. It isn’t. Holy Cross is the safety school for these schools.</p>
<p>Informative likes to pretend Boston College is on the same page as Georgetown and ND. It isn’t. Boston College is the safety school for these schools.</p>
<p>I’ve attended two info sessions/tours at Georgetown (2 kids) and both times they mentioned that Georgetown was founded to educate all faiths. This is the charter and the tradition.</p>
<p>BC felt much more Catholic to DS2–the student panel talked about their faith, religious retreats, etc. Lots of Latin Bible verses and statues of saints in the buildings on the tour. Nothing wrong with being who you are, but the message was strikingly different from what we heard at Georgetown.</p>
<p>Boston College is the home to one of the world’s largest Jesuit communities. Not surprising it is more religious than most Jesuit colleges.</p>
<p>Georgetown, Holy Cross, and Notre Dame are the oldest, most national Cathoilc schools. ND and Holy Cross have the largest endowment per student and great alumni networks. Fordham, Villanova and Boston College were more local schools in the past.</p>
<p>par72:</p>
<p>do you know of a source that shows HC’s students by state residence? (I would be surprised if it was any more “national” than BC, i.e., the vast majority of students hail from a 4-6 hour drive away).</p>
<p>^^</p>
<p>Yes, I think Par ‘bogeyed’ that one!</p>
<p>30-40 years ago, Holy Cross was considered significantly better than Boston College (which was a regional school in those days). Times have changed. The “Cross” is no longer a major sports power (which gave it tremendous visability in years past) and BC has become a major national university. I would rank BC below, but only slightly below, Georgetown and Notre Dame. Holy Cross is a good liberal arts college–but is not really comparable.</p>
<p>Holy Cross may have been “considered significantly better” than BC but how much of that was perception and how much was reality? After all, those two Jesuit colleges were famous arch-rivals for numerous decades. Do you suppose that the powers at Holy Cross would have wanted a rival that was not on par (oops, sorry par72!) with its own stature?</p>
<p>Let’s also remember that Holy Cross did not labor under the long and obnoxious shadow of Harvard, and thus have its programs underappreciated, as Boston College had to – and still does! The fact that BC has emerged as a national university given its less than nurturing environment says much about its strength and quality. And, recall that BC alone, in the Boston area, had to contend with the anti-Catholic bias that oozed out of every Harvard pore, not to mention the rest of Boston “society”. Thankfully, those (many) years are in the past. </p>
<p>But, Holy Cross has done very nicely for itself as a strong liberal arts college, out in the friendlier environs of Worcester.</p>
<p>What made the Holy Cross-Boston College rivalry was tha differences between the 2 schools. Holy Cross was the ‘old money’ Catholic school similar to Georgetown, both schools drew from families that could pay tuition and room and board-not easy thing to do before government sponsored student loans and grants. HC drew students from around the country from its inception in the 1840’s, Boston College was founded mainly for the local Irish working class and believe didn’t have dorms until 1960’s. Holy Cross has enjoyed a strong relation with the Ivies in sports since the 1890’s-HC vs Harvard and Dartmouth is the most played non-Ivy game.</p>
<p>par:</p>
<p>even back then, my question is how many “students from around the country” as a % of the total? My guess is, not many then, not many today. Even 40 years ago, HYP was much more “local” than it is today, as were most now so-called “national” colleges. (Not trying to pick on HC per se, but most colleges, and in particular LACs, are regional.)</p>
<p>Up until the 1960s Catholic high school students almost always attended Catholic colleges exclusively. There was tremendous social pressure to stay within the Church and there was anti-Catholic prejudice at many of the old prestigious colleges nearly all of which had Protestant roots. During this period top students at Catholic (especially Jesuit) High Schools would go on to Georgetown, Notre Dame, Fordham, Holy Cross, etc. Boston College was not on the radar because it had no dorms and was strictly a commuter college for Boston area students.</p>
<p>perhaps true in the NE (a lot of poor Catholics in California who could only dream of the then-free UC), but that doesn’t address how “national” was/is HC.</p>
<p>My view is that HC has always drawn primarily in well entrenched Catholic areas within New England, New York, Chicago, Ohio and occasionally elsewhere for especially athletes who are recruited often in Texas,the southeast, midatlantic and occasionally from California. They get a lot from Jesuit high schools across the country. The vast majority of students are from New England, NY, NJ.</p>
<p>“30-40 years ago, Holy Cross was considered significantly better than Boston College” </p>
<p>Take it from somebody who was around back then…HC was considered SLIGHTLY better than BC, and a lot of that had to do with the fact that the much-larger BC was slightly easier to get into.</p>
<p>BC’s first dorms opened in 1955.</p>
<p>If I recall correctly, one of the biggest drawbacks to going to BC in the 70s was the very few dorms they had and its reputation as a commuter college similar to what Northeastern’s reputation was as well at the time. Both colleges have made great strides since then to shed the commuter school reputation.</p>