Boston University

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Does anyone know any details about the College of General Studies at Boston University? I was trying to find out what people thought of it
pros, cons, etc.</p>

<p>Thanks</p>

2

<p>CGS is basically BU's "community college". I don't mean that in a bad way—it's still a very good school—but it's a two-year program, after which you get an A.A. (Arts Associate) degree and can enter into any of BU's degree-granting colleges. Some people refer to it as "13th and 14th grade", because you barely get to choose any of your courses, and certainly the case can be made that it's more like high school than most colleges. Still, BU is a great school, and CGS will allow you to have free reign of the university in your junior and senior years. (CGS students are exempt from all CAS distributional studies requirements, if they choose to transfer there.)</p>

<p>If you totally don't know what you want to do, or if you want an easy route into SMG (business), ENG (engineering), COM (communications), CFA (fine arts), etc., then you can apply to CGS, because you get to automatically transfer to any of those, which are much harder to get into than CAS.</p>

<p>On the other hand, if you're just looking to get into BU any way you can, apply to CAS. In previous years, the top 20% or so of rejected applicants to CAS were offered admission at CGS. In other words, it's an automatic safety. Don't take my word on this; call someone at the BU Admissions office to make sure they're still doing it. But that's about how it used to work, anyway.</p>

3

<p>My girlfriend is in the College of General Studies (CGS). She has class all day (something like 25 hours a week) and puts in a lot of work. There is a very large amount of grade deflation in the classes and they are run poorly. An 'A' in many classes is insanely hard to get. Generally tests are graded on the A: 90+ B: 80+ scale like in high school, but the tests are like college tests where a curve is needed. I would hate to be in her situation with grade deflation competing with Harvard students with grade inflation.</p>

<p>(I have about 2-3 hours of class per day, some of which I don't attend. I go to MIT.)</p>

<p><a href="http://www.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2004/03/18/others_mark_time_bu_makes_grade/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2004/03/18/others_mark_time_bu_makes_grade/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p><a href="http://www.dailyfreepress.com/news/2004/01/14/News/Students.See.Grade.Problems.At.Bu-580846.shtml%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.dailyfreepress.com/news/2004/01/14/News/Students.See.Grade.Problems.At.Bu-580846.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>