<p>I’m a male Senior at one of the premier public High Schools in PA, intending to apply to BC and, specifically, CSOM
3.95 W GPA, 3.25 W (I know it’s not too stellar, but there is a slight upward trend)
School does not rank
Taken mostly honors courses
Will graduate having taken 5 APs (Lit, Language, Stat, APUSH and APGOV)
2200 on SATS (1 sitting, 710 CR, 730 M, 760 W)
730 on SAT II USHistory
5 on Lang. & Comp and APUSH exams
Extracurriculars include: Treasurer of the school senior year, School paper editor junior and senior year (held junior positions in both clubs in prior years), helps maintain the website for the varsity basketball team jr. and senior year, varsity golf jr and sr. year, block captain for the local Democratic party, Freshman class President, Helped to tutor a disadvantaged child, worked as the Head Ref in a local flag football league, an umpire in the little league, member of NHS, also National Merit Semifinalist (and hopefully finalist).
Questions
<p>Dear dantheman1018 : Putting together your outstanding board scores and advanced placement results with your in-class unweighted average of 3.25, I would draw the conclusion that you are a really bright student who just doesn’t give a damn about the day-in, day-out activities in the classroom. Now, that is a brutally unfair academic assessment, but you are presenting a B/B+ unweighted average to one of the nation’s Top 30 schools asking “is this good enough?”. The answer, quite frankly, is no.</p>
<p>You are also missing the science AP curriculum, European AP (generally seen as the hardest history AP), Calculus AB/BC, and foreign language which also point to gaps in your scholastic experiences.</p>
<p>However, one cannot argue with your standardized test scores placing you with the upper echelons nationally. Your application will certainly need to underscore the performance against your competition in testing rather than your classroom scores. Your profile provides evidence as to why your High School profile, provided to BC along with your transcript, will be critical. I would call on your to have your guidance counselor or principal intervene here and include a personal note on the grading policy to attempt to explain away the 3.25 and underscore the 3.95 weighted score.</p>
<p>Your class engagement (activities) are deep; you should be able to draw some significant experience forward into your essay from here. As we have said to so many others in chance-me threads, exactly how your leadership experience made a difference to the community could be a differentiator for your essay.</p>
<p>As for your questions :</p>
<p>[1] CSOM is statistically harder than CAS although the numbers are marginal and should not be part of your decision making; you should focus on your desired course of study for your application.</p>
<p>[2] Transferring from CAS into CSOM is EXTREMELY difficult and you should not consider applying to one thinking it is “easier” and then slide to the other. Many threads here on college confidential have discussed this in more detail.</p>
<p>[3] Personally, I generally refuse to comment on issues of religion as an application criteria because it is really out of scope. There are so many other factors to your application process that discussing such point issues is a general waste of time.</p>
<p>Thank you for the honest assessment. I would much prefer this to someone blowing sunshine up my you-know-what. My school does not offer AP Euro, so I would like to think not taking it would not be held against me. I also have a solid relationship with my counselor and the teachers writing my recs so hopefully that will work out well for me.</p>
<p>your religion, or lack thereof, will have little/no bearing on admissions. Yes, BC is a Jesuit college. The Jesuits value ‘Scholarship, Loyalty and Service’, and anyone that fits that description will be welcomed warmly.</p>