Boston College Data & Information Overview

Find out more about how Boston College ranks, how diverse it is, what majors it offers, and other essential facts below. All you need to do to learn more about a stat is click on its tile, and you'll be taken to another page that analyzes that data more closely. Also, you can use the links below to scroll to any section of this page.

• Rankings
• Admission and Acceptance
• Faculty
• Retention and Graduation Rates
• Diversity
• Cost
• Student Debt
• Average Earnings
• Location
• Majors
• Online Learning
• Related Schools

How Well Is Boston College Ranked?

2021 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 184 badges in the 2021 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is general psychology.

Overall Quality

Boston College is ranked #61 out of 1,715 schools in the nation for overall quality on College Factual's 2021 Best Colleges list. This puts it in the top 5% of all schools in the nation.

Out of the 68 colleges in Massachusetts, Boston College is ranked at #11.

See all of the rankings for Boston College.

Is It Hard to Get Into Boston College?

Acceptance Rate

If you're applying to Boston College you'll face some tough competition, since the school's acceptance rate is only 32%. Definitely don't wait until the last minute to submit your application, since applying early may be in your favor.

Average Test Scores

About 60% 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 660 and 760. Math scores were between 660 and 730.

Boston College received ACT scores from 56% of accepted students. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, ACT Composite scores ranged between 31 and 33.

Learn more about Boston College admissions.

Boston College Faculty

Student to Faculty Ratio

The student to faculty ratio is often used to estimate how much interaction there is between professors and their students at a college or university. At Boston College, this ratio is 13 to 1, which is on par with the national average of 15 to 1. That's not bad at all.

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 65%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.

Retention and Graduation Rates at Boston College

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.

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 89%, which is better than the national average of 33.3%.

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

Excellent Overall Diversity at Boston College

During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 9,927 undergraduates at Boston College with 9,696 being full-time and 231 being part-time.

Boston College Diversity Score

College Factual computes an overall diversity score for each college and university that takes gender, ethnicity, geographic location, and age into account. Schools with the best mixtures of students with respect to these factors are ranked the highest, and those that cater to just one or two student groups are ranked the lowest.

With an overall score of 97.95 out of 100, Boston College is one of the most diverse schools in the nation.

Get more detailed information on diversity and student demographics at Boston College.

How Much Does Boston College Cost?

The overall average net price of Boston College is $33,562. 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 +
$7,251	$9,693	$16,648	$23,172	$47,675

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

Almost 66% of college students who graduated with the class of 2018 took out student loans, but that percentage varies from school to school. At Boston College, approximately 41% of students took out student loans averaging $4,097 a year. That adds up to $16,388 over four years for those students.

The student loan default rate at Boston College is 1.5%. 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?

Yearly salaries vary depending on what you major in, but on average, bachelor's degree recipients from Boston College make around $72,500 per year during the early years of their employment. That's great news for Boston College students since it is 82% more than the average college graduate's salary of $39,802 per year.

See which majors at Boston College make the most money.

Location of Boston College

Located in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, Boston College is a private not-for-profit institution. 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.

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

During the most recent year for which we have data, students from 66 majors graduated from Boston College. Of these students, 3,062 received undergraduate degrees and 1,772 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	397	$65,800
Finance & Financial Management	303	$68,500
Communication & Media Studies	221	$45,700
General Biology	208	$34,700
Political Science & Government	194	$44,600
Clinical, Counseling & Applied Psychology	156	$41,000
General Psychology	154	$40,800
Marketing	127	$57,700
General English Literature	111	$38,800
Business Administration & Management	103	$59,100

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

Online Learning at Boston College

Online learning options are becoming more and more popular at American colleges and universities. Online classes are great for students who have busy schedules or for those who just want to study on their own time.

In 2017-2018, 505 students took at least one online class at Boston College. This is an increase from the 435 students who took online classes the previous year.

Year	Took at Least One Online Class	Took All Classes Online
2017-2018	505	189
2016-2017	435	140
2015-2016	238	39
2014-2015	104	11
2013-2014	97	0

Learn more about online learning at Boston College.

Related Schools

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

• Cornell College
• Gustavus Adolphus College
• Lewis & Clark College
• Middlebury College
• Saint Michael’s College

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

• National Center for Education Statistics
• College Scorecard
• Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System
• Image Credit: By Harvey D. Egan under License

More about our data sources and methodologies.