<p>Which is more selective, Wake Forest or Holy Cross? I would think Wake Forest....</p>
<p>Pretty similar. Per Princeton Review, Holy Cross and Wake Forest have an identical Admissions Selectivity Rating of 95.</p>
<p>Oh. Princeton Review doesn't work on any of my computers for some odd reason so I was looking at sparknotes and some other website that said Holy Cross's acceptance rate was 48%,boy are they wrong...</p>
<p>According to Peterson's Best Colleges, for freshman class of 2006:</p>
<p>Acceptance rate: Holy Cross (34%)
Average GPA: Holy Cross (3.75)</p>
<p>Wake Forest is a former Baptist school. Its decidedly non religious now. Though many religious believers attend, and oddly enough it boasts a large catholic population.</p>
<p>Holy Cross is a great school. Its smaller than Fordham, BC and Georgetown. Jesuit schools (all 28 of them) are wonderful and offer a panoply of courses and a diverse student body. Theology is taught, but its really more about philosophy and the Jesuit ethos. Some Jesuit schools are more "Jesuit" than others. Some books on the market attempt to clarify this and rank them. But in my view its a matter of conjecture. Though Georgetown is reputedly the least religious of all the Jesuit Schools.</p>
<p>Also you have Villanova, Providence, Notre Dame, St. Johns and other Catholic Colleges.</p>
<p>People pick them for a variety of reasons: academic fit, social fit, geographical fit, financial fit, religious fit, party fit.</p>
<p>Holy Cross has a well deserved reputation of working hard and also playing VERY hard. </p>
<p>Going to Holy Cross you will work your rear end off. </p>
<p>Sometimes a school is religious not because of its faculty but because of its student body. That is where a school visit is essential to get a feel for how YOU fit or not.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>Thanks all!</p>
<p>Holy Cross and Wake Forest both have strong academic and athletic traditions. However, HC has more storied basketball tradition with NCAA championship in 1947 and NIT in the mid-50's. Holy Cross is one of the few LAC's that has produced a Nobel Prize winner.</p>
<p>Holy COW! You deign to say Holy Cross has a more storied basketball reputation than Wake Forest? Cough. Cough. Where have you been the last 50 years. Wake is an AMAZING basketball school, competing in Tobacco Road (UNC, Duke, NCState) and the ACC for some of the best and brightest basketball kids in the country. Do you know how many Wake players made it to the NBA and currently play there? SEVERAL, including Tim Duncan of the San Antonio Spurs. Wake was ranked number one in the country the year that Duncan GRADUATED. Wake has been to the NCAA tournament more times than I can count and has won the NIT Tournament at least twice. Wake's football program is now only getting the national attention that it deserves. Its one of the smallest Division I schools out there and has very strict admissions requirements that many athletes have trouble meeting. And at Wake....if you dont do your homework you are gone. There are many SUPERB basketball players that had to leave and ended up elsewhere because of grade problems. One in particular that ended up playing for Lute Olson at Arizona when they won it all.</p>
<p>Better check your stats, my friend.</p>
<p>catfishin- Great post, and so true. The problem is, Wake is in the N.C. Many people are ignorant of the many great schools in the southern part of the country. (Backwards in a way! :))</p>
<p>This may be true njmom, but Wake Forest undoubtedly has a greater national reputation than Holy Cross, btw I am applying to both schools, and my sister is a senior at Holy Cross</p>
<p>I frankly would not want to spend 4 years in Winston-Salem, NC under any conditions. I've been through that area and not impressed.</p>
<p>Not saying Worcester is pretty but it is 45 minutes to Boston and Providence and Cape Cod is just 90 minutes away. I am a Holy Cross grad and orginally from New Engalnd so I am clearly biased.....</p>
<p>How bad a city can it be when it is named after two of the leading Cigarette brands. My mother smoked Salems for decades and developed emphysema and died a horrible death as a result. Nice memory of "Winstons" and "Salems".</p>
<p>I'm a Holy Cross grad and father of a current junior who loves the school. Regarding a comparison with Wake Forest I should think the two biggest differences vs HC would be the huge cultural difference (not a value statement) between the South and New England and the fact that Wake Forest has "Greek Life" while HC does not. I should think that those two factors would make these two very fine schools quite different.</p>
<p>Oh, and to provide Catfishin' with "the facts" on the basketball front, Wake Forest has. indeeed, won 100 more games lifetime than Holy Cross has. Of course, we must also take into account that wake has lost 231 more. Lifetime records: Wake Forest 1,353-1030 (.568) Holy Cross 1253-799 (.611)</p>
<p>Please guys stop comparing Holy Cross Basketball with Wake Forest, Holy Cross is good in a small mediocre D-1 league, Wake Forest is in the best conference in the country</p>
