<p>Vinnyli, Half those schools you mentioned are engineering focused so thats not a good apples to apples comparison. UT, Wisconsin, UCSD, University of Washington, UIUC have better academic departments than BC on many department levels. Relativley speaking for what its worth in terms of money you get much more bang for your buck at these state schools than BC. Making BC a tad bit overrated.</p>
<p>Thesmart1, I am not talking about student body but you also have to take into consideration these schools have a much larger student population compared to BC. So the top 25% of these schools could probably rival BC.</p>
I’m not really sure how they’re “overrated.” It seems to me that they’d have to be extremely popular relative to their academic quality in order to be considered such, and none of them (except maybe NYU) fit that description.</p>
<p>No superstar, you said they were “academically superior.” Looking just at SAT’s, GPA’s, and acceptance rates, it is overwhelmingly clear that BC beats out most if not all of those schools. And as far as “bang for your buck” goes, BC gives amazing financial aid. One of my best friends applied to mostly state schools, and then a few private ones including BC. It turned out that BC was the LEAST expensive for him to attend.
sure, if you are filthy rich then it’s more expensive but they give great aid for the needy.</p>
<p>Thesmart1, the academic strength meaning academic departments at those larger institutions are superior to BC. Look it up in the rankings. The only notable department at BC is business and UT Austin dominates that in additiona to University of Indiana, and Wisconsin. Your anecdotal evidence of you friend recieveing aid cannot be summarized for the whole school.</p>
<ul>
<li>you said it yourself in the prior posts that all you need to do is look at rankings right?</li>
</ul>
<p>Hey superstar, can you find me a single ranking (USnews, forbes, w.e) that has those schools ranked higher than BC?</p>
<p>No, because it is OVERALL a better institution which is all that matters. it is irrelevant if you believe “department by department” UT austin or whatever is better. An analogy: if you can beat me in every aspect of football (tackling, running, jumping, etc) but i win the game, what does it really matter? </p>
<p>You said that BC was overrated, so I listed schools that were below BC in rankings. I fail to see how the academic quality of those other schools are “far superior,” especially in undergraduate academic quality. BC does more than adequate job in taking care of its whole undergraduate student body compared to the other schools I listed. </p>
<p>You forgot to mention that BC’s financial aid is extremely generous, better than most of its peer schools on the list, so that sometimes students can pay less at BC than at a state school.</p>
<p>Superstar trying to bash BC yet again (why do people that go to WPI hate it so much?) </p>
<p>If you look at the Overlaps in the FISKE guide to colleges, a very reliable and completely unbiased source, BC’s overlaps include the following:</p>
<p>Georgetown
Harvard
Yale
Notre Dame
Upenn</p>
<p>So are you telling me that the colleges you listed overlap with the above as well???</p>
<p>Math - most of that thread = people complaining about schools they dislike for some personal reason or other.</p>
<p>BC/Tufts/NYU get more love from high school students than many “more prestigious” schools because NYC and Boston are more desirable/fun locations than most. Some people from good but lesser-known/less cosmopolitan schools resent this.</p>
<p>Emory and WashU hate can probably be summed up by “ZOMG I’ve never heard of this school but USNWR ranks it higher than mine”. Maybe they’re over-ranked and/or game the system, maybe not, but they’re still good schools.</p>
<p>All of these schools have good and bad qualities, and they’re not for everyone. If you’ve done your research about the schools you like and know that they’re suitable to you, good job. People venting on anonymous message boards shouldn’t sway your decision one way or the other.</p>
<p>Soccersamdude no but they are better than BC academically. Again BC is a good school put cmon are you really going to say that BC is a peer school of Yale and Harvard? or even Penn? get over yourself please. Even Georgetown and Notre Dame is a stretch these students might apply to BC but generally they would prefer those other schools over BC.</p>
<p>Vinnyli - I would like to see some evidence of this exceptional student aid. From my anecdotal evidence it isn’t to great.</p>
<p>Thesmart1- Please elaborate and tell me how BC is a better institution?</p>
<p>they are slightly lower academically but still in the same league that’s what I am trying to tell you. The schools you are mentioning are a tier lower and cannot break into that tier let along beat out BC…</p>
<p>Vinnyli - Thanks i can probably find a website/list like that at any Top 100 university websites.</p>
<p>Thesmart1 - As per the academic ranking of world universites conducted by Shanghai Jiao Tong University UT Austin is ranked 38th in the world. BC is nowhere to be found. Below i listed the regiments of how they conduct this ranking systerm.</p>
<p>*The Academic Ranking of World Universities is compiled by Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The ranking compared 1200 higher education institutions worldwide according to a formula that took into account alumni winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals (10 percent), staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals (20 percent), “highly-cited researchers in 21 broad subject categories” (20 percent), articles published in Nature and Science (20 percent), the Science Citation Index and Social Sciences Citation Index (20 percent) and the per capita academic performance (on the indicators above) of an institution (10 percent). </p>
<p>*By the way i dont even want a response from you regarding my question because you brought up FOrbes as a legitimate ranking system.</p>
<p>I’ve heard a LOT of stuff about BC being really racially segregated with the majority (whites) being ******bags. although BC may have great academics, the actual undergrad experience leaves a lot to be desired (if you’re a minority). </p>
<p>Also, I agree with ljbw and a few other posters with similar opinions.</p>
<p>Every single Ivy is overrated. they’re really not ‘OMG to die for’. Im sure the education is great but besides the edu, holding a degree that says graduate of [insert Ivy name here], is very valuable and goes a far way. Also, NYU is so overrated. It’s really a scrub Ivy and people, in general, buy into the “NYU is close to being Ivy status” mumbo jumbo.</p>
<p>I’ve seen that ranking before. Now, that ranking, I believe, is much more legitimate as a graduate ranking rather than an undergraduate ranking. It measures more of the prestige of the faculty and their research rather than the academic quality of the undergraduate institution. If we were to go by that ranking, then the University of Colorado, University of Pittsburg, and Boston University are much better undergraduate institutions than Brown, Rice, and Dartmouth (which anyone would call BS). Those rankings do not accurately depict the quality of undergraduate education any more than Forbes does.</p>