<p>My daughter got rejected from GWU, she was devastated as this was by far her top choice for a host of reasons. Her second choice is BU or BC. She is waiting on both, surprisingly BC called to get some more info on her most recent report card which was excellent, not holding our breath but it showed they are still looking at her.
So now she waits on BU and BC, after visiting BU the second time, she wasn’t as thrilled, especially with freshman dorms and the way the campus is so spread out, there is not a campus feel at all, she likes BC because it feels self contained and has lots of school spirit, GWU was even better to her because it was within a city and yet had a campus feel.
Her advisor was told by an admissions rep from GWU, that this years pool was one of the most competitive in years, and two other kids from my d’s school also got rejected, well one was waitlisted and these are outstanding students!!
I know its ranked about 10 rankings higher than BU, but is it really that superior? How does BC fare in this situation?
I know she will be beside herself if she doesnt’ get into one of them…she only has three top picks and the rest are state schools, which I do think she will get into but not necessarily be as happy about attending.
She has two older siblings who both attend ivies so the pressure is really on, she just this year had her “academic wake up call” and unfortunately I don’t think one solid year of high level work was enough to cut it into some of these top tier schools…frustrating but keeping my fingers crossed!</p>
<p>Ultimately, regardless of how much we as a college-bound society rely upon rankings, they really don’t say much. What its comes down to is that some professors you have, whether they teach at BU or BC - will inspire you - some will challenge you and some will unfortunately bore you. The thing about college is that (and I just recently applied too, so still waiting!) it’s really a preference. Society and parents such as yourself create these standards that children like us want to meet - and thus we reach for the better school because US News ranks it higher or they are among the ivy leagues. </p>
<p>BU is an amazing school - I love it. Some people hate the “lack of a campus” but some people love that its smack in the middle of city life. BU is perhaps more diverse then BU because it’s so huge! The majority, of course, is white, which I’m guessing is the same for Boston College but there are a lot of other races as well. BC is a great Jesuit school. Both are my top choices - but at BC i’m sure your kid will have a greater interaction with her professor and feel the spirit of the community more. Actually, BU has a great community feel too. I’ve been there dozens of times and there’s always people walking with BU sweatshirts and their backpacks and going to class and what not. The faces everyday might be unfamiliar - but it’s still a community by my definition. So your question is a toughie. </p>
<p>I want to go to either BU or BC - but I fear that I will not be accepted. Given the choice, I would go to BC because it is smaller and has a more collegiate feel because of it’s structure. </p>
<p>In the end, however, college and anything else in life comes down to the effort you make to keep yourself academically stimulated and socially available and involved. GWU and BC are probably not really better schools because education is what you cumulatively learn - and at both places academics are stupendous. You’ll have a different approach encouraged at both schools, and then different approaches by teachers as well. </p>
<p>Ranking won’t really matter in 10 years when you’re reflecting on your experience with your college friends. You probably won’t regret going to a school that’s just ten below in the numbers. </p>
<p>Good luck in your final decision. Both schools are great. Rate them in terms of your own personal desires and expectations in terms of what a school should be like - not what US News says. Hope that I was able to help you.</p>
<p>Unfortunately Id have to say that BC is a much better school than BU (and im not biased) i never applied to BC and im waiting for BU to get me their decision even though i have no plans of attending bc i dont like the no campus school spirit environment (which is y im transferring in the first place) As for GWU im surprised your daughter was rejected from GWU and thinks she has a chance at BC. As far as I know just about everyone at my school who applied there got in, of course most kids who applied werent stupid, but they didnt all have 96 averages. Id say the kids who applied to GWU had an 88 and above average with a little above average SAT scores and they all got in. Many of those kids wouldnt have a chance in hell to get into BC. I say if you get into BU and BC choose BC. otherwise choose a good state school over BU, because its honestly not worth 50,000 a year. If anything she can transfer into GWU after 1 year, im transferring bc i dont like my freshman yr now. hope i helped</p>
<p>Thanks for the replies…abd if you are a student, you are a very impressive individual and with that sound and insightful advice, I say any school is lucky to have you!
David, at my d’s school its different, it would be BC and GWU looked at as being neck and neck, maybe BC a slight bit above and BU several notches down, not that we are fixated on rankings mind you, but her advisor said that she has a much better shot at BU than the other two. In her school, 6 applied early to GWU, 3 got in, one being the salutorian, and 2 were rejected, and 1 was waitlisted. Oh well…something else has got to better for her, I suppose.
