Chances for Early Decision at CGS

Colleges and Universities A-Z Boston University
1

After a very stressful year of deliberating between many many schools, I have kind of landed on BU for Early Decision. I’m thinking of CGS to really seal the deal. What would be my chances with my current stats?

Academics:
UW GPA: 3.5ish (If you saw my previous posts, my GPA was higher. Junior year was really awful for me and I got more Bs than I had anticipated. This was due to course overload by taking 3 APs and an Advanced Class along with extracurriculars and my mental health)

W GPA: 4.2

APs: Chem 5, US History 5, English 4, Govt and Calc BC for senior year.

All Honors and Advanced classes.

Tests (Stronger area):

SAT: 1530 with a 21 on the essay
SAT Subject Tests: 790 Math II, 730 Chem

Extracurriculars:

President of two clubs- Model UN and South Asian Association (I’ve won more than 7 competitions for Model UN)

Seasonal Contributor for school newspaper

Music Tutor for underprivileged children

Elected member of Student Council

Organizer of yearly poetry festival for town

Writer for school literary magazine

Volunteer at Shelter for more than 100 hours

Intern at Harvard Medical School

Intern at political campaign for a Congressman

Awards:

Won 7 national Model UN conferences
Semi-Finalist in National Writing Competition
Sliver medallist in Biology Olympiad

Recs:

Will be good, two of my AP teachers who really liked me and my guidance counselor is pretty good with me too.

Additional Information/ Extenuating Circumstances (Pretty important!):

My hook for BU is that I am a double legacy. My mom and sister both attended the school.

Also, my high school time overall has been pretty difficult. My sister is disabled and was ill for a lot of the time, and I had to miss school frequently due to my parents immigration process to the US.

I would like to think I have a pretty decent shot at BU and my school is a big feeder. What do my chances look like?

2

My stats were relatively similar to yours (had a 4.3 weighted GPA, had 5s on 3 AP courses and was president of Model UN at my school) and I think your chances of being accepted are pretty good

However I would NOT reccommend applying to CGS. BU just began requiring all CGS students to start in the spring semester, so it difficult to adjust to campus life (more so than usual) because everyone will already be in their friend groups. Your application is very strong and you have a relatively high GPA. I would suggest applying to CAS undecided and then figuring out where you want to go from there. That way you don’t have to spend 2 years taking what are essentially high school courses and you won’t have to worry about the required gap semester.

Also there is a stigma at BU about people in CGS. The university advertises the hell out of the Boston-London program but once you arrive on campus you realize that most people really look down on CGS students.

3

@trockim Thanks for your response! I have also been worrying about the gap semester as well as the stigma, so I’m leaning towards just doing a CAS app. I’ve just been a bit worried because my grades went up from 9th to 10th grade and then a bit down when I was a junior because of my APs and I’ve been worried at how they will look at that. Did you also do Early Decision?

4

I applied regular decision, but I have a lot of friends who applied ED and some of them didn’t have the strongest junior year grades either. As long as you make up for those lower grades with high test scores and a lot of ECs you should be fine.

Also (in case you didn’t know), if BU feels that you are not a strong enough applicant to keep up with CAS course load but feel that you only fall short in one or two areas, they will simply place you in CGS, regardless of where you applied in the first place, so I would stick with applying to CAS and see what happens.

5

@trockim Thanks for replying. I’m going to take your advice (and my gut feeling) and apply for BU CAS ED. I hope that my interest (and legacy) gets me in!

6

If you apply ED and are offered CGS admission it is not binding.

7

Just read the reply about applying ED for CGS. Are you sure that it is not binding if you apply ED and are offered admission to CGS? This is the only place where I’ve found this info, BU doesn’t have this on their site, and I just wanted to confirm.

Thanks!

8

@waverider28 If you apply ED directly to CGS, then if you’re admitted you are very much binded. If you ED to any of the other colleges and get placed into CGS, the binding agreement is void because you essentially didn’t get into your college.

I’m also gonna be super frank, and this might cause controversy, but if you get CGS and didn’t apply directly to CGS, don’t go to BU. CGS is really not worth it unless you know exactly what you’re getting yourself into. You would feel a lot more liberated at your flagship state school or even a less competitive school.