Boston University

Boston University is a private research university found in Boston, Massachusetts. Its establishment in 1839 was concurrent and closely tied to the creation of the Newbury Biblical Institute of Newbury, Vermont which was in fact a dream-come-true to an avid group of Methodist ministers and equally enthusiastic laypeople. In 1869, Boston University was officially chartered by the Massachusetts Legislature along with its motto — “Learning, Virtue, Piety.” During that same period in 1869, the Newbury Biblical Institute of Newbury, Vermont moved to Boston, was renames as the Boston Theological Institute and it too was soon chartered by the state of Massachusetts. In 1871, the Boston Theological Institute was absorbed into the Boston University and became the basis for the Boston University School of Theology.

Boston University currently has more than three thousand faculty and staff and well over thirty thousand students which make it the fourth largest private university in the entire United States as well as the fourth largest employer in the city of Boston.

Boston University is divided into two campuses; one along the Charles River in Boston’s Fenway-Kenmore neighborhood and the other which houses the Boston University Medical School is located in Boston’s South End neighborhood. Through its sum total of eighteen schools and colleges on both campuses [College of Fine Arts (CFA), College of Arts and Sciences (CAS), College of Communication (COM), College of Engineering (ENG), College of General Studies (CGS), College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences (Sargent College) (SAR), School of Education (SED), Division of Extended Education, School of Hospitality Administration (SHA), School of Law (LAW), School of Management (SMG), Metropolitan College (MET), School of Social Work (SSW), School of Theology (STH), University Professors Program (UNI), School of Medicine (MED), Goldman School of Dental Medicine (SDM) and School of Public Health (SPH)], Boston University offers many bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees. The university also provides students with opportunities to travel and study abroad, internship programs overseas as well as in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.

In spite of its religious affiliations and undertones, Boston University takes pride in the fact that it has always been open to faculty, staff and students of all religious persuasions, except of course the department of theology, as well as to both genders and races. Boston University is further proud to announce that despite its size it has maintained an impressive student-teacher ratio of 15:1 since 2005.

In order to rank colleges and universities, each one is categorizes into categories which have been developed by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in 2006. Universities in the category of National Universities are the public and private universities that offer a large assortment of undergraduate majors and a wide variety of master’s and doctoral degrees that strongly emphasize research. The data for fifteen or so pre-established indicators (vary from one ranking entity to another) of academic excellence are tabulated into the resulting rankings.

Boston University was ranked as follows:

• U.S. News & World Report — 57th among U.S. universities; 21st among U.S. law schools; 34th among medical schools, 41st among business schools; 7th among graduate U.S. Biomedical Engineering and 8th among undergraduate U.S. Biomedical Engineering. (Boston University’s Biomedical Engineering program is the six largest accredited program of its kind in the U.S.).
• The Financial Times – 57th among all U.S. MBS programs.
• Business Week — 15th among national MBA programs; 37th among national undergraduate business and administration programs.
• The Times Higher Education Supplement — 19th among best U.S. universities; 47th among the best world universities.
• The Professional Ranking of World Universities — 34th among the best universities in the world; 15th among the top U.S. universities to provide the best future for its alumni.
• Newsweek — 35th among the best U.S. universities; 65th among the best world universities.
• The Center for Measuring University Performance — among the top 50 U.S. research universities.
• The Wall Street Journal — 41st among national MBA programs; 10th among Information Technology departments in universities of the world.
• Forbes — 46th among U.S. MBA programs; 25th among most entrepreneurial universities in the United States.

Overall, Boston University is a pretty good institute for higher education.

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