Chance me for BC class of 2016?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Boston College
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<p>Alright so basic stuff first I guess.
I’m a first senior in high school. I live in Los Angeles. I’m a first generation Catholic Puerto Rican. My school is also the most competitive Jesuit school in Southern California.</p>

<p>Sports: Track and Field freshman year, Varsity lacrosse soph-senior year. Junior captain, hopefully senior captain this spring. I have a second-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do and I am beginning Brazilian Jui Jutsu.</p>

<p>EC’s: Church usher at 5:00 mass saturday and sunday fresh-senior years
Piano and Guitar (10 years). I compose my own music along with taking requests and arranging covers of songs.
I coach a local youth chess team at my library because the public schools don’t offer chess clubs. We travel and go to team/individual competitions. Several of my kids are actually ranked.</p>

<p>Community Service: 250 total hours of Community Service, mostly tutoring inner-city Los Angeles kids for standardized tests like the High School Placement Exam. I’ve fed the homeless and that whole deal too.</p>

<p>Work Experience: Since the summer before freshman year I’ve worked as a camp counselor at a local summer camp. I coached sports, taught art and music classes, and helped in the nurses office. On occasion I help set up things for the shows etc etc. I’m somewhat a Jack-of-all-trades.</p>

<p>Research: From 8th grade to the end of freshman year I spent most of my weekends studying the DDT effects of the marine population in Long Beach, CA. My partner and I presented our results at the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium science exhibit along with some Tufts undergraduates.
In junior year I was selected out of my AP Biology class along with 3 other students to do genetic research on Drosophila regarding the effects of introns on the circulatory system in pre-natal development. My team was published with UCLA undergraduates.</p>

<p>SAT I: W:740 CR:740 M:720 (this was my score from early junior year, I’m taking it again in a couple weeks)
SATII: Us History: 750 Chemistry: 710. I’m taking Math II and English Lit in November.</p>

<p>AP’s: AP World History 4, APUSH 5, AP Language 5, AP Biology 5</p>

<p>This year my courses are AP Art History, Theology (required), AP English Lit., AP Calc BC, AP Physics B, AP Environmental Science.</p>

<p>GPA: 4.19, school doesn’t rank but i know im in top 15% at least. From what my counselor has told me, I’ve taken the hardest possible schedule my high school offers.</p>

<p>My top choices for schools are (in order) Brown Yale Duke BC Georgetown Tufts. So my question is this: what should i consider BC? Reach, safety, or target?</p>

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<p>BC, Georgetown and Tufts are highly likely.</p>

<p>Likely in at Duke if you ED. Also consider Dartmouth and/or Brown ED (but that lets out Yale EA).</p>

3

<p>Agree with blue above, but my question would be can your parents afford to send you to BC (where my D also attends), which isn’t very generous with merit-based aid, except for just a “handful” of applicants each year?</p>

<p>The fact that you are a hooked applicant makes you fairly competitive at most of the schools on your list but the Ivy schools are still reaches. BC, imo, would be a match or “target” school for you.</p>

4

<p>Thanks Jshain, I’ve added Stanford to my list with starry eyes since this post. I think I’m a strong candidate for any school, but so are 30 thousand other high school seniors. I won some National Hispanic Merit Scholarship Program award or something and BC sent me letters offering anywhere from 15-40k so I don’t know if money is as big an issue, but my parents still have to think about it. Thanks for the feedback!</p>

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<p>jshain raises a good point: if you need financial aid, nearly every higher-ranked college (higher than BC) will offer you a better deal. (BC is not generous with finaid, but the others are.)</p>

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<p>I think that’s good that you added Stanford to your list. I would cast as wide a net as possible and see what kind of bites you get and what kind of FA packages are offered. That’s easy for me to say since I don’t have to shell out the application fees and spend all the time on the application supplements…</p>

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<p>I’ll definitely make sure to do that. Thanks for the advice!</p>