<p>This is a serious question, i am not a troll or anything like that.</p>
<p>I would like a logical comparison of the two and not just "this is the college i go to so, yep its better."</p>
<p>Here is information I came up with comparing the two, but I know there are other factors, which you guys can point out to state which is better. </p>
<p>Nova avg ACT score: 30
HC avg ACT score: 28-29</p>
<p>US news ranks HC around #30 on the liberal arts list.
US news ranks Nova on a totally different list as #1 in regional North Universities. (tough to compare based on US news putting them in different categories.)</p>
<p>Business week ranks Nova undergrad b school as #7 and doesnt list HC in the top 25 for business. I tried to find a undergrad med ranking but couldn't find one. </p>
<p>Barrons ranks both Nova and HC as Most competitive: in the same category as the ivys, gtown, ND, JHU etc.</p>
<p>According to the National Merit website: HC in their 2010 freshman class has 0 merit scholars and Villanova has 9. (nova is a larger school, approx 7,000 compared to 3000).</p>
<p>HC has a greater endowment at 500 million and Nova has at 300 million. </p>
<p>To me they look pretty similar, nova having a bit of an edge, but everyone has different in puts...what do you guys think?</p>
<p>I would just read everyones inputs on this Yahoo Answers question since a lot of those users posted factual information to back their claims up. Plus, I’m too lazy to tell them myself 
Lol. The question was posted two years ago, so some of the numbers could be slightly changed.</p>
<p>[Holy</a> Cross, Villanova, or Fairfield? Which is the best? - Yahoo! Answers](<a href=“Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos”>Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos)</p>
<p>PS: I didn’t choose that link out of bias. I just typed in “Holy Cross or Villanova” into the Google search bar and that was the first link I got.</p>
<p>HC is more selective.</p>
<p>acceptance rates for top Catholic colleges per US News & World Reports:</p>
<p>Georgetown 19.8%
Notre Dame 28.6%
BC 30.1%
Holy Cross 36.5%
Villanova 46.4%
Fordham 49.6%
Providence 59.8%
Fairfield 64.7%
Catholic 86.0%</p>
<p>I applied and was accepted to both schools this year. I visited both and HC seemed to have a much stronger student body. HC is a liberal arts school so they don’t have a business school. HC has a strong bio/premed program. Overall HC is more wellknown and respected than Nova (thus the national v. regional rankings). The reason for lower ACT scores may be b/c HC is score optional. Both are good schools, but in my opinion HC is a better school.</p>
<p>Both are top catholic schools rivaling ND, and Gtown, and pretty equal to BC, but I think Villanova is better than Holy Cross. Villanova typically attracts brighter students as shown by Nova having more merit scholars than HC and by having slightly better SAT/ACT scores. While HC’s premed is phenomenal, I think Nova’s business is more respected than Hc’s premed. Also Villanova is a much larger school and so it’s acceptance rate will be greater than HC’s. UMIch and UVirginia (both big schools) which usnews ranked in the top thirty have acceptance rates of 50% and 33% respectively.</p>
<p>HC stands as being 100% need-based for financial aid.
They rarely give out merit aid and when they do, it’s only handed out to a select few.
I wouldn’t judge a brighter student body based on merit aid …</p>
<p>The Ellis Scholarship is a full tuition scholarship which is awarded to a Worcester resident high school graduate.
The Brooks Scholarship is a full tuition scholarship awarded to a major in the music department.
The Bean Scholarship is a full tuition scholarship awarded to a major in the classics department.
Holy Cross Basketball Scholarships are for participation in men’s or women’s basketball. </p>
<p>That’s it.
