Boston College (BC) is a private university located in Massachusetts, in the New England region of the United States. Its historic campus, one of the earliest examples of Collegiate Gothic architecture in North America, is set on a hilltop six miles (10 km) west of downtown Boston. Although chartered as a university by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1863, Boston College's name reflects its early history as a liberal arts college and preparatory school in Boston's South End. It was the first institution of higher education established in Boston, though it later outgrew its urban location and moved to Chestnut Hill on the city's western edge. Boston College is one of the oldest Jesuit, Catholic universities in the United States and is home to one of the largest Jesuit communities in the world.

About Boston College

area. Its charter was among the first documents to stipulate that the institution "from its inception shall be open to youths of any faith," a policy since expanded to include those "of no religious faith at all."fact: date=August 2007

Boston College is called The Heights, a reference to both its lofty aspirations — the college motto is "Ever to Excel" — and its elevated location on Chestnut Hill, or "University Heights" as the area was initially designated. The name has lent itself to a number of campus organizations — including the principal student newspaper, The Heights — and to those affiliated with the university: BC students were universally called "Heightsmen" until 1925 when Mary C. Mellyn became the first "Heightswoman" to receive a BC degree. Today, the university's legacy includes over 143,000 alumni in over 120 countries around the world.

Boston College was added to the "25 New Ivies" list in 2006 by Kaplan/Newsweek, which includes "colleges whose first-rate academic programs, combined with a population boom in top students, have fueled their rise in stature and favor among the nation's top students, administrators and faculty -- edging them to a competitive status rivaling the Ivy League."

Boston College students have enjoyed success in winning prestigious post-graduate fellowships and awards, including recent Rhodes, Marshall, Mellon, Fulbright, Truman, Churchill, and Goldwater scholarships, among others. BC's yield rate for Fulbright awardees is the highest in the country. In 2007, the German department was awarded a record 13 Fulbright scholarships, five more than the previous number from a single department. Though formal numbers are not kept, the number of awardees from one department to study in a specific country is thought by academic scholars to be the largest in the 60-year history of the Fulbright program.