I was accepted to the BC Honors college and was wondering how the prestige of it compares to the ivies and elite liberal arts colleges like Pomona, Williams, etc. Will grad school admissions officers value BC honors as highly as these other places? Most importantly, will going there significantly hinder my grad school opportunities?
I don’t understand the question. Are you choosing between BC (Honors) and some other school, or is this a completely hypothetical question? The fact that a school needs to hoard its resources for the tippy top of their undergraduates suggests that they already have a disadvantage in the prestige game, if that’s what you’re playing. That has nothing to do with whether you can get into grad school with such degree. With hard work, I’m sure you can.
@circuitrider Oh no I haven’t concluded anything; I’m wondering whether it will
It will not, not at all. Not even a tiny bit.
If religion plays any factor. BC has a fantastic integration of moral and ethics education within their classes. Jesuit education is relatively strict on the basic liberal arts credits for the first two years is what I hear but Williams and Panoma being liberal arts colleges are likely even stricter but are definitely very very well respected. Good luck!
@cantdo Thanks! Religion isn’t much a factor here. The gist of it is I am a city person who likes the environment of BC and Boston, but was afraid that going there could have long term consequences (as opposed to going to Williams or Pomona)
@iak789 I can guarantee from a prestige factor BC is not as highly regarded. It’s important to remember that BC is still extraordinarily highly regarded so I’m willing to bet ‘consequences’ are not a factor. The average pay of all of the schools mentioned 10 years out is extremely high. You have all amazing choices. Pick the one that feels right. You can come out of every single school you mentioned as extremely successful. (Not to downplay community college for those who have to go.) But saying these schools are 100% better is an understatement.
BC is without question more highly regarded in business. In terms of graduate school perception they are peers.
Anyone saying Williams and Pomona are more prestigious in the eyes of a graduate school is just married to US News rankings. There is very little difference in the students attending all three, even without adjusting for BC having D1 athletics. It is the same silly romance with these two schools.
In my view, of course, you’re going to be fine either way. BC is a great school. But make no mistake - the quality of your peers across the board will be higher at Williams or Pomona. Both have lower admission rates than BC, notwithstanding the fact that neither Williams nor Pomona get near the number of “shooting in the dark” applicants to add to its denominator that a school with more “average joe” recognition like BC does.
Finally, while I firmly believe that the OP will do fine with grad schools from BC, I’m confident that Williams and Pomona pack more punch. They are at the very tippy top of their category, and their category, LACs in general, are very well regarded in academia.
Sure, it’s a slightly annoying question of the sort that one finds here often, but the answer is the answer. No question those two schools are a notch above BC. Come on.
Also, I hasten to point out that Williams and Pomona don’t offer a business curriculum, so I’m not sure it makes too much sense to say that BC is more highly regarded in that area. The comparison group doesn’t do it at all, like any other LAC.
@MiddleburyDad2 Thank you for the input! I see what you’re saying and definitely agree that, when it comes to prestige in academia and level of education, BC is a notch below the elite LACs. How much do you think admissions committees focus on that?
BC doesn’t have to be in the Ivy League or NESCAC to be a great school.
If you work hard and earn a solid GPA – and learn enough to do well on the GRE/MCAT/LSAT/GMAT (common grad school exams…) – you’ll be a very competitive applicant for good grad programs.
It might not carry quite the cachet of Harvard, Princeton, Williams or Amherst, but Boston College has a pretty solid rep.
@iak789, hard to say. in defense of what some others are saying here, if you do well at any of those three you’re going to have choices.
I, myself, believe that the classic, small’ish LAC remains the Gold Standard in undergraduate higher ed. Many people agree with me, and many don’t.
Do I think an admission committee member at, say, Harvard Business School will give your application points for a rigorous Williams education over an equally rigorous BC education? Maybe, probably.
There was a list ranking circulating the internet years ago, leaked from Boalt Hall School of Law (Berkeley), where the admissions department rank ordered, based on their experience, the rigor of undergraduate schools. Basically it was a list of ‘where it’s hardest to get an A’. So your grades were weighted one way or the other depending on where your undergrad school ranked on their list. I have it on good authority that this list is real and that Boalt still uses it. There are some surprises on that list. Swat was at the top of every version I ever saw, and from what I know, that is, in fact, one damn hard place to go to school. The rigor is legendary. So, yeah, of course, admissions people know that, and they’re going to view a 3.3 GPA from Swat much differently than a 3.8 GPA from the University of Maryland.
All in all, the high end LACs litter the upper reaches of that list, ahead of big-name places like Duke, Vandy, Cornell and other great larger schools. So there’s that little bit of evidence for whatever it’s worth.
With ALL OF THAT said, I think you should go where you will be happy. Life it too short, and you cannot take prestige with you to the grave.
If you like BC, go there. You’ll be just fine … better than fine, you’ll be great.
Good luck!
@MiddleburyDad2 Thank you so much for taking the time to help me!
Any time! Good luck!
@iak789 No fact has been presented just Pomona and Williams romance, tall tales of rigor and prestige, and thoughts of teary-eyed graduate school adcoms receiving Williams and Pomona applications.
In terms of ACT scores, all three have the same average and basically the same percentage of students scoring above a 30. SAT scores are about 1 percentile lower at BC, a result of fielding several dozen D1 teams.
Truth is, in the real world these three schools are peers, as the data shows.
You should pick the one you like best and forget about the so-called prestige because it doesn’t really exist in the real world. Trust me, there are 50 - 75 schools in the United States that are viewed equally.
@OnTheBubble, my posts don’t rely on fanciful threads. Not sure what that even means. I gave the OP my view because he asked for it, and I acknowledged both sides of the argument. I even said that it doesn’t matter in the long run.
You are WAY too defensive about this school, and you wear your insecurity about it on your shirt sleeve. And your posts contain no more facts than mine. I at least am up front about the fact that this is all opinion. You just hit the OP with the same, dismissive, “trust me” conclusory claim over and over, bullying the OP into thinking what you want him to think. You came out in this thread swinging at the OP and you haven’t let up since.
The truth is it is simply harder to get into Williams and Pomona than it is to get into BC. I am 100% confident that any college admissions counselor would tell you the same. And if you think BC is including the scores of their special admit population in that average, then I have a bridge you might be interested in.
Reputations are established over time. BC is a relatively recent arrival in the elite category. You should just be happy with that and quit trying to sell this school as an Honorary member of the Ivy League. It is not.
I did not attend BC. I am just pointing out that many times comparisons are made without any backing, which is the case here.
Precisely the way you responded proves my point.
“it is simply harder to get into Williams and Pomona than it is to get into BC” (#16)
The above is a baseline for the discussion which really cannot be questioned: “The 50 Smartest Colleges,” Business Insider.
The “real world” aspect of the discussion, however, is more complex, and could quite legitimately benefit from various, honest opinions.
@merc81 For future reference Boston College is #51.