My guess is it’s full tuition. The Chancellor’s Scholarship which is a true full ride at Pitt (with all expenses paid) requires interviews and is usually awarded in the spring. Full tuition isn’t bad though. Pitt probably offers opportunities that match BC- Pitt has a guaranteed internship program and is well respected in the region (and nationally).
BC is viewed as below other Boston schools (Harvard, MIT, Tufts, Babson (for business) even BU and NU (in some peoples’ eyes.)
Actually, traditionally, BC is considered higher than BU and often for Babson depending on major, and definitely higher than BU. It’s also matter whether one is Catholic or not, since BC is one of the “great” national Catholic schools (with Notre Dame, G’Town, Holy Cross, perhaps Santa Clara.)
The only reason a student would choose full pay BC over a full ride at Pitt would be if a Catholic Jesuit education was important to her. The OP doesn’t even mention this aspect.
A top student will flourish at Pitt just as strongly as at BC in a much more diverse environment. .
^I agree on this: if BC is full pay and Pitt is full tuition with Honors College, then Pitt is a better choice. If both offer financial aid, then it becomes trickier.
What about waiting til you fill out the FAFSA and send it to all the schools on your list? What’s the big hurry at the moment? We plan to wait until we have ALL offers on the table.
Good point about not hurrying on the decision and to wait to see what else comes in. And I also think visiting the top contenders might be the best way to get closure, and to see how you feel at both schools. Not sure where @quakerstake is getting this from:
BC is viewed as below other Boston schools (Harvard, MIT, Tufts, Babson (for business) even BU and NU (in some peoples’ eyes.)
No one is trying to compare BC to Harvard and MIT, that is obvious. And Harvard doesn’t have business, and MIT is more techy so a bit different anyway. Tufts is a great school and doesn’t have business but stats on admitted students is completely on par with BC. Babson is NOT better than BC, not sure where you are getting that from, nor is BU. Northeastern has gotten really hard to get into but I would also challenge that one. I know we all agree that we can’t use rankings too much in comparing schools, but not sure how you could make such strong statements that defy what the rankings and stats suggest. Take a look at the stats of who gets into the schools you mention…it’s not the only criteria in determining what schools are “better” but it might be the only objective information we have to assess the schools “worth”.
At the end of the day we all know that what makes a school better than another is based on such a variety of variables that it is impossible to predict. The full tuition at Pitt makes it a fabulous offer that should be very seriously considered. BC was your first choice, so maybe go back to financial aid and see if you can get something??? Tell them about your offer from Pitt? My gut is it won’t matter but at least you can say you tried.
You are obviously a great candidate and either school will be lucky to have you…go with your gut!
Here’s another vote for the full ride. I know how turning down your top choice can be difficult, but you are starting off in a very good place financially with no loans to pay back. If the Boston College option were Harvard, then I think you’d have something to consider. As it is, the full ride is a no-brainer.
Pitt, hands down. Aside from being a great university with an outstanding honors college program, the city is incredible. Way underrated, IMO. Spend any amount of time there this spring, and you’ll very likely be convinced. (And have lunch at Primanti’s 
)
BC is a great school and provides a great college experience (though it’s not the top school or in the top 3 in its metro area and it’s easy to have an inferiority complex in Boston with Harvard and MIT, and to lesser extent, Tufts nearby). Carnegie Mellon does not overshadow Pitt in Pittsburgh (and there are cross-registration opportunities with Carnegie Mellon if that interests the OP). Pitt is a great school in its own right and has a terrific honors program whose graduates regularly earn top international and national scholarships like the Rhodes and Fulbright (plus for the OP, full tuition should be hard to turn down).
Babson is generally ranked number 1 in the country for entrepreneurship so for that major anyway, it would surpass BC. (For what it’s worth, it is featured in a post on this page: 1722365-money-magazine-puts-babson-webb-institute-above-mit-and-ivies).
