BU VS. BC VS. Northeastern

Lergnom
Fri, 29 May 2009 10:00:19 +0000

I have 3 years of data from our high school - which is large, Boston area, one of the best public high schools in MA (and the country). The data shows what I’ve been saying:

BC has slightly better stats, which is exactly what you’d think considering it’s half the size in undergrad. If I look at the graph of the data, BC is slightly above 1300 in SAT - I don’t count writing - while BU is at 1300. Northeastern is about 75 points below that, at 1224. In terms of GPA, the schools are fairly close, with BC and BU at 3.49 and 3.43 and Northeastern at 3.36.

If you exclude the outliers, the picture is only slightly different. All 3 schools admit some pretty darn bad students: BC has a cluster of 3 kids admitted with 800-900 SAT’s and below 3 GPA; Northeastern has 1 with an SAT of about 800 (slightly above 3 GPA) and then a cluster of almost a dozen with below 3 GPA’s and various SAT’s ranging from 940 to 1440; BU has 1 kid with 825 SAT, 3.2 GPA and 7 or 8 kids with below 3 GPA’s and various SAT’s ranging from 1040 to 1350.

If you assume the highest scorers are likely using the schools as back-ups, then you’re back to the same thing I said above, that BC and BU are pretty darn similar and that Northeastern is somewhat behind. Not a light year behind, but not the same either.

BTW, the numbers involved are quite large; we’re talking nearly 300 apps to BU, about 150 to BC, and about 250 to Northeastern. I’ve said many times that this is how the schools are viewed and the data says exactly that.