Hello I am a student in high school wondering my chances at getting into Boston College!
My intended (double) major is International Relations and French
I am male, white, and homosexual
I’m Catholic (probably not important but oh well)
My GPA is 3.7
My class rank in 9th out of 54
I have 100+ hours of community service
I am in AP Biology and AP Language and Composition, and I have taken AP US History and got a 4 on the exam
I’ve taken the SAT Subject Test for French with listening and US History
I have taken Honors English all four years of high school (excluding senior year because of AP Language), all honors math, the highest science courses my school offers (my school does not offer honors science) and an Intro to International Relations course at my local community college.
For extracurriculars, here is a list:
-Student Government, Class President
-Boy Scouts, Eagle Scout
-French Club, President
-Drama Program, Student Director
-Marching Band
-Interact Club
-Student Council
I know its a lot but I would appreciate feedback SO MUCH, thanks!
According to BC’s factbook, the SAT scores for the middle 50% of accepted students was 1960-2150. That puts you just below the bottom quartile. How badly do you want to improve your chances? Can you take an SAT prep class and then, on your own, repeatedly take as many SAT practice tests as you can?
No one can tell you your chances of getting in. What is in your control is doing all you can to pull up your academic profile (SAT scores and GPA). with a little time remaining leave a significant mark in the ECs you’re involved in. Other contributors in this forum will likely have additional ideas.
Dear Nickerdoodle : Setting realistic expectations this point in terms of your college search will be incredibly important. The short version of this note is that Boston College is certainly a stretch school based on your submitted profile and might be beyond your reach. As mentioned by posting-colleague jpm50, your 1950 SAT three-way score is right around the 20th-25th percentile of the accepted class with places you in the bottom quartile. Being from a small class (graduating 54 students) might cause some rethink on “class rank” but remember that Boston College accepts 85% of their incoming class from the Top 10% of their High School class and 96% from the Top 25%. You would fall into this second category. Now, whether you are attending a selective private school or small public district remains to be seen.
As for your intended major, International Relations is not one often sought at Boston College. You will want to do additional research to make sure that the program that you desire is actually available.
Nickerdoodle:
What is your definition of “reasonable range”? It’s almost like you’re asking “Is that good enough?”.
At a school like BC, there is no application that anyone can every feel comfortable with it being “good enough”.
If you read through the previous years of accepted/rejected decision threads for BC, you’ll see many applicants with amazing academic stats who did not get accepted. Then you’ll also see some applicants with stats in your range who do get in - but they usually had something else in their application that was exceptionally strong that made up for the less stellar academics.
When I asked you: “How badly do you want to go to BC?” I was serious. I have known some students who studied nights and weekends for months to both pull up their grades as well as take repeated SAT practice tests. Not only did it strengthen their academic profile, but I’m sure those teachers who observed it wrote some amazing letters of recommendation.
As scottj noted, be realistic on where you stand and what you need to do.