<p>I’m of the belief that Holy Cross’ academics are significantly stronger than BC’s, but BC’s national rep is way above Holy Cross. BC has never been known for their academics and has simply blown up due to its location and sports, but is nonetheless a great school (I didn’t get in, but got into HC). Yes, boosters of HC are fine, but really have to chill out because sometimes it gets out of control.</p>
<p>
Nevermind this; the methodology sounded practical, but the information is wildly unreliable, subjective, and plain ridiculous (including ratemyprofessor).</p>
<p>
Or just move them to Kazakhstan so they’ll all use Opera.</p>
<p>An interesting set of rankings based on one criterion: the academic quality of the freshman class</p>
<p>Tier I
Amherst College
Brown University
Cal Tech
Columbia University
Cornell University
Dartmouth College
Duke University
Emory University
Harvard College
Harvey Mudd
Johns Hopkins University
Middlebury College
MIT
Northwestern University
Pomona College
Princeton University
Rice University
Stanford University
Swarthmore College
University of Chicago
University of Pennsylvania
Washington University: STL
Wesleyan University
Williams College
Yale University</p>
<p>Tier II
Bard College
Bates College
Bowdoin College
Brandeis University
Carleton College
Carnegie Mellon
Claremont McKenna
Colby College
College of William & Mary
Cooper Union
Davidson College
Georgetown University
Georgia Tech
Grinnell College
Haverford College
Macalester College
New York University
Oberlin College
Reed College
Tufts College
University of Notre Dame
Vanderbilt University
Vassar College
Washington and Lee
Wellesley College</p>
<p>Tier III
Barnard College
California: Berkeley
Boston College
Boston University
Bucknell University
Case Western Reserve
Colgate University
Connecticut College
Hamilton College
Kenyon College
Lehigh University
Rhodes College
Rose-Hulman Institute of Tech
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)
Scripps College
Trinity College
Tulane University
University of Michigan
University of Richmond
University of Rochester
University of Virginia
US Air Force
USC
Wake Forest University
Whitman College</p>
<p>Tier IV
College of the Holy Cross
Colorado College
Colorado School of Mines
Franklin & Marshall College
Furman University
George Washington University
Grove City College
Illinois Wesleyan University
Kalamazoo College
Lafayette College
Lewis & Clark College
Mt. Holyoke College
North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Puget Sound
Sarah Lawrence
Smith College
St. Olaf College
Stevens Institute of Technology
Trinity University
UCLA
University of Maryland
University of Wisconsin
US Coast Guard
US Military Academy - West Point
Villanova University
Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI)</p>
<p>
Just took a look, and I’m confused. Take a “Tier 1” school (Emory) and a “Tier 2” school (Notre Dame) and compare their freshman class academic stats from their common data sets:</p>
<p>[Emory[/url</a>]</p>
<p>SAT R: 640-730
SAT M: 660-750
SAT W: 650-740</p>
<p>ACT: 29-33</p>
<p>85% in top tenth of high school graduating class
98% in top quarter of high school graduating class
100% in top half of high school graduating class</p>
<p>[url=<a href=“https://www3.nd.edu/~instres/CDS/CDS_2009-2010.pdf]Notre”>https://www3.nd.edu/~instres/CDS/CDS_2009-2010.pdf]Notre</a> Dame](<a href=“http://www.emory.edu/PROVOST/IPR/documents/factbookprofile/CDS2009_2010_UPDATED042110.pdf]Emory[/url”>http://www.emory.edu/PROVOST/IPR/documents/factbookprofile/CDS2009_2010_UPDATED042110.pdf)</p>
<p>SAT R: 650-750
SAT M: 680-760
SAT W: 640-730</p>
<p>ACT: 31-34</p>
<p>89% in top tenth of high school graduating class
97% in top quarter of high school graduating class
100% in top half of high school graduating class</p>
<p>I really don’t see why they should be in different tiers, especially with Emory on top, if this was the only data considered.</p>
<p>So I don’t think it’s an accurate means of comparing HC and BC, either. Rather, if you wanted something with this criteria, just look up their common data sets and post them like this.</p>
<p>Holy Cross</p>
<p>SAT R 590-680
SAT M 600-690
SAT W 600-690</p>
<p>ACT 27-31</p>
<p>64% in top tenth of high school graduating class
91% in top quarter of high school graduating class
100% in top half of high school graduating class</p>
<p>Boston College</p>