I would agree that BC business is better than BU and NU though the difference is not all that great. (All are in the top 25 in Businessweek rankings - though the Businessweek rankings are not the most credible. Their rankings heavily weight student surveys that are easily manipulated and any ranking that does not rank Wharton undergraduate number 1 isn’t credible. Notre Dame, while excellent, isn’t thought of as the number one business school anywhere other than in Businessweek). Some people swear by the Co-op program at NU. BU is especially strong in marketing due to its school of communications.
These are all great schools with great business programs and I’m sure the graduates are all prepared well for successful careers…at the end of the day, if you have a good work ethic, coming out of any of these schools, success should come! Business schools in general have gotten very hard to get into because students want to and need to graduate with marketable skills. I hope the economy continues to grow so that there are a lot of job opportunities for all of the graduates from these great schools. Good luck to everyone in finding the right college fit!
As for your comments on BC being inferior to Tufts, I think you are right from a liberal arts perspective but because Tufts doesn’t have a b school, not sure the two can really be compared (BC bus. vs. Tufts). There is no exact formula but stats for admits to BC bus. are on par with Tufts admits overall. Again, just trying to use “objective” criteria. They are both great schools…BC might just have the advantage when it comes to the whole college package (the school spirit and rah-rah, but not everyone wants that.)
As it relates to the Business Week Rankings (BC #4, NE #19, BU #25, Babson #26), they all do worse in the U.S. News Rankings (BC #21, Babson #29, BU #39, NE #62), and I tend to agree that you can’t always go by the rankings. I think more people lately have been using the Business Week rankings because they can just be googled and are free…the U.S. News Rankings are locked and have to be paid for and I find them referenced less, I think just because they are harder to access.
I agree with your comment about it being suspicious that Wharton was behind some schools…when we toured Penn State this summer we had a private tour of their business school (really nice school by the way, can’t go wrong there), they had stats posted on job placement that trumped Wharton. I guess it all comes down to how you look at the numbers.
Again, all great choices…
I’d take the full ride and work my tail off for a high GPA. Maybe a double major… seminars…internships, and all sorts of campus activities along the way. College is stressful enough. Not having to worry about it’s cost is something few students ever get to experience. You’ll have a lot more free time than students who have to work some crappy job to pay their rent and the piece of mind not having to worry about financial aid year to year.
You could use all that money saved on grad school… which costs MORE by the way with less available financial aid. If you do your part you can still be a strong candidate for the top programs.
Good luck and congratulations on being accepted to so many great programs!
You might even get into a better grad school with a higher GPA because it sounds like you will be at the top of your class at Pitt (because they gave you the scholarship).
Most people would take a full ride to Pitt over paying at Boston College which is a fine school along the likes of USC, URochester, Georgia TECH, Lehigh -US News consistently ranks BC in the low 30’s. In Boston, Harvard, MIT, Tufts, Holy Cross have decades longer academic tradition than BC, BU, and Northeastern as the latter 3 schools were commuter schools for most of their history with Northeastern making tremendous leaps in recent US News rankings…
@par72, I’ve never heard of BC as being a commuter school.
BC has never been a commuter school. Its campus is 6 or so miles out of the city and feels almost suburban. NU and BU, which are both in the heart of Boston and are well-integrated within the city, are commuter schools.
BC was a commuter college until the 1950s. Since then it began building dorms and is now no longer a commuter college.
I would go with Pitt. BC is a great institution, I think it’s more prestigious than Pitt, but not by much.
I have a friend who had Pitt as his safety school and he ended up there (and not by his choice :(). Despite that, he really loves it there :D. If BC gave you at least some financial aid, then we could talk, but I think the price difference is just way too large.
BC did not become primarily residential until the 1970’s. Along with NU and BU it was one to the “streetcar colleges” due to all three schools being on the MBTA Green Line. If you were a graduate of a Catholic high school in the Boston Archdiocese it was a virtual safety school until about 1980.
Pitt is very underrated, and a good institution, that’s not to say BC isn’t but with a full ride im not sure the small bit of prestige is worth it
If you aren’t getting much in the way of $ from BC then you graduate with debt of ~$200k. Easy decision for me. Congrats on the award!!