Thanks everyone.</p>
<p>Historically, BU has been considered better than BC or GW. BC has risen in the rankings - I think partially influenced by their sports successes and the publicity they get. BUT, rankings are BS and the idea that 10 places in some list is material is total bull. </p>
<p>As you can see from comments, people think different things, one ranking the other higher and another vice versa, and this is another reason - and I’ll say this as a parent - wake up and stop being dumb about this.</p>
<p>I think GWU is easier ed than regular decision. I would choose BC before GWU and if not happy she can always transfer to GWU.</p>
<p>BC > GWU > BU </p>
<p>That is just how it is. I love BU a lot more than the others though. If I had a choice of acceptance into any three, BU would be picked quickly in a heart beat.</p>
<p>I don’t think this decision should come down to rankings at all. BU and GWU are really quite similar institutions and as such many students apply to both of them. BU vs BC is hard to do because the two schools ultimately don’t have much in common. One is suburban, self-contained, Jesuit, small…the other is right in the middle of Boston, diverse, huge. If your daughter thinks the campus-y feel is what she wants, I’d go for BC. But sometimes it’s hard to get BU’s campus until you go here. At first I was kind of weirded out by lack of quad, 4 lane highway in the middle of the campus etc etc. But you come to really appreciate the way it’s set up. It also is a bummer that many people do their visiting in the colder months…BU looks WAY more like a campus come Spring. Everyone is out sitting on Marsh Plaza or the BU Beach, playing frisbee or reading etc etc. West campus area and South campus are also places that feel a bit more like a community. I promise the campus feel is in here somewhere!</p>
<p>BU and GWU both have very good medical programs. BC doesn’t have a medical school which can be a disadvantage considering mostly everyone on CC is a pre-med major.</p>
<p>I have the same predicament…except for GWU and Northeastern and for business. I personally think BC is regarded as being the best, then GWU, then BU.</p>
<p>Lergnom, I beg to differ…no historically I don’t think BU has always been known as being “better”. IF you go strictly with rankings…both BC and GWU are far above BU.
We are not too hung up on the rankings, though my daughter is somewhat I will confess…but it was more about the personality of the school that was the driving factor in selecting her top pick. Now that the top pick is out of the question, it comes down to BC and BU. And yes, they are indeed quite different.
I posted this thread more out of curiosity as to what the general feelings and opinions are out there on these three schools compared and I got what I asked for, which is pretty much what I suspected.
While I would personally not ever invest too much into rankings, I do feel they are a good gauge and are based on some merit.</p>
<p>maybe this changed since i applied…but if you REALLY want to go by rankings isn’t GW around 52 and BU like 54? academically, they’re extremely similar. the 3 schools most people apply to, if applying to BU, are BU, GW, & NYU. all 3 are in big cities, all 3 have stellar academics, and all 3 have medical schools and law schools (i believe?). BC is more of a business school, and BU law is actually “ranked” higher than BC law. so as we should be able to conclude by now, rankings are bs! they also take into account sports, by which bc is highly superior, endowment, and student:faculty ratio (which, I do believe is important) but it’s just not about “which school is really better,” sorry to disappoint. bu and gw are better for pre-meds and pre-health professional students, & bc may be better for business, though smg is very highly regarded. any school in the top 100 is an amazing school and you can’t really differentiate between any of them with the exception of ivy vs. non-ivy. for example, drexel is one of the best schools in the world for engineering, yet is ranked around 80-100 (from what i remember 4 years ago). so there you go.</p>
<p>^ AGREE. From what I understand BU=GWU. BC is slightly lower than BU (according to the US news and Times school ranking)</p>
<p>Edit: David a quick question. Why would you say this>></p>
<p>" I say if you get into BU and BC choose BC. otherwise choose a good state school over BU." because my teachers are always telling me that there is a quite difference between BU and Umass Amherst and Umass Amherst is a really good state school.</p>
<p>Sowmit, I believe you have that backwards. BC is more selective than BU.</p>
<p>Just for the record, BC is 34th, GW is 53rd and BU is 60th, with regard to rankings if anyone cares.:)</p>
<p>If you want to compare BU and GWU, then I’ll give that to you. But I don’t think anyone can really necessarily say that BC is “better” than BU. The two schools are honestly so vastly different that in the end, it would really just come down to preferences. My best friend goes to BC so I have been there plenty of times and it is pretty different. Someone above has already mentioned many of the differences so I won’t repeat them. But just to add on to some of the differences not already mentioned- BC has no greek life, the administration does not allow fraternities so you’ll never be able to rush or pledge a fraternity or sorority if you ever wanted to.The two also have different sets of specialty schools, BU with SHA and Sargent and BC with Nursing. Additionally, BU is definitely more well regarded internationally. We have a bigger international student population and are also consistently in World Rankings.</p>
<p>Regarding school spirit…there is nothing quite like a BU hockey fan. And as far as the class sizes go, my d is a freshman and has only had one class (into to comm) with more than 30 students. BU has a great deal to offer the student who wants a campus environment, even though the campus is in the middle of comm ave. There are myriad clubs, greek life, volunteer opportunities, and many other options. For freshmen, I would highly recommend living on a floor with others in your major, it’s been a great experience for my d and her friends.</p>