<p>SAT R 610-700
SAT M 640-730
SAT W 630-720</p>
<p>ACT 29-32</p>
<p>79% in top tenth of high school graduating class
95% in top quarter of high school graduating class
100% in top half of high school graduating class</p>
<p>Forbes rankings appear reasonable-Wiliams, Princeton, Amherst in the top4. Yale at 14 seems low but yes BC and HC at 26 and 27 are on a par with each other. HC(and BC) are ahead of 28Rice, 30Dartmouth, 37Colgate, 38Bowdoin,39Tufts,82BU, and 91Brandeis. Looks like HC has done well in Forbes and was ranked 12 in CNBC’s Payscale salary study.</p>
<p>J.D. Power and Associates rates Holy Cross highly (J.D. Power graduated from HC ;->)</p>
<p>Sorry, I agree with the points made above. Never heard of Holy Cross before coming to CC. I don’t think it has a national reputation at all. Not sure most people outside Boston really differentiate between BC and BU, but at least they’ve heard of BC because of sports and BC / BU’s names are pretty self-explanatory.</p>
<p>
Agree, though before coming to CC, all I knew about BC was that it was a good Catholic school near Boston (my dad, a watcher of college sports, knew some more), and all I knew about BU was that Isaac Asimov used to teach there.</p>
<p>^ Nice Asimov reference! BU, like HC, was better in the 1970s and 1980s, though both have really fallen off in the last ten to twenty years.</p>
<p>
Well, if I’m not mistaken, he lectured at the med school (biology, I think), so it wasn’t undergrad, and his strong point was still science fiction.</p>
<p>Bu, BC, and Northeastern have common academic traditions vs Tufts and Holy Cross that have great pre-med programs and very good alumni networks. Again, Holy Cross like ND, Duke. Dartmouth and Colgate rate very highly in the Payscale salary study for their graduates.</p>
<p>Payscale is a horrendous way to measure the quality of a school. Self-reported. Holy Cross people tend to be more proud of their school, so not surprised at all if salaries were inflated.</p>
<p>^Yeah there’s really no way of getting through to par72, he’ll cite random areas that HC is high in like Payscale and alumni giving and claim it makes the school the most amazing one ever.</p>
<p>Holy Cross has more Rhodes scholars at 5 than Tufts 4 and Boston College 2. HC is also one of the very few LAC’s to have a Nobel Prize winner among its medical alums. The New York Times described HC graduate Bill Simmons of ESPN as the most influential/visible sports writer.</p>
<p>this thread has a lot of terrible posts. “BC has never been know for its academics” really? that’s news to me.</p>
<p>then we have somebody making up a tier system and BC, UVA and Wake are in tier 3 and tier 2 has 4-5 no name schools. </p>
<p>truly atrocious posts.</p>
<p>These are the mean LSAT scores for a number of UG institutions in 2008 according to the LSDAS from lowest to highest. I believe that there is some correlation between LSAT scores and the quality of the student body at the college. </p>
<p>Holy Cross students average 156. See the schools in its peer group. They include BU, Calvin College, DePauw, Lafayette, Lawrence, Rhodes, Rutgers, Texas, UCal-San Diego, and Wisconsin. </p>
<p>Makes sense, no?? </p>
<p>University of Phoenix 143
Bellevue University 145
FIT 145
Valdosta State University 145
Southern Illinois University 146
Suffolk University 146
Florida Atlantic University 147
Hawaii Pacific University 147
Wayne State University 147
Winthrop University 147
California State Fullerton 148
Richard Stockton College of New Jersey 148
Towson University 148
Baruch 149
The Citadel 149
City University of New York 149
Kennesaw State 149
University of Houston 149
Marist College 149
Seton Hall 149
University of Nebraska - Omaha 149
UNLV 149
University of New Mexico 149
University of North Carolina Wilmington 149
Sonoma State 150
Texas Tech University 150
University of Hawaii 150
University of Mississippi 150
University of Saskatchewan 150
University of South Carolina 150
University of South Dakota 150
University of Wiconsin - Green Bay 150
University of Wyoming 150
Wright State 150
Franklin & Marshall 151
Marquette 151
Northern Arizona 151
Ohio University 151
Portland State 151
St. Norbert College 151
Syracuse University 151
University of Cincinnati 151
Agnes Scott College 152
Arizona State 152
Concordia University 152
Grand Valley State University 152
Michigan State 152
Penn State 152
