College Factual  by our College Data Analytics Team
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Boston College Data & Information Overview

457 awards Ranking Badges
Great Price Value for Your Money
19% Acceptance Rate
Want the scoop on Boston College? We’ve put together a comprehensive report on the school that covers what majors Boston College offers, how the school ranks, how diverse it is, and much more.
Want to dig deeper into a particular stat? Just click on its tile and you’ll be taked to a more in-depth page on the figure. In addition, you can use the links below to quickly jump to any section on this page.

How Well Is Boston College Ranked?

#60 Best Colleges in Nation
#8 Best Colleges in MA
Finance & Financial Management Highest Ranked Major
Quality Badge

2024 Rankings

College Factual analyzes over 2,000 colleges and universities in its annual rankings and ranks them in a variety of ways, including most diverse, best overall quality, best for non-traditional students, and much more.

Boston College was awarded 457 badges in the 2024 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is finance & financial management.

Explore Best Ranked Schools for You

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Overall Quality

Boston College landed the #60 spot in College Factual's 2024 ranking of best overall colleges in the United States. The higher ed experts analyzed 2,217 colleges and universities across the nation to determine this ranking. This puts it in the top 5% of all schools in the nation.

Boston College is also ranked #8 out of 63 schools in Massachusetts.

See all of the rankings for Boston College.

Is It Hard to Get Into Boston College?

19% Acceptance Rate
54% Of Accepted Are Women
30% Submit SAT Scores

Acceptance Rate

Boston College has a very low acceptance rate of 19%, making it one of the most selective out of all the colleges and universities in the nation. It's probably a good idea to apply to other schools in addition to Boston College just in case you don't make the cut.

Average Test Scores

About 30% of students accepted to Boston College submitted their SAT scores. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing scores ranged between 700 and 750. Math scores were between 720 and 780.

SAT Reading and Writing Scores for Boston College  ( 700 to 750 )
200
800

SAT Math Scores for Boston College  ( 720 to 780 )
200
800
Boston College received ACT scores from 20% of accepted students. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, ACT Composite scores ranged between 33 and 34.

ACT Composite Scores for Boston College  ( 33 to 34 )
1
36

Learn more about Boston College admissions.

Boston College Faculty

14 to 1 Student to Faculty
66% Full Time Teachers

Student to Faculty Ratio

The student to faculty ratio at Boston College is about average at 14 to 1. This ratio is often used to gauge how many students might be in an average class and how much time professors will have to spend with their students on an individual level. The national average for this metric is 15 to 1.

Percent of Full-Time Faculty

Another measure that is often used to estimate how much access students will have to their professors is how many faculty members are full-time. The idea here is that part-time faculty tend to spend less time on campus, so they may not be as available to students as full-timers.

The full-time faculty percentage at Boston College is 66%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.

Full-Time Faculty Percent  66 out of 100
0
100

Retention and Graduation Rates at Boston College

95% Freshmen Retention
90% On-Time Graduation Rate

Freshmen Retention Rate

The freshmen retention rate of 95% tells us that most first-year, full-time students like Boston College enough to come back for another year. This is a fair bit higher than the national average of 68%. That's certainly something to check off in the good column about the school.

Freshmen Retention Rate  95 out of 100
0
100

Graduation Rate

The on-time graduation rate for someone pursuing a bachelor's degree is typically four years. This rate at Boston College for first-time, full-time students is 90%, which is better than the national average of 33.3%.

On-Time Graduation Rate  90 out of 100
0
100

Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at Boston College.

Boston College Undergraduate Student Diversity

9,571 Full-Time Undergraduates
30.2% Racial-Ethnic Minorities*
53.2% Percent Women

During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 9,780 undergraduates at Boston College with 9,571 being full-time and 209 being part-time.

How Much Does Boston College Cost?

$36,599 Net Price
33% Take Out Loans
$14,324 Total Student Loans
The overall average net price of Boston College is $36,599. The affordability of the school largely depends on your financial need since net price varies by income group. See the table below for the net price for different income groups.

Net Price by Income Group for Boston College

$0-30 K $30K-48K $48-75 $75-110K $110K +
$10,212 $7,075 $17,098 $23,632 $50,368

The net price is calculated by adding tuition, room, board and other costs and subtracting financial aid.Note that the net price is typically less than the published for a school. For more information on the sticker price of Boston College, see our tuition and fees and room and board pages.

Student Loan Debt

It's not uncommon for college students to take out loans to pay for school. In fact, almost 66% of students nationwide depend at least partially on loans. At Boston College, approximately 33% of students took out student loans averaging $3,581 a year. That adds up to $14,324 over four years for those students.

The student loan default rate at Boston College is 0.9%. This is significantly lower than the national default rate of 10.1%, which is a good sign that you'll be able to pay back your student loans.

Get more details about paying for Boston College.

How Much Money Do Boston College Graduates Make?

$93,021 Avg Salary of Grads
High Earnings Boost
Yearly salaries vary depending on what you major in, but on average, bachelor's degree recipients from Boston College make around $93,021 per year during the early years of their employment. That's great news for Boston College students since it is 119% more than the average college graduate's salary of $42,485 per year.

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See which majors at Boston College make the most money.

Location of Boston College

Massachusetts State
9,571 Full-Time Undergraduates
Small City Campus Setting
Boston College is a private not-for-profit institution located in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. The location of the school is great for students who enjoy the amenities of city life.

Get more details about the location of Boston College.

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Contact details for Boston College are given below.

Contact Details
Address: 140 Commonwealth Avenue, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
Phone: 617-552-8000
Website: www.bc.edu/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BostonCollege
Twitter: http://twitter.com/BostonCollege

Boston College Majors

58 Majors With Completions
3,202 Undergraduate Degrees
1,721 Graduate Degrees
During the most recent year for which we have data, students from 58 majors graduated from Boston College. Of these students, 3,202 received undergraduate degrees and 1,721 graduated with a master's or doctor's degree. The following table lists the most popular undergraduate majors along with the average salary graduates from those majors make.

Most Popular Majors Bachelor’s Degrees Average Salary of Graduates
Economics 372 $64,785
Finance & Financial Management 348 $74,320
General Biology 231 $38,609
Political Science & Government 231 $45,951
Communication & Media Studies 168 $49,055
Marketing 135 $58,593
Computer Science 128 $89,714
General Psychology 127 $37,262
Accounting 121 $69,899
Clinical, Counseling & Applied Psychology 118 $41,046

Learn more about the majors offered at Boston College along with which ones have the highest average starting salaries.

Online Learning at Boston College

46% Take At Least One Class Online
4% Take All Classes Online

Online learning is becoming popular at even the oldest colleges and universities in the United States. Not only are online classes great for returning adults with busy schedules, they are also frequented by a growing number of traditional students.

In 2020-2021, 7,240 students took at least one online class at Boston College. This is a decrease from the 12,621 students who took online classes the previous year.

Year Took at Least One Online Class Took All Classes Online
2020-2021 7,240 650
2019-2020 12,621 1,505
2018-2019 728 285
2017-2018 505 189
2016-2017 435 140

Learn more about online learning at Boston College.

If you’re considering Boston College, here are some more schools you may be interested in knowing more about.

Curious on how these schools stack up against Boston College? Pit them head to head with College Combat, our free interactive tool that lets you compare college on the features that matter most to you!

Notes and References

Footnotes

*The racial-ethnic minorities count is calculated by taking the total number of students and subtracting white students, international students, and students whose race/ethnicity was unknown. This number is then divided by the total number of students at the school to obtain the racial-ethnic minorities percentage.

References

More about our data sources and methodologies.

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