<p>Also not aware of any selective LAC’s that use big-time athletic success as a plan to bolster its academic reputation-most LAC’s are DIV3 or in HC’s case DIV1AA. It is amazing that HC achieved so much athletic glory with male enrollments of less than 1800 students-1947 NCAA champs basketball, 1955 NIT champs, Orange Bowl in the 40’s, NCAA baseball champs in the 50’s, about 15 NCAA BASKETBALL appearances, one of the biggest upsets in college hockey when HC beat MINNESOTA IN THE NCAA’s etc. Like many small selective schools Holy Cross put resources into academics and not athletics to bolster its image and based on CNBC’s payscale ranking of 12-Holy Cross has done well.</p>
<p>“Many of the [BC] alum’s are from the pre-“all that era” so they, to be blunt, are not a group of go getters. They tend to be more of the type that likes to live off the current reputation of the school forgetting that they are pretty much a group of goofs ( and a stingy group of goofs at that). Seriously that school did not start to go up in the ratings until the '90’s so how strong can the alumni group be???”</p>
<p>Even by College Confidential standards, this is a bizarre and desperate claim. I think most people who know much about HC respect it very much, but the HC boosters here are coming off as bitter, petty, and purple with envy.</p>
<p>ccmom33409: Couldn’t agree more. I also went to high school in the Boston area in the 1970s and the stellar students definitely did not attend BC. They were typically the B students who either went to UMass, Northeastern, or if they could afford it BC. The better Boston area students went to Tufts, Holy Cross, Colgate, RPI and a few ivies like Harvard, Brown, Dartmouth.</p>
<p>I wonder how much this thread is affected by the fact that some of us are in the region and know some of the nuances in the reps of, say, BC vs HC. And, some are from elsewhere, looking through a different lens. Some likely know plenty of grads of both and have had a chance to form opinions.</p>
<p>I went to high school near Boston. The top students typically went Ivy. Some went to Tufts and BC. Holy Cross was not really on the same page. Of course, I didn’t go to high school in the 1970s or 1980s, when Holy Cross was considered a better school than it is now. Today, Holy Cross is better than BU but not as good as BC (unless you’re an alum or affiliated in some way).</p>
<p>Holy Cross has more in common with Colgate, Bucknell, Colby, Trinity and Bowdoin in academics and student profile. HC has a large percentage of its alumni as doctors and dentists, and corporate/Wall Street professionals and its strong alumni network organized in most major cities is a big advantage for HC’s recent alums(Holy Cross sponsors many alumni events that introduce new grads to select fields such as technology, finance,etc).</p>
<p>Honestly, we’ve already been all over Colgate et al.</p>
<p>“They were typically the B students who either went to UMass, Northeastern, or if they could afford it BC. The better Boston area students went to Tufts, Holy Cross, Colgate, RPI and a few ivies like Harvard, Brown, Dartmouth.”</p>
<p>More desperation. First of all, the difference in price back then isn’t anything like it is now. Many private colleges’ tuitions didn’t go over $3000 per year until the very late 1970’s. So the concept that there were tons of people who were at UMass just because they couldn’t afford BC is an exaggeration. There were no doubt some, but it’s not like today where private and public tuitions are worlds apart. </p>
<p>Second, anybody who claims that students in the Boston area during ANY decade have had Tufts, RPI, and Colgate on the tops of their wish lists is not telling the truth. Tufts is fairly obscure even in the Boston area, and the concept that many people in the Boston area have, at any time, looked to upstate New York for a good school is preposterous.</p>
<p>It will be more productive for the Holy Cross boosters here to identify and promote unique and impressive features of their own college, rather than to flail about with wild claims about other colleges & what went on 30 years ago. In other words, crow about things like it being the only Jesuit LAC, and the hidden joys of Worcester. Telling people it USED to be better than BC, or that it’s only an hour from Boston only highlight the fact that it isn’t better than BC NOW, and that half of BC’s campus in IN Boston.</p>
<p>To those claiming that BC’s students were little more tham lazy goof-offs back in the 1970’s, I was a student there then and I can tell you that there was a palpable, intellectual atmosphere there – at least among the people I knew. The classes were very challenging. There were students who turned down Ivy colleges and Seven Sisters to attend BC. I knew one fellow, a classics major, who was awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant. The Dean Of Yale’s Divinty School is a BC alumnus – from those “lazy, goof-off” years or earlier – when the typical student could barely write his name… There are countless examples of graduates from those days who would make one look very foolish indeed to assert such tripe about the quality of the BC student body before it was FINALLY recognized as being a very strong place to pursue a degree – both undergraduate, graduate and professional.</p>
