https://www.bc.edu/bc-web/admission/apply/early-decision.html
Wow. Speculation: perhaps unrestrictive EA has made yield prediction too difficult? What do you all think is behind this change?
I think it’s surprising a school at that level hasn’t had ED before now.
I applaud this and wish more schools would adopt.
The death-by-deferral phenomenon is ridiculous for the students & their families and while EA is clearly hugely beneficial for the university, it is not very customer-centric.
If you really want a school and demonstrate with an ED commitment, then you should be rewarded for that commitment with a clear yes or no.
Schools like UNC appear to be the exception: offer EA but don’t hide behind a deferral to have your cake and eat it too.
I agree that schools who defer a large amount of applicants in the EA round are doing those students no favors. But ED disadvantages so many students who need to compare FA offers. ED only benefits the wealthy, maybe the very low income, and the schools themselves IMO.
@projectmgr According to the website, BC will still defer “highly competitive” candidates to RD and only deny candidates who would not be competitive in the RD round, exactly like they do now.
I’m not a fan of ED as it is generally anticompetitive although it may be helpful for yield prediction (preventing over/under enrollment), which I do think may be a strong reason from the college’s perspective. I suspect ED2 is a key reason this change might capture the students they seek. Maybe unrestricted EA was too much work for too little gain.
Agree that RD potentially reduces negotiating leverage in terms of aid post-acceptance for the applicant, but I’m admittedly skeptical of how much leverage exists for high admissions schools such as BC (ie - if you’re offered a spot but decline due to $ offered, they likely have enough interested applicants to walk away - at least early in the admissions process).
A helpful news article- indeed, unrestricted EA was too much work.
https://www.bc.edu/content/bc-web/bcnews/campus-community/announcements/early-decision.html
For strong students that decide not to apply ED:
“Regular Decision applicants who wish to be considered for our full-tuition, merit-based scholarship through the Gabelli Presidential Scholars Program must submit a completed application by the priority scholarship deadline of November 1. No separate application is required. Finalists will be notified of their status, along with an official offer of admission, by February 1. All other Regular Decision applicants will receive their admission decisions by April 1.”
I have to say, BC is really getting on my nerves. It was not my daughter’s number 1 choice when she was applying back in 2015 but they enticed her with the honors program which was the best thing that could have happened to her. She loves it at BC but they have since gotten rid of the honors program. Now with getting rid of EA, she probably wouldn’t even have applied. My 2020 will not be applying ED to BC although it is high on his list. He should have choices, he shouldn’t have to pick a college as a 16 year old just entering senior year of high school. Shame on BC for taking choices away from students. Highly qualified students will come if you offer them an outstanding product with outstanding results.
@am9799 There are only 15 Gabelli Scholarships though.
@TomSrOfBoston I do not know how many Finalists they invite for the 15 spots. I just thought it was interesting as I wondered if they ll choose the finalists solely out of the ED.
BC is need blind and meets full need but if you have a lot of equity in your home you will likely need a home equity loan to supplement the financial aid.
Is this a veiled attempt by BC to drive the admission numbers towards higher exclusivity/lower acceptance rate?
@bbfan1927 Not necessarily, but it will increase the yield.
Here’s a question for the bored…(or should I say board) who are the big winners and losers under the new admission process? Overall, I think it benefits both yield and accept rate by limiting RD spots… puts pressure on applicants to go early and not to wait for RD as who knows how many spots will be available? Also, how does the deck chairs get reshuffled when applicants consider applying to the other 2 catholic universities- GT and ND. Seems to me if you are borderline GT and ND, just apply BC ED and take it cause you may end up with losing out on all 3???
I think in that ND and GT scenario the kids shoot for those EA and if they don’t get in then they may decide to try BC in the ED 2 round. I sort of think that’s why BC is offering that.
Probably correct.
I wonder how ED will affect BC’s yield/acceptance rate. Depending on how much of the seats are filled EDI/EDII, it should definitely increase yield quite a bit(>30%?), but acceptance rate is tricky since there could be a huge decrease in apps if people wanted to apply EA as a nice early nonbinding acceptance, but don’t care for the RD round.
Also I’m kinda worried about the implications of ED on the type of applicants it will attract. I’m sure it’ll help BC’s stats look better and therefore “more prestigious” with lower acceptance rate/higher yield, but ED also tends to skew towards the wealthier crowd that can afford to commit without comparing FA packages. BC is already known as being fairly homogenous compared to some of its private peers(BU, NYU, etc…). I saw that this year they admitted the highest percentage of AHANA students at 35% and hopefully more pell grant/first gen students, but ED could remove this progress.
Getting into BC EA and having a solid financial aid package by January without needing to commit gave me plenty of time to decide for sure that BC was for me and that it was something I could afford(turned out to be my cheapest option, even more so than my state schools). I certainly couldn’t have gambled with ED, and one of the things that drew me to apply to BC initially was the ability to hear back early without a binding commitment. Perhaps a ED and EA option like Villanova would’ve been a good middle ground.