Purdue University 152
Saint John’s University 152
Saint Louis University 152
Southern Utah University 152
University of Alabama- Tuscaloosa 152
University of California- Irvine 152
University of Connecticut 152
University of Denver 152
University of Miami 152
University of Oklahoma 152
Oklahoma State
University of Tennessee 152
University of Vermont 152
Baylor 153
Fordham 153
Indiana Bloomington 153
Syracuse University 153
Texas Christian University (TCU) 153
Touro 153
University of Maryland - Baltimore County 153
Ursinus College 153
Virginia Tech 153
American 154
Arizona 154
Ithaca College 154
Ohio State 154
University of California- Santa Cruz 154
University of Florida 154
University of Iowa 154
University of Mary Washington 154
University of Nebraska - Lincoln 154
University of Oregon 154
Utah State University 154
Centre College 155
Colorado University- Boulder 155
Dickinson College 155
Gustavus Adolphus College (is this college real?) 155
Rensselaer Polytech Institute 155
Texas A&M 155
The College of New Jersey 155
University of California- Davis 155
University of California- Santa Barbara 155
University of Georgia 155
University of Illinois 155
University of Minnesota 155
University of Washington 155
Boston University 156
Calvin College 156
DePauw University 156
Holy Cross 156
Lafayette College 156
Lawrence University 156
Rutgers College 156
Rhodes College 156
University of California- San Diego 156
University of Wisconsin- Madison 156
Texas 156
George Washington 157
Tulane 157
University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill 157
University of Southern California 157
Wake Forest 157
West Point 157
Boston College 158
Brandeis 158
Georgia Tech 158
Queen’s University (Canada) 158
Saint John’s College 158
University of California- Los Angeles 158
University of Dallas 158
University of Michigan 158
University of Rochester 158
University of Virginia 158
Washington University in Saint Louis 158
Brigham Young University 159
Byrn Mawr College 159
Carnegie Mellon 159
Colby College 159
Colgate 159
Colorado College 159
Emory 159
John Hopkins 159
McGill 159
New York University 159
University of California- Berkeley 159
Vanderbilt 159
Tufts 160
William and Mary 160
Cornell 161
Georgetown 161
Haverford College 161
Northwestern 161
Notre Dame 161
Reed College 161
Washington and Lee 161
Wesleyan University 161
Wheaton College (Illinois) 161
Carleton College 162
Claremont McKenna 162
Hamilton College 162
Rice 162
University of Chicago 162
Brown 163
Columbia 163
Dartmouth 163
Duke 163
Grinnell 163
MIT 163
University of Pennsylvania 163
Stanford 164
Williams 164
Pomona College 165
Princeton 165
Swarthmore 165
Yale 165
Harvard 166</p>
<p>Holy Cross is not in the top 30 schools. </p>
<p>Here’s the top 30:</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard 738.0</li>
<li>Yale 732.0</li>
<li>MIT 731.7</li>
<li>Rice University 731.3</li>
<li>Brandeis University 729.4 </li>
<li>Princeton 727.7</li>
<li>Stanford University 724.0</li>
<li>Brown University 722.2</li>
<li>Williams College 721.6</li>
<li>Carnegie Mellon 720.9</li>
<li>Duke University 720.2</li>
<li>Dartmouth 716.7</li>
<li>Wesleyan University 716.2</li>
<li>Amherst College 714.4</li>
<li>Carleton College 714.2</li>
<li>University of Chicago 712.9</li>
<li>Columbia University 712.2</li>
<li>University of Pennsylvania 712.2</li>
<li>Northwestern 712.0</li>
<li>UC Berkeley 711.1</li>
<li>Claremont McKenna 708.6</li>
<li>Middlebury College 707.6</li>
<li>University of Washington 707.5</li>
<li>UCLA 707.2</li>
<li>University of Notre Dame 702.5</li>
<li>Cornell University 702.0</li>
<li>Davidson College 701.5 </li>
<li>Southern California 701.0</li>
<li>Johns Hopkins 700.8</li>
<li>Bowdoin College 700.5</li>
</ol>
<p>Nor is Boston College, Tufts, Georgetown, William & Mary, Bates, Pomona, UVA, Colgate, Bucknell, Lafayette, Wellesley, Vassar, Swarthmore, Haverford, Wake Forest, Colby, Michigan.</p>
<p>Lots of great schools don’t make the top 30.</p>
<p>"this thread has a lot of terrible posts. “BC has never been know for its academics” really? that’s news to me.</p>
<p>then we have somebody making up a tier system and BC, UVA and Wake are in tier 3 and tier 2 has 4-5 no name schools. </p>
<p>truly atrocious posts."</p>
<p>Just your typical HC trolls trying to say that HC is better than it actually is. It isn’t even in the top 10 in its own state. lol.</p>