<p>I’ve given longer versions of this speech before. Rankings are crap. They include such unimportant junk as $$ of endowment per student, number of volumes in libraries (in the internet age!), % of alumni giving (which says something about what? school spirit? size?). If you look at the listings, you’ll see a school can change position by 10 or more places in a year and if these were, statistically speaking, objective measures that would not happen. And don’t get me started on things like selectivity; that measure is essentially tripe that penalizes large schools and rewards schools in certain locations. Even more importantly, if you look at the actual grades and scores of admitted students at schools with wide variation in selectivity, they can be exactly the same or even reversed. </p>
<p>I could go on but there are 2 or 3 issues in regard to rankings. One is prestige, for whatever that is worth. There isn’t a rat’s hair worth of difference between 90% of all the main schools when it comes to meaningful prestige. A person may argue that Bates is better than Colby but that is like arguing which school’s colors are neater: it’s an argument with no other meaning except personal preference. And prestige is often confined to a specific region or social group, as in Bowdoin means something - exactly what is hard to say - in part of the Northeast and among the prep school crowd, but that doesn’t carry to the South or really even to NJ. </p>
<p>When it comes to actual prestige schools, after H-Y-P, the tech schools (MIT, CalTech, Stanford, there’s a big drop. Northwestern is a prestige school but it isn’t going to get you into rooms the way Harvard does. (The difference is mostly that H-Y-P and now Stanford are international names and for cultural reasons people in many other countries place more value on that brand name, so going H-Y-P-S is like going to Tokyo U or OxBridge, etc. in the eyes of the world. This is important because much of the world is not as open to social movement as the US.) Washington University (or Emory) are more prestigious these days but the relative value of a degree from these schools isn’t materially more than a degree from any other good school - from Indiana to Northeastern to Arizona. </p>
<p>(I went to an H-Y-P school so it may sound like I’m being snobbish but I know the actual only important things in the long run of life are ability and motivation - and risk taking for some. People confuse - or want to believe - that getting into a “higher ranked” school means life will be better when the actual truth is it’s the kid, the person. Evidence shows that a kid who gets into a prestigious school but doesn’t go there makes the same as kids from the prestigious school. Again, when you’re talking in the broad universe it just doesn’t matter. Go to MIT or CalTech and you have a leg up in life … but the truth is you got into MIT or CalTech and those schools admit by merit, not by how much money you have. In some ways the prestige game is a way of finding other people who then “judge” you as being smart because your school is 5 places better. That isn’t healthy.)</p>
<p>The second important thing is whether you get a “better” education at a higher ranked school. That’s sheer garbage. Department quality varies and some of the best schools have a lot of lousy departments. Teachers vary - some big names are awful teachers and some are good but every school has good teachers - and you’ll have more large lectures at Harvard or Yale than at most state schools. If a kid has a specific interest, go to a school that’s strong in that area and skip the more prestigious one. </p>
<p>The third is whether you get an advantage for grad school. I like to tell this story: when I visited a friend at the top rated law school the first person I met was his roommate - from Albion College in Michigan. Sure about 10 students from Yale get into Yale Law but there are hundreds of extremely bright, hard-working people competing for those spots. Your actual odds of getting in are better from elsewhere just because your personal chance of being in the top 10 of those ultra-competitive hundreds is very low</p>
<p>How does that hold for the more average student or the more average school? That question answers itself: do well and you do well. If you go to a Washington University as pre-med, then expect to work your butt off because it’s a very competitive environment and if you go to pretty much any pre-med program you’ll find a lot more people in the first year classes than the 2nd or 3rd or 4th. Do well at any reputable school and you’ll be fine. </p>
<p>Best school is really three things: where you want to go as a place or feel, which place has your program if that’s important and what the cost is. Just like the credit bubble there’s been a bubble in people spending more to go to a marginally better school. I’ve done the math in other posts but if you are borrowing $80k to go to a perceived better school then your degree has to pay you an extra $10k+ to pay the extra interest and really then an extra $15k+ per year for a number of years to pay the loans off. What are the odds, considering that compensation in most fields isn’t that variable? And how much does that extra cost affect your life choices like having a family or buying a car or home? My advice consistently is go where you want, where you can learn what you’re interested in - if you have a specific interest - and where you can afford.</p>
<p>everyone should definitely listen to lergnom. i have been on bu’s thread for 4 years and lergnom offers some of the most sound advice you can find. go where you’re HAPPY. i could’ve gone to vanderbilt which is a “better ranked” school but i wouldn’t have been happy there. i wanted to go to tufts because it was “better rank” but thankfully i didn’t get in because it wouldn’t have suited my personality AT ALL. and fyi, for many of you that are looking at boston schools, there’s a huge percentage of college students that stay in boston after school because they love the city so much…i’m one of them. BU wasn’t my first choice, but looking back on these past 4 years, and the 4 years i still have at BU, it couldn’t have gone any better. f- the rankings. go where you’ll be happy…and if you don’t get in there then go to a state school/community college for a semester, get a solid gpa, and transfer to where you want to be.</p>
<p>NO school spirit! Are you kidding me??? Apparently you all need to follow this…
[The</a> Hot Dog and Jesus Blog](<a href=“http://www.thehotdogandjesus.blogspot.com/]The”>http://www.thehotdogandjesus.blogspot.com/)</p>