<p>i was accepted to holy cross and waitlisted to villanova wich is weird because it probably should have been the other way around...anyways as of now im going to holy cross but if anyone hears from the villanova waitlist please share!!!!</p>
<p>how is this weird? holy cross is a great school, i have had family members attend there and get great education, but i think objectively that villanova is a better school, no offense. even if you dont get off nova’s waitlist you will still have a great time at hc…good luck</p>
<p>Holy Cross is an outstanding school–I’m biased as a graduate and the father of a graduate as well. I’m sure Villanova is a fine school in its own right, but I think you are right, alisonp, in suggesting that the accept/waitlist situation is not the norm. I wish you all the best if you do matriculate at The Cross.</p>
<p>Villanova is a better basketball school but not as highly regarded for academics as HC.</p>
<p>Villanova is equal in selectivity (slightly more selective probably) and is academically equal. The difference is that Villanova is more of a business and engineering school (with strong liberal arts students but less of them). Holy Cross is a liberal arts school with no engineering programs and no business school as far as I know and a smaller student body.</p>
<p>thank you sjuhawk…nova’s engineering school is perennially in the top 15, as is the nursing school…business slipped a little this year, but it still is in the 20’s i believe. hc may have a better liberal arts program, but i think thats their main focus…on the other hand nova puts more emphasis on business, engineering, etc…two different focuses, but still two great schools</p>
<p>Princeton Review rates the academics at HC a 98 and gives Villanova only an 88.</p>
<p>You can verify this for yourself by creating an account at [Test</a> Prep: GMAT, GRE, LSAT, MCAT, SAT, ACT, and More](<a href=“http://www.princetonreview.com%5DTest”>http://www.princetonreview.com)</p>
<p>True, but that is based entirely on student surveys! It is not an objective rating. Liberal arts schools virtually always have higher Princeton Review academic ratings than larger schools because of the smaller class sizes and availability of professors. Look at some of the top State Schools: Michigan (academic rating of 83), UCLA (academic rating of 80), UNC (academic rating of 84). Even look at larger Ivy League colleges like Cornell, it has an academic rating of 88 and U of Penn has an academic rating of 87. BC has an academic rating of 87. So are you saying that the academics at Holy Cross are better than at all of these other schools? </p>
<p>While you are at it, look at the selectivity rating. Both have a selectivity rating of 96 (with villanova having higher math S.A.Ts as you would expect from a school with business and engineering majors.) These numbers show you the quality of a college’s students. As I said above, they have equally talented students but with different focuses.</p>
<p>sjuhawk i wonder where your loyalties lie haha…i keed i keed</p>
<p>Are you saying that Villanova is more like a state school and that is why its academic rating is so much lower?</p>
<p>I am saying that larger schools tend to have lower academic ratings because the academic rating is based entirely on student surveys. Villanova is almost 3 times the size of HC. BC is even bigger. Students at small schools tend to be more favorable (less objective) in their surveys because they have closer contact with professors and administrators (i.e. bias) and easier access to the classes they want. My point is that those ratings are meaningless unless you believe HC is a much better school than Penn (87), Cornell (88), Duke (91), Michigan (83), Johns Hopkins (86), Northwestern (88), UNC Chapel Hill (84), California Institute of Technology (88).</p>
<p>I am not aware of the specific methodology of the academic rating (fill me in if you are) except that it is based on the results of student surveys. Probably questions like how much do you study? Do you like your professors? Is the classwork challenging? etc. If it is as I suspect, it is more of a student satisfaction rating than an academic rating. </p>
<p>What I do know is that the ratings are meaningless when the results are so illogical. A methodology would be helpful in advising what the ratings really mean. But to say Holy Cross is better than BC or Nova because of the higher Princeton Review academic rating, you would also have to say that Holy Cross is better than Penn, Cornell, Northwestern, Duke, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, Notre Dame, MIT, Cal Tech, etc. since they all have lower academic ratings than Holy Cross. That would be an absurd assertion.</p>
<p>As far as my loyalties, I want to go to grad school at Nova but as of now, I have no connection to the school. I just try to be honest.</p>
<p>I want to make something clear - Holy Cross is a great school. They have one of the best premed programs anywhere. All the criticism here is toward the Princeton Review rating, not directed at Holy Cross.</p>
<p>Harvard has a 99 Academic rating yet has approximately the same number of students as Villanova. The students are the end customers of a college and the academics are the primary component to a school so student survey results regarding the academics at a college are quite important when selecting a college. If the students at the college rate the academics highly, it is worth noting.</p>
<p>So now Holy Cross is on par with Harvard?</p>
<p>all the rating stuff is great, but in the end it really is what the individual makes out of their college experience…it is certainly possible here, and at other prestigious schools i might add, to scrape together a degree and take nothing more challenging than underwater basket weaving…while i am being a little bit facetious(?) here, the point is imho that one can get a great education whether at nova or hc or wherever else</p>
<p>I agree with that sentiment 100%. The school can only do so much. The majority of the responsibility for education lies on the shoulders of each individual.</p>