CB and USNews are using the same data as the feds require: 36% admission with a 35% yield. So if folks are seeing 21%, I’d question it. In contrast, BC is 17% and 35%, respectively. (Personally, I think admit and yield rate are not of much value at this level.)
btw: I’m a big fan of Jesuit eduction, but HC plays loose and fast with its numbers (very un-Jesuit like). For example, I’ve long been critical of HC’s claim that their premed acceptance rate is 80%, which is impossible without knowing the numerator. (Even Harvard or MIT is not that high.). Specifically, HC requires a ‘Committee rec Letter’, i.e., and they will only Rec students for admission if they are at the top of the HC class. There are other ways to juice your numerator, but I’ll leave it there.
Great summary. As we’ve had kids apply, enter, and graduate our perspective has relaxed/broadened/(gotten a bit jaded?). You’re right - acceptance rate is one of those metrics that has no value in predicting what a student’s experience will be on campus. However, it drives rankings and plays a major role in safety/target/reach lists.
I’ve heard the same regarding HC med school acceptance. I think that and some of the other likely manipulations were ham handed efforts to raise the profile and thus unethical.
I’ve met President Rougeau a couple of times. I’m confident he will increase the reputation in a legitimate and authentic way. HC is not BC. It is a institution in it’s own right with a great history and a sincere commitment to intellectual inquiry. In that way it maintains the Jesuit tradition.
I’m thrilled my kids are HC. My college experience at an engineering school was a pre-professional slog. I missed out.
I’ve had kids in 2022 and 2024 application cycles (plus one who got accepted to HC in 2022). Googling gives one old data. The third-party sites are at least 2 cycles behind. I’ve seen the same situation with two dozen schools - acceptance rates have decreased in the last three years. My S24 is going to Denison, and if you google their acceptance rates, you get 28% or 22%, but only if you go to the Denison webpage you see their 2023 acceptance rate was 17%.
There are lots of colleges which write committee letters- and the pre-med advisors let students know that without the letter, applying is a waste of time and money.
I have no horse in the race at HC, but this isn’t quite the powerful statement you believe it to be. I know recent med school applicants who were chafing at the committee letter requirement- it’s one thing if it’s based on actual, objective data-- “This student is one of the top med school applicants this year” as measured by-- well- data. It’s another thing if it’s based on the weird and funky and political stuff.
Here’s an extreme example since we’re on the subject of acceptance rates:
Liberty University, the relatively new evangelical Christian school in Lynchburg, VA (skirts for girls, khakis for boys) publishes a 51% acceptance rate. They sort of hide the fact that is for their “honors program”. The major publications state a 99%+ rate. Basically need to pass the fog-a-mirror test.
Do you suppose every 6 bedroom Georgian in Chestnut Hill qualifies as a “farm” because they’re growing basil and parsley in pots on the brick terrace? That might explain it!
Holy Cross lists their acceptance rate for class of 2027 as 21% with number applied and number accepted. It was also all over the holy cross Instagram sites last spring and published on ivywise as the acceptance rate. I have no reason to not believe it is 21% even if a few places are listing the class of 2026 acceptance rate.
There was a campus wide email after ed1 stating that applications increased 20% this year so it will be interesting to see this years acceptance rate
I’ve also heard for years that holy cross has a very high medical school acceptance rate.
I also linked above the 2023-24 CDS that shows the 21% acceptance rate for Class of 2027. Why wouldn’t people go direct to the source…like the school’s website or student newspaper for most recent data?! The indirect sources are at least one cycle behind and at some points during the year, two cycles behind.
I disagree with this generalization. Boston College has about 9500 undergraduates, with roughly 6100 of them in the Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences - the liberal arts college within BC. Morrissey functions as a true liberal arts curriculum, with extensive core curriculum requirements, requiring students to spend about 1/3 of their total course credits on meeting those requirements. My daughter, for example, is taking a super popular year-long double credit hour class (it’s taking up nearly 1/2 of her total credits for the year) called "Perspectives in Western Culture. " The list of texts they are reading is too long to list, but to give a sampling they are reading:-Sophocles, Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Descartes, Locke, Thoreau, Beauvoir, Martin Luther King, Marx, Freud, Kierkegard. In addition, she’s taking a mix of other classes in a variety of different departments - including science, language, etc. Her experience so far, as she’s described it, has felt pretty intellectual, even as compared with her brother who goes to a small LAC.
There are three other undergraduate colleges at BC that are professional programs - Lynch (teaching, 550ish students); Connell (nursing, 400ish students) and Carroll (business, 2200ish students). My guess is that these three schools do feel much more “professional” (especially Carroll) but that doesn’t reflect the experience of the majority of students at BC.
And just to add in, while there are certainly a lot of nerdy kids at HC, I did not get that vibe during our 3 visits to the school. I felt it was a ton of giant good looking lacrosse/crew guys from Mass or NJ.
My 18 year old self would have loved to have gone to HC, just seas of cute boys.
Obviously a school’s website is going to show stats in the most favorable way. So in that sense I would always seek third party information. Also, looking at only one year’s data is probably not the best way to make an assessment in anything.
We’re proud parents of two HC students with great college experiences. I do think most colleges post data (and email the links) not only for prospective students (parents) but also so current parents continue to believe they made the best decision. We all get ornery when our institutions-of-choice receive even the tiniest of questioning. We all feel better when the school publishes good news. It was a large $, time investment and a reflection of our judgement as well as our kids’ abilities. We also have ammo for the catty passive-aggressive back-and-forth that happens between neighbors and family members.
Most importantly, acceptance rates get far too much attention as evidenced by this interaction.
Where do you think a third party gets their info but from the school website or the CDS (also generated by the school)? The only issue is the third party websites have data from the 2021-22 admission cycle or even 2020-21. Go look at the data on the CC webpage - it is not current either. This is a strange argument that one should look at Niche 2020 data rather than current numbers.
I would also say it doesn’t matter a hoot what old numbers are; if you are applying to a college, you need to have the most current data available. The only thing old numbers can tell you is whether the admit rates are decreasing which may make one pause before applying.
CDS feeds IPEDs, so when IPEDs is updated this summer/fall, the HC 21% acceptance rate will show for Class of 2027. USNWR and other sites use IPEDs info, because that’s what they can get easily and for free.
By the point IPEDS is updated for Class of 2027, we will know Class of 2028 acceptance rates.
Third party information is sometimes outdated, often wrong. Don’t ever pay for USNWR or other third party sites thinking you are getting current and/or accurate data. Caveat emptor as always.
Nerdy kids, athletes, and fraternity kids can be intellectuals or not, but the groups typically have different plans for a Friday night which was the entire point. Some kids go to parties, others to sporting events, while some like to do a 1000-piece puzzle. Some kids like all 3.
When students are looking for colleges, a commonly asked question is whether a school is athlete heavy or greek focused. Some kids like schools that are a mix of both or neither at all. HC, like many smaller schools, has a heavy presence of athletes, which may be a pro/con or neutral to many kids.
I am curious about the correlation between size, being from NJ/MA, and one’s degree of intellectualism. Can you tell by looking at someone how intellectual they are?
oh, you need to move over to the thread about the gender divide. All of us parents with shorter kids have bonded.
You would need to ask the poster who brought up the term intellectual. I did not. I use the nerdy - a term I don’t really like) compared to athletes and fraternity kids. And as I said, anyone in any group can be an intellectual.
