<p>Title question, thanks!</p>
<p>This might be better asked in college search & selection. </p>
<p>But anyway, BU has a pretty good rep at my school. To be honest, it seems like everyone looks and applies there and then ends up going somewhere else (usually Pitt, it seems). I think a lot of people that don’t go there don’t because of the expense though, not because they didn’t like it. </p>
<p>Not very many people go to (or even look at) Purdue from my school. I only know of one person that went there, and it was for an athletic scholarship. It has a decent rep among kids that have heard of it, but most don’t know anything about it beyond basketball and football. </p>
<p>I live in eastern PA too, since that does make a difference in how schools are perceived.</p>
<p>In my school it varies. The Engineering kids all know about Purdue and all the sports fans know about it. Most of them don’t know where it is but they see it as a respectable school.</p>
<p>As for BU, most people see it as an nice east coast private school.</p>
<p>I’m actually applying to BU because I want to go there.</p>
<p>Yes, many people use it as back up schools, but they just don’t know that it has a reputation for being a competitive school with BC, Tufts, MIT, Binghamton, University of Rochester, or Geneseo.</p>
<p>It’s a decent school, but it’s used as a lot of people’s safety.</p>