<p>Applying EA to BC (top choice!!)
UW GPA: 3.77
Just (.08 of GPA away!) missed the top 10% (so, top 20%)
SAT 1: CR: 620, MATH: 700, WRITING: 740
SAT 2: (requirement waived because of Hurricane Sandy…) MATH 2: 720, MATH 1: 660</p>
<p>I’ve taken honors courses…
Honors English 9
Honors Global History 9
Geometry Honors 9
Spanish 3 (year early) 9
Algebra 2 & Trig Honors 10
AP World History 10
Spanish 4 (year early) 10
AP US History 11
PreCalc (year early) 11
Spanish 5 (year early) 11
College Accounting (Accounting 1 & 2 for college credit)</p>
<p>Senior Year:
AP English Literature
AP Spanish
AP AB Calculus
SUPA (Syracuse Univ.) Economics
SUPA (Syracuse Univ.) Public Affairs
SUPA (Syracuse Univ.) Forensics</p>
<p>Plus, I’ve taken a lot of business courses at my school… (hoping to get into CSOM)
Fundamentals of Business
Business Law
College Accounting
Computer Applications
Microsoft Certification in PowerPoint and Excel Expert
Sports Marketing</p>
<p>Awards/Honors:
National Honor Society
Business and Marketing Honor Society of NYS (only 1 of 3 in my school to get in)
Excellence in Business Courses from the College of Westchester</p>
<p>EC’s: (over 170 hours of community service)
-Started an Interact Club at my school and organized/ran it for two years now (a Community Service club with our local Rotary Club sponsors)
-Started a Red Cross Club/Committee at my school and organized/ran it (helped to organize and promote a blood drive, will fund raise to support recovery efforts from Sandy)
-Peer tutoring in College Accounting once/week
-Peer tutoring in Regents Earth Science once/week
-Took sewing classes for 6 years once/week
-Volunteer at a local cat shelter once/week
-Took orchestra (played the viola) for 8 years (quit this year to take more academic courses)
-Part-time job</p>
<p>Other:
Two strong teacher recs
Roman Catholic (I know that this shouldn’t matter)
Won’t be applying for financial aid (gold star?)</p>
<p>My SAT’s aren’t out-of-this-world, and I’m freaking myself out. Should I be? The other thing is that I live in a wealthy area of NY, and BC receives way too many applications for this area. </p>
<p>hey, I currently am in CSOM at BC and from LI so I was in the same boat as you in terms of alot of people from my area apply to the school. I had around the same GPA and got into CSOM, however your SAT was a bit shy of mine CR 650 Math 720 W 740. There are kids in CSOM that got in with less than what I had so I think you stil have a chance and the Community service is awesome (BC loves that stuff). Hope that helps, let me know if you need any other info about BC</p>
<p>Dear stressed95 : Your profile appears to be a deferral based on the following criteria. First, in the cold cruel world of pure numbers, you are not in the Top 10% of your High School class based on these numbers and with 85% of Boston College’s admissions coming from that pool, you will be facing a challenge whether in the EA or RD pools based on that number. Regarding your Board Scores, the critical reading number is a bottom quartile performance (620) and will almost certainly be a blocker parameter on the numbers. Given that Boston College could “always accept” a Top 20% GPA with a 620 critical reading score (there are thousands of those in the regular decision pool of 25,000+ applications), you would seem to be facing some serious challenges here.</p>
<p>A critical review of your essay(s) are needed to validate that they answer the “Why BC?” question and why you make the upcoming freshman class a better place overall for everyone. While the volunteerism might seem heavy, there is little statement here about the overall community impact of your actions - basically, how did your volunteerism “make a difference”? </p>
<p>Your profile does not include sports and I would argue that dropping an eight year engagement (music) to take more academics was moving your profile in the wrong direction. </p>
<p>I would be concerned that the clubs you have listed (Interact Club, Red Cross Club) are not demonstrating leadership skills and are presented as a single item in a bullet list without any real underlying purpose. Exactly why did you engage in these clubs? How do these demonstrate school spirit? Why does your participation translate into something with which a Boston College reader should engage?</p>
<p>In closing, this application is in the deferral/rejection area in the EA round and will face challenges in the RD round. Please consider some of these questions raised as these elements should be part of a continuing letter of interest that you will need to submit.</p>
