General BC questions

Reddune
Tue, 21 Oct 2008 16:21:23 +0000

1) Being a Catholic school and all, how religious is the university really? I mean my high school was Catholic and was pretty religious, not sure if BC is the same thing. Does this have any effect on college life (to any extent)?


None whatsoever. Many students wear their religions very proudly, some don’t. I’m not a Catholic nor a Christian (I’m a secular humanist, aka agnostic), but I do find BC’s religious tradition very appealing. It asks you tougher questions about yourself and what you can do to better the world.


2) My sister goes to BU, and I was wondering how close it is from BC to BU? Like I remember taking the T-train to BC a few years back, and it was the last stop…but I’m not sure how long it took me to get there. I also realize that BC is not really in Boston, but it’s still relatively close, right?

-Those who are experienced with the how Boston public transportation works, it usually takes 20-30 minutes to get to downtown Boston. From BC to BU is about 15-20 minutes. From BC to Harvard Square is about 20-30, depending on traffic.

3) I’m currently a freshman at GT (Georgia Tech) considering a transfer to the Boston area, and currently I’m looking at BC. How competitive is it for transfer students?


BC is pretty competitive with transfer admission. Recent years numbers have been between 16% to 11%. Most of our transfers are from NYU and BU. I have been seeing a few ACC schools. It’s good to know we are converting people from the South.


4) To any pre-health majors (in BC) out there, how strong do you think the program is? Are the pre-req courses challenging?


I’m not pre-health or pre-med so I can’t say.


5) I’ve browsed through the forums and have seen that quite a few people consider BC’s first year to be similar to high school in terms of work load. However, does this work load change as years progress? If so, how quickly does it change (like do you get a radical transition from no work to a lot of work between Fresh and Soph years?)


The workload for the first year is easy. BC has a decent size core requirements. Most students take intro classes to a number of subjects. Intro classes are generally easy. Furthermore, a lot of freshmen find that they have a lot of free time in college than in high school. Upper-classmen usually spent that time doing research, club management or internship, but freshmen are new so they don’t have those kind of things going on yet. A lot of free time + generally easy classes = boredom. I wish BC would make intro classes a lot more difficult. Expect that to change when you become an upper-classman. Harder classes and more outside ECs; it’s a lot more challenging. Not surprisingly, my freshman year GPA was my highest, it sort of slowly went downhill from there.


6) How strong are their science colleges? What are they known for (academically)?


Strong academics, liberal arts focused, balanced sport scene, great alumni networking, and great campus. It’s a very balanced school.


7) Random: What’s up with the name? It’s not really in Boston (Chestnut Hill I believe) and it’s not really a College (it’s a Uni)? Or am I getting some completely wrong info here?


We were initially going to call ourselves Boston University (it was in our charter) and we were actually in Boston (this was 1863). But we didn’t have enough money then to build a graduate school so we just had the undergraduate college, aptly named Boston College. But then space ran out and we moved to Chestnut Hill. Then BU came along (in 1869) and called itself Boston University. Some within the school wanted to sue and get the name back but thought better of it. In the 50’s (or 60’s) there was a movement to rename the school. Some candidates were University of Chestnut Hill; University of Newton; St. Thomas More University; and some others. Personally, I love the name Boston College. It’s lovely. Plus, because we are Boston College, that makes us natural rival with Boston University. If we were St. Thomas More University, I think we would still be BU’s rival, but it’d no where be as intense.