<p>Don’t make the mistake of assuming that because BC people have tended to be modest and reserved about their achievements – a tribute to the Jesuit ideal – that they are to be overlooked as being not quite up to standard. BC goes about its business quietly with an eye to continual improvement, both of itself and of the world around us – thus living by it motto, borrowed from Homer’s Iliad, “Ever to Excel”.</p>
<p>i tend to mostly agree with informative and par72. </p>
<p>I’m very sorry, but even though Holy Cross is a great school, I would not list it with Tufts and most certainly, indefinitely, not with Bowdoin College. I think HC is very comparable to U of Richmond, William & Mary, Colby and Bates - all of which are truly terrific schools.</p>
<p>I agree with ohcollege123 that HC is a terrific school. </p>
<p>It has always had and, to this day has, a very regional reputation. It is reasonably well known in New England and in pockets of greater NYC and DC. Because it has historically drawn froim middle and upper-middle class Catholic families, it will be known in those communities where there is a high concentartion of these families. </p>
<p>HC has long had a strong pre-med program and turns out a number of graduates who go on for the Ph.D. in Classics, due to fine Greek and Latin programs. It doesn’t have the same record across the board of many other schools mentioned on this thread in terms of graduate school admissions at top schools. See the WSJ Feeder School Rankings. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.wsjclassroomedition.com/pdfs/wsj_college_092503.pdf[/url]”>http://www.wsjclassroomedition.com/pdfs/wsj_college_092503.pdf</a></p>
<p>It unfortunatley has not kept pace with BC in terms of its rate of improvement over the last two decades and so now BC is a half a click above HC in reputation and overall desireability. Its location in Worcester has always been an drag on its attractiveness.</p>
<p>I stand behind my original post.</p>
<p>Holy Cross is a mid-tier LAC. Equivalent schools:</p>
<p>Bates
Hamilton
Conn College
Lafayette
Franklin & Marshall
Kalamazoo
Denison
Lawrence
Occidental
Whitman </p>
<p>Larger school equivalents:</p>
<p>Villanova
Univeristy of Richmond
University of Santa Clara</p>
<p>It is not equivalent to BC or Georgetown, HC’s two Jesuit cousins. BC is a quarter click above; Georgetown a full click above. Bucknell and Colgate are also somewhat better schools academically than HC.</p>
<p>HC has enjoyed a national reputation for over 100 years. Holy Cross and Georgetown were the only 2 top Jesuit schools that were mainly boarding students(dorms not commuter schools). HC also has drawn students from Jesuit high schools around the country and has strong alumni clubs in most major cities. Most professionals in medicine, business know of Holy Cross due to the success of its grads and in politics/sports. Three Supreme Court Justices have HC connections(including 1 alum), 1 Senator, 3-5 Congressmen, Chris MattHEWS, Obama’s speechwriter, etc.</p>
<p>
Most schools have a largely regional reputation, so it’s not an insult, but I had never heard of Holy Cross until I came to this website. I had only heard of the other one, thanks to Rudy. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have known that one either, but that was a pretty big movie.</p>
<p>I am, of course, very far away from the Northeast. Expecting someone in the South or West to know about Holy Cross isn’t too likely, so “national reputation” might not be the best word. Of course, LACs tend to be less well known than universities, so it’s not like that’s a comment on academics.</p>
<p>Personally, I think the OP has gotten good solid answers to the question, and bickering over which school is better or more prestigious is rude and pointless.</p>
<p>par72 ^ This is simply not true. HC has a very limited national reputation.</p>
<p>Ballet Girl, Par72/HCCrusader likely work for Holy Cross. Take a look at their previous posting history.</p>
<p>If they worked for Holy Cross, I doubt they would want to spend their free time also boosting the school. They’re probably just alumni/ae who want to get more students to apply. Not necessarily a bad thing, when done in the right way.</p>
<p>I guess BC is better than Holy Cross after all. Forbes just came out with their best colleges list and ranked BC #26 and Holy Cross #27. </p>
<p>[America’s</a> Best Colleges List - Forbes](<a href=“http://www.forbes.com/top-colleges/list/]America’s”>Forbes America’s Top Colleges List 2022)</p>
<p>
Just looked it over, and I like their [url=<a href=“http://blogs.forbes.com/michaelnoer/2011/08/03/americas-top-colleges/]methodology[/url”>America's Top Colleges]methodology[/url</a>] better than US News. It’s more practical and less subjective from outside sources. Some things are wrong, obviously, but not as much. So maybe it shows that the BC/HC people should just stop bickering, given how they’re pretty much the same level, given this more practical measure.</p>
<p>Holy Cross is below Georgetown and Tufts, but definitely above Princeton, Yale, and Ohio State. Not as good as Kalamazoo but it is much better than Bowdoin. Harvard is a peer, but Radcliffe isn’t.</p>
<p>D’Edd: We could just find out which browser HC and BC use.</p>