Their aid distribution works differently than other schools.</p>
<p>^I wasn’t talking about merit aid, but the actual National Merit Scholarship Corp. All the top schools have students who are either NM scholars or NM Finalists…Harvard has 220, Notre Dame 50, Georgetown 28…and Holy Cross has 0, which shows that it isn’t typically attracting the kinds of academic kids the other top catholic schools are.</p>
<p>If you are going to use National Merit scholarships as a criterion, you should keep in mind that many National Merit scholarships are university sponsored. The report that I read says that Villanova sponsors five per year whereas Holy Cross is not listed as a sponsor institution. Although, in upper years, there are National Merit Scholars at Holy Cross (I know because I am one).</p>
<p>Princeton Review Academic Rating
Holy Cross 95
Villanova 88</p>
<p>Princeton Review Admissions Selectivity Rating
Holy Cross 96
Villanova 95</p>
<p>I dont know how correct in terms of academic rating priceton review really is…isn’t holy cross ranked equal or better than Harvard? I Dont think anyone would say hc or nova is better than harvard. </p>
<p>Here are data sets from Villanova and HC of 2010-2011. </p>
<p>(holy Cross) 25th Percentile 75th Percentile
SAT Critical Reading 590 680
SAT Math 600 690</p>
<p>(villanova) 25th percentile 75th percentile
SAT Critical Reading 590 680
SAT Math 620 710</p>
<p>(holy cross)
Percent in top tenth of high school graduating class 64%
Percent in top quarter of high school graduating class 91%</p>
<p>(villanova)
Percent in top tenth of high school graduating class 59%
Percent in top quarter of high school graduating class 90%</p>
<p>(villanova)
GPA of 3.75 or higher 60%
GPA of 3.5-3.74 23%</p>
<p>(holy cross)
GPA of 3.75 or higher 53%
GPA of 3.5-3.74 26%</p>
<p>Harvard’s Academic Rating is 99 by the Princeton Review. You can look it up on line.</p>
<p>Nova2011: I think it’s possible that HC doesn’t have any National Merit Finalists because they don’t give out aid based on pure merit. National Merit Scholars would get a lot of scholarship money from Nova and other schools with meriit aid. And money talks; which is why they would go to another school.</p>
<p>Lily, Villanova does offer scholarships to finalists and merit scholars, while HC does not. It’s a tactic schools use to get very academic students to their colleges. It works the same way sports do…one school will have better players because they offer scholarship money to them, that is why Ohio State football would beat Harvard (ivies dont do sports scholarships). The merit scholars, regardless of how they got there, are a sign of how intelligent and competitive a college class will be.</p>
<p>There is some truth to that, but not all intelligent, competitive students are necessarily merit scholars. I feel like both schools are very comparable and you can point out the merit finalists to say Nova’s a better school. But I can point out that HC is ranked 30 nationally and Nova doesn’t even make national rankings to say HC is a better school. I think what makes Nova or HC better than the other is what the student is looking for in a college experience. I chose HC over Nova because I want to study Biology, wanted to be near (but not in) Boston, wanted a Greek-free college experience, and liked the small liberal arts community.</p>
<p>I am not saying a school is better based on how many NMSQT scholar/finalists it has, I was just saying that one school is attracting students with more notable academic achievements as represented by Nova having more scholars and higher avg SAT scores(however there isn’t much differerence between the scores) than the other.
Also USnews does not rank Holy Cross as a National University and so is not nationally ranked. Holy Cross is in a different cetegory from National Universities and Villanova. Holy cross is #30 for Liberal arts colleges, and Villanova is #1 for regional colleges. Hence, if you were to strictly go off USnews rankings you couldn’t say Holy Cross is the 30th best college in the US nor could you say villanova is #1. Many would say if you were to have just one list, nova and HC would fall around #45 best US colleges. Also many would say Villanova has a bigger reputation than Holy Cross, mainly through Wall street connections and its Nationally ranked basketball team.</p>
<p>By nationally ranked I meant it was ranked among all other LACs, not just the ones in the area. The 2 categories of colleges are “National Universities” and “LACs”; not one list is ‘better’ than another, but comparing a school like Boston U and HC is like comparing apples and oranges, thus the 2 lists. From what I have noticed as a Californian is that most people were totally unframiliar with Villanova (the only thing the people who had heard of it thought of was basketball) and only a couple more people had heard of HC. Neither are particularly well known on the west coast. </p>
<p>As I mentioned before I applied and got into both schools, but after my Nova visit I knew it wasn’t right for me. But as a school it was a beautiful campus and of course has strong academics.</p>
<p>Villanova Endowment: 297 million for 6335 undergrads and 3200 grad students
Holy Cross Endowment: 570 million for 2900 undergrads and 0 grad students</p>
<p>^yeah I was saying that in the beginning that Holy Cross has a larger endowment, but is that an indication of how academic a school is? Because I know schools like U-Illinois and others have very large endowment even for the large size but still have very low academics and academic standards. </p>
<p>Liley and Nova, both of your comments have been very helpful in regards to each school’s academic standing. I think both schools are somewhat lacking in reputation, although I have family in seattle, washinton who had heard a lot about villanova but when I brought up holy cross they thought it was a school for nuns and priests…lol</p>
<p>Yeah, I kind of wish the name wouldn’t be so religious … I think they once considered naming the school Fenwick College (?)</p>
<p>I only know a few people outside of the medical field with Holy Cross degrees, but they felt in their fields, it was well respected. I suppose it depends on where you are, where you apply, what grad schools, but if you know colleges, Holy Cross is very respected.
A student at Oxford told a professer she went to Holy Cross and his passing comment was “Rigorous!” (she concurred)
I know Villanova has a well respected business school and I think if you were interested in that, you would have more opportunites with a business school. HC has accounting/economics but not the breadth of Nova.</p>