<p>Things change. Winston-Salem is a small city with a great future. Becoming a thriving financial center. Basketball is not the only things to stop comparing- all cities have their day. (Remember Rome?) The world changes, some places get better, some decline, and then it changes back again. It is very exciting to be in on the upswing of an area, as is happening in many cities in N.C. As the mother a Wake Forest student who is thriving, I have only praise for the academics, social and athletics success (Orange Bowl last year, anyone?) of Wake Forest. The other nice thing about a new area,look at a map. The majority of the students in our metro N.J area stay right in this area.People NEED to see that their bubble encloses them, their is a huge county living and breathing out there, where a Boston accent is a different as a soutern one. (Startling to hear a Bawston accent to me, here in New Jewsey!) What a wonderful experience it has been, my son has freinds from N.C. (Yes, their ancestors may have been tobacco farmers, but yours might have been manufacturing lead paint, and slopping it all over the northeast, who knew?) and also freinds from as far away as California, as Wake does draw from the entire nation. Yes, it has been a mighty nice culture change, he loves it.</p>
<p>And I have "been through Wooster" and would rather live anywhere else. Not really! I have driven through, was not impressed, but I know it may be a gem. I never look once and judge. I pride myself on that.</p>
<p>Holy Cross, Davidson and Bucknell are the 3 very good LAC's that field competitive mens basketball teams. HC and Davidson are unique among the top LAC's with locations near major cities-Boston and Charlotte. Holy Cross plays the Ivies in football, basketball, baseball, hockey on an annual basis and the HC alumni giving rate of 53% is higher than most Ivies.</p>
<p>I will not engage comparisons of ugly epithets about cities that are distasteful. I have enough trouble telling people that Fordham's main campus in the Bronx, Rose Hill, is actually a beautiful place, with the New York Botanical Gardens, Bronx Zoo and Little Italy nearby. </p>
<p>If people want to pick a school, then going to visit that school is essential. A person may or may not like the school, what it looks like or its location. There are places and schools that my kid rejected. But we viewed it as OUR opinion and perspective. If someone else likes it and goes there, great. People pick on St. Louis all the time. We found both WashU St. Louis and St. Louis University to be outstanding schools, with beautiful campuses, and St. Louis city to be warm, welcoming and fun. </p>
<p>Some people go to Dartmouth in remote New Hampshire and LOVE it. Some go there and say, "no thanks!"<br>
Trashing cities is just not something I do. Sorry. Its distasteful.</p>
<p>I have NOTHING against College of the Holy Cross! Its a great school and has a storied history. However, it is different from BC, Georgetown, Fordham, Fairfield, Canisius, St. Joes, St. Louis U, Marquette, and all the other 28 Jesuit colleges in the United States. Each is unique in its setting and traditions, though sharing common Jesuit ethics and ethos. </p>
<p>Holy Cross compares very favorably to non Catholic and non Jesuit schools, such as Davidson and Bucknell, or Lafayette or Lehigh, or Colgate. So does Fordham, BC and Georgetown....and the other Jesuits. </p>
<p>If you know much about the history of Catholic colleges in the US, they were mostly founded in the late 19th Century and early 20th century to counter rampant anti catholic discrimination in society and to provide superior education to catholic men....and later for women. Many Catholic families in those days were blue collar and worked in industrial locations around the nation. We are proud of that history and tradition. </p>
<p>If someone goes to Holy Cross and picks it over Fordham or BC or Georgetown, I say, "congratulations and Good Luck!" Not sour grapes or tossing rotten eggs. I would expect the same response from Holy Cross supporters if an applicant picks Fordham over their school. </p>
<p>Kids should pick a school where they "fit." That is subjective. Different kids have different objectives when going to college and are searching for different experiences, whether its a setting like Davidson and Bucknell, or a setting like Holy Cross or Fordham. Urban or rural, big city or smaller city, big school or smaller school, big sports or less sports.</p>
<p>Rivalries are healthy and promote school spirit. But you wont find me bashing any school or its location or city. </p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>Great post, catfishin- and I reiterate- this is a big country, with lots of great history and diversity. Let's keep open minds and hearts and remember that when we say negative things about a place that we know nothing about. It all goes back to "judging a book by it's cover." Lets not.
p.s. My father in law, who recently passed away at 83 was a proud Fordham graduate! He was first generation, and made his family so proud.</p>
<p>don;t forget the VERY big difference between attending an undergraduate college versus a university, even a small university
jack
HC'78</p>