<p>Dear stressed95 : During the earlier part of my career, I was a university professor at a major institution (NCAA Division I) in New York. I am currently a Board Member at that same university. Both of my children attended Boston College having arrived at their collegiate choice after following very different paths although both were academically skilled and part of the CAS Honors Program. Note that I am not an admissions officer at Boston College; both of my children volunteered in the Admissions Office which helped to yield some of the insights that I share here on College Confidential. While my professional career was not in academia, I have been closely tied to several universities over the last two decades. Hope that helps clarify for you.</p>
<p>However, the real question is not “who am I?” but rather whether our suggestions have helped to push your thinking on other applications that you might consider filing.</p>
<p>Thank you very much, but I’m done with my applications. I’ll try my hardest to get into BC, but I think that either my stats above were unclear or you didn’t understand some of what I was trying to say, because all of your questions were answered in my application, and I have faith that I have a strong chance in the regular decision pool. Thanks anyway, though.</p>
<p>I think scottj did a very thorough and honest job of “chanceing you” I can understand you may not like the answer but if you don’t like the answer then…</p>
<p>For example:
-I still play the viola, I just don’t take orchestra classes. This was arguably a good decision because, if I know that I want to major in marketing, replacing a mediocre orchestra class with sports marketing will provide me with more prep; it’s a better use of my time.
-My schedule is jam-packed. I don’t even have a lunch period because I try to make the most out of every school day.
-I wrote my entire supplemental essay on my impact with the Red Cross, tying in my strong leadership abilities and passion for volunteerism. My extracurricular elaboration was written about founding Interact Club, another volunteerism club/organization. If nothing else, these two pieces of writing definitely prove my impact on the community, and prove that, in both extracurriculars, I hold strong leadership positions.
-In an email to my admissions officer, I included the detail that only in the final quarter of my junior year, ironically the strongest gpa quarter for me, I was bumped out of the top 10%, by only .03 of a point (I misspoke earlier). I addressed this and added that it is a very competitive school.
-One of my managers at the small shop that I work at had 8 immediate family members attend BC. She is in the process of writing a third letter of recommendation for me, in which she addresses my very strong and determined work ethic as well as how I mirror the image of her family members who attended BC–how I will fit perfectly into the BC family.
-I am retaking the SAT 1’s this January to get my scores up to (hopefully) at least a 2100. I’m getting tutored in Critical Reading, because that’s specifically what I’m trying to get up.</p>
<p>Overall, thanks to everybody for their efforts, but many of the questions regarding my application were, indeed, addressed in my application, and therefore likely weren’t the reasons for my deferral. I think that it’s because of my right-on-the-line GPA and my SATs. My senior year grades will show that I am dedicated to academics, and I will try my hardest to raise my SAT grades.</p>
<p>I think you will get in…you have to be very close and it only helps thats applications were way down (25% or something like that). Everyone will say that yield will offset it but I think you have a very good chance. Means nothing but…</p>
<p>I’ve already been accepted EA, and I think you have a great shot. ECs are great, class rank doesn’t matter as much as GPA and scores, I think. Not like you’ll get into the honors college or anything, but I think you should get in.</p>
<p>And just for the record - taking classes “a year early” won’t make any difference. It may be early at your school, but it it might be on-level for lots of other students.</p>
<p>Keep up the good work, and just because you’re “stressed95,” I’m going to remind you not to stress too much about this type of stuff. Since you’ve already applied, there is barely anything else you can do.</p>