They just released this years applicant stats on their website
BU admission rate :
2018 : 25.1%
2019 : 18.1%
BU Average ACT :
2018 : 31
2019 : 33
Yeah, guess this wasnt a good year for me to apply 
Starting this cycle all CGS students will start in January and their stats are not included in the above figures. CGS students are not included in the 18.1% acceptance rate either.
they are expecting a high increase in yield and shrunk the freshman class! I have never seen BU with a 3,100 incoming classā¦ Transfers will be there game to keep the acceptance rate low
probably an increase in yield
@gherbss in my time freshman class was 3,800 and with their budget 3,100 makes no senseā¦ again they are playing the ranking gameā¦ less applicants so accept less and compensate from transfers
They shrunk the freshman class by 500 weird
@airway1 Last yearās target was 3400 freshmen and they ended up with 3600 enrolled. Last year that included 300 CGS students. This year all CGS students are admitted for January, not September. So that accounts for most of the decrease. Also with a higher yield the actual number of students enrolled in September may be higher than 3100.
@TomSrOfBoston true but to expect 300 to start in London for CGS? must be international studentsā¦ crazy game until someone gets caught messing around. BU and NEU are addicted to the ranking game now
@airway1 No. All 600 starting CGS students enter in January now. They spend spring semester in Boston and summer semester in London. They are mostly US students. That way the lower statted CGS students and their acceptances do not count in the published admissions stats. BU has been a few years behind Northeastern in figuring out how to do this but they have caught up.
@TomSrOfBoston well it works for them all from Summer Pathways to spring admissions to these āinternational experienceā ā¦ I would hope US news will start looking at this.
IMHO, since the acceptance rate has been excluded from USNRās ranking methodology, BU has no reason to deny applicants with super high standardized test scores. On the contrary, if BU decides to game the ranking, I guess BU would accept a lot of applicants with 1500+ SAT, 33+ ACT and 4.0 GPA to leverage their statistics.
Although the acceptance rate will go up, the average test scores will go up as well. Since the acceptance rate wonāt influence the ranking, by admitting more academically perfect applicants, BU can only get advantages.
@moonwalk The USNews rankings are based on stats for enrolled freshmen, not accepted freshmen. If a school admits all top statted students and most choose to attend elsewhere that will not help their ranking. Also these stats are not just for rankings. This data is submitted to bond rating agencies such as Moodyās and they have the effect of lowering the interest rate a college will pay on its long tern debt. And while USNews may no longer use acceptance rate in rankings it still gives a college ābragging rightsā to being more and more selective.
I had an occasion last fall to meet with my counterparts at BU including the institutional research folks who predict yield. They were way off last year and many more students decided to enroll like mentioned above.
@MAandMEmom in my time BUās freshman class was 3900 so at 3600 it makes no sense that they couldnāt handle them. Itās all about getting the acceptance rate as low as possible. Less applications but they are down to 18%ā¦
@airway1 Iām just repeating what they told me. I had no horse in the game and we were talking technology, institutional research, and predictive analytics, which is exactly the science of figuring out potential yield. The IR person said they had never seen this before. Maybe they are stepping up working the ranking game to compete with neu.
@MAandMEmom yeah I do understandā¦ it will be interesting when the growth of applicants stop (which is in BUās case this year)ā¦ From this cycle of admissions, Iāve learned that its a waste to apply to these schools as the acceptance in RD has become so low that itās like giving away money for the application fee. Some were so aggressive in trying to court my son just for the number game.
Yes I agree @airway1 my S19 (not a BU applicant) received so much stuff from reach schools that were a no way. Higher ed is going to be the next real estate bubble.