According to a 2017-18 tally by the Chronicle of Higher Education, Boston College is one of the nation’s top 20 Fulbright-producing research institutions, with 17 student awards this academic year. Fifty-six BC students applied for the program, which operates in more than 140 countries.
Since 2006, 250 BC students have been awarded Fulbrights. Out of research institutions, this year’s total of 17 awards puts BC immediately ahead of Columbia University and Stanford University, both with 16, and behind the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Pennsylvania with 20 and 21, respectively.
“The fact that Boston College is once again among the top Fulbright producing research universities is a testament first and foremost to the quality of our students, to their inventiveness, breadth of interests, and hard work,” said Paul Christensen, director of the student fulbright program at BC, to The Chronicle.
BC ranked 14th in terms of research institutions this year. The Heights previously reported in 2015 that from the 2004-2005 application cycle until the 2014-2015 cycle, BC did not place lower than 17th, reaching No. 9 in 2007-2008 and 2011-2012. In the 2014-2015 cycle, BC placed 31st among research institutions, before falling even further to 33rd in the 2015-2016 cycle, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education. From that decline, BC has risen from 18th in the 2016-2017 cycle to its current place of 14th.
The Fulbright U.S. Student Program gives these fellowships to graduating seniors, graduate students, and young professionals and artists for the purpose of conducting research, teaching English, or studying abroad, with the goal of increasing international cooperation, according to the program’s website.
“Educational exchange can turn nations into people, contributing as no other form of communication can to the humanizing of international relations,” said founder of the program J. William Fulbright in 1983.
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