by our College Data Analytics Team
In its yearly rankings, College Factual analyzes over 2,000 colleges and universities to determine which ones are the best in a variety of categories, such as overall value, quality, diversity, which schools are the best for each major, and much more.
Boston University was awarded 106 badges in the 2025 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is business administration & management.
Explore the best ranked schools for the programs you are most interested in.
College Factual ranked Boston U as #23 out of 2,152 colleges and universities in the country on its 2025 Best Colleges list. This lands it a coveted spot in the top 5% of all colleges and universities in the country. This is an improvement over the previous year, when Boston U held the #54 spot on the Best Overall Colleges list.
Out of the 63 colleges in Massachusetts, Boston U is ranked at #4.
Even if you have the best grades and high test scores, that may not be enough to get into Boston U since the school has one of the most selective in the country. Its acceptance rate is a mere 14%, so there's no shame if you don't get in. Be sure to apply to other schools just in case.
About 23% of students accepted to Boston U submitted their SAT scores. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing scores ranged between 660 and 730. Math scores were between 690 and 770.
The student to faculty ratio is often used to measure the number of teaching resources that a college or university offers its students. The national average for this metric is 15 to 1, but at Boston U it is much better at 11 to 1. That's good news for students who want to interact more on a personal level with their teachers.
When estimating how much access students will have to their teachers, some people like to look at what percentage of faculty members are full time. This is because part-time teachers may not have as much time to spend on campus as their full-time counterparts.
The full-time faculty percentage at Boston University is 70%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.
Boston University has a freshmen retention rate of 94%. That's a good sign that full-time students like the school and their professors enough to want to stick around for another year. It's also a sign that the admissions team did a good job in choosing applicants who were a good fit for the school.
The on-time graduation rate for someone pursuing a bachelor's degree is typically four years. This rate at Boston U for first-time, full-time students is 84%, which is better than the national average of 33.3%.
Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at Boston University.
During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 16,872 undergraduates at Boston U with 16,026 being full-time and 846 being part-time.
| $0-30 K | $30K-48K | $48-75 | $75-110K | $110K + |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $10,164 | $9,536 | $14,838 | $24,109 | $48,841 |
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 U, see our tuition and fees and room and board pages.
While almost two-thirds of students nationwide take out loans to pay for college, the percentage may be quite different for the school you plan on attending. At Boston U, approximately 23% of students took out student loans averaging $10,425 a year. That adds up to $41,700 over four years for those students.
Get more details about the location of Boston University.
Contact details for Boston U are given below.
| Contact Details | |
|---|---|
| Address: | One Silber Way, Boston, MA 02215 |
| Phone: | 617-353-2000 |
| Website: | www.bu.edu/ |
| Most Popular Majors | Bachelor’s Degrees | Average Salary of Graduates |
|---|---|---|
| Business Administration & Management | 1,218 | $71,545 |
| Economics | 468 | $55,733 |
| Computer Science | 434 | $90,050 |
| Public Relations & Advertising | 404 | NA |
| General Psychology | 341 | $39,175 |
| Public Health | 326 | NA |
| Social Work | 314 | NA |
| Radio, Television & Digital Communication | 279 | $37,225 |
| Legal Research | 279 | NA |
| International Relations & National Security | 279 | $45,870 |
Online courses area a great option for busy, working students as well as for those who have scheduling conflicts and want to study on their own time. As time goes by, expect to see more and more online learning options become available.
In 2022-2023, 5,257 students took at least one online class at Boston University. This is a decrease from the 5,442 students who took online classes the previous year.
| Year | Took at Least One Online Class | Took All Classes Online |
|---|---|---|
| 2022-2023 | 5,257 | 4,044 |
| 2021-2022 | 5,442 | 4,032 |
| 2020-2021 | 3,987 | 2,849 |
| 2018-2019 | 3,464 | 2,534 |
If you’re considering Boston University, here are some more schools you may be interested in knowing more about.
Curious on how these schools stack up against Boston U? 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!
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.