CHANCES Please for a URM!

Colleges and Universities A-Z Boston College
1

<p>Here are my stats:</p>

<p>School: Public (in CA) Hardly ever sends out kids to great schools
GPA: 3.923 (THIS IS A WEIGHTED GPA, OUR VALEDICTORIAN HAS A 4.22)
Class Rank: 7/351 (Top 2%)
Ethnicity: Mexican American (Chicano)
Gender: Male</p>

<p>SAT I: 1700 (600 writing, 580 math, 520 critical reading) (very poor i know!!!) I took them again yesterday for the third and final time.</p>

<p>SAT II: Spanish 690 (very poor as well, but I am fluent, just a horrible test taker)</p>

<p>AP Courses offered at our high school: Spanish, French, Calculus AB, Eng. Language, Eng. Literature, and Biology.</p>

<p>AP Courses that I have taken/will take:
11th: English Literature, Biology
12th: French, English Literature</p>

<p>***I will be the only student in my class to take all of the AP tests offered at our school.</p>

<p>College Credit Classes taken/taking at community college so far:
Gen. Psychology: grade~ A
Trigonometry: grade~ A
Intro to Sociology: grade ~ A
Calculus: grade ~ in progress
American Minority Groups: grade ~ in progress</p>

<p>EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES:
AVID 9th, 10th, 11th1 12th
-2004-05 Freshman President
-2005-06 Executive Council Member
-2006 Delegate at Regional Leadership Conference
-2006 Student Spirit Award
-2006-07 President
-2007 Student Inspiration Award
-2007 AVID Student of the Year Award
-2007 Overnight Trip Committee Chair</p>

<p>STUDENTS FOR CULTURAL ENRICHMENT 10th, 11th
-2006-07 President</p>

<p>A.C.C.E.P.T. (Academic, Community, & Cultural Enrichment Program for Triumph) 11th, 12th
-Founder/Creator
-2007-08 Chairperson</p>

<p>KEY CLUB 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th
-Over 250 Hours of Community Service in just Key Club alone.</p>

<p>ASB 11th , 12th
-2007-08 Student Rep. to the School Board
-Master of Ceremonies at 2007 Youth Night in the Park
-CADA Leadership Conference</p>

<p>CALIFORNIA SCHOLARSHIP FEDERATION 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th
-Life Member
-2005-06 Vice-President</p>

<p>Mu Alpha THeta 11th, 12th
-Member
-2006-07 President</p>

<p>M.E.Ch.A. 11th, 12th
-2006 Delegate at UC Davis Chicano Youth State Conference
-2007 Delegate at Cal Poly Chicano Youth State Conference
-2007 Delegate at BizTalk with ex-Presidente Vicente Fox of Mexico</p>

<p>CAMP ROYAL Summer 2007
-One of two delegates from Dinuba High School</p>

<p>LINK CREW 11th, 12th
-Link Crew Leader for Freshmen Students</p>

<p>HISPANIC YOUTH SYMPOSIUM Summer 2007
-Delegate from Dinuba High School
-Youth Venture Issues to Action Finalist
-Earned one college unit</p>

<p>CHURCH ALTAR SERVER AND LECTOR 9th, 10th, 11th
-2004-06 Group Captain
-2005 Diocese of Fresno’s Serra Club Award
-Youngest and only teen Church Lector</p>

<p>WORK EXPERIENCE:
Tutor for Third Grader
-September 2006 ~ June 2007
-8 hours/week</p>

<p>Tutor for Fourth Grader
-June 2007 ~ August 2007
-4 hours/week</p>

<p>Tutor for Fifth Grader
-June 2007 ~ August 2007
-4 hours/week</p>

<p>DISTINCTIONS/HONORS: (not anything too special)
-2005 Academic Letter
-2005 Green Chevron
-2007 Top Ten Class Rank Award
-2006, 2006, 2007, 2007, 4.0 GPA White Chevrons
-2007-08 Student Council Letter
-DAR (Daughters of American Revolution) Dinuba High School Nominee</p>

<p>I AM VERY FOND OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES AND WOULD LIKE TO MAJOR IN THEM. I COME FROM A PREDOMINATELY LATINO COMMUNITY IN THE CENTRAL VALLEY IN CALIFORNIA WHERE MOST OF THE STUDENTS DROP OUT OF HIGH SCHOOL AND DO NOT ATTEND A FOUR YEAR UNIVERSITY. MY FUTURE ASPIRATION IS TO TARGET COMMUNITIES SUCH AS MINE, AND HELP MORE AND MORE STUDENTS BE AWARE OF COLLEGE AND THE BENEFITS OF LEARNING etc…</p>

<p>So what do you think??? Do I have a chance???</p>

2

<p>Dear gman6855 : You asked for an honest assessment, so here it is. When I first read your GPA and class rank, my first reaction was that yours would be an interesting application. Then, the standardized scores : your SAT I scores show an 1100 combined in CR/Math, 1700 on the three way exam. BC will simply not accept that 1100 score, but the problem is bigger - do you believe that you will be able to handle the curriculum, particularly in the core with substantial reading and writing requirements?</p>

<p>Being a poor test-taker is an easy excuse, but a fluent language speaker should be better than 750 on an SAT II language test. Your involvement seems strong.</p>

3

<p>being a URM definitely helps, but your test scores put you at a huge disadvantage.</p>

4

<p>id say the same as the others, everything looks great except for the test scores. hopefully you did better the third time around. if you could get it up to like a 1300 (out of 1600) then id say you have a good chance of getting in. otherwise just your scores make it tough</p>

5

<p>1300 is just barely below average. This student could do well even to make it into the 1200 range in the M+CR sections. Given her extensive EC involvement plus BC's dire need of URMs, that could put him in.</p>

6

<p>You know, I'm going to go against the conventional thinking here and say you'll get in if, and only if, you play your diversity card well, write an outstanding essay (not those sob learning about diversity from Albert your "no hable anglais" * gardener, triumphant over strain ankle and won practice game, or grandma just die after parents dumped her in nursing home essay). I'm talking about a genuine story that tells Admission why numbers do not tell why you are special as a person.</p>

<p>Your task today is to know why you are special. Your destiny rests on 500 words. Good luck with that kind of pressure.</p>

<p>*I flunk 7th grade Spanish (or was it Portuguese)</p>

7

<p>i am also a urm applying to BC...to be perfectly honest with you, i think ull get in after being defferred first. i think i will share the same fate. </p>

<p>i am a new member, but i have been reading the BC threads for a while and you people are making this out to be an ivy, when it is in fact a safetey for pretty much all the rich, (and white) smart kids from the northeast applying to iveis. </p>

<p>i think both u and me will get in after being defferred because once those harvard, dartmouth and middlebury kids get into those places regualr descision, theyll withdraw their BC app...leaving room for seccond tier applicatnts like us. BC accepts a ridiculous amount of people from the waitlist for that very reason (it is a safetey for ivy kids).</p>

8

<p>weirdapplicant- Certainly, many applicants view BC as a "safety," but it is by no means a safety school for anyone. If you look at threads, people with great ECs, GPAs, and scores of over 2200 have been denied before. I am not from the northeast, but I don't think it's correct to stereotype all northeastern white kids as "rich"; BC has a special AHANA program that looks to give opportunities to all races of applicants.</p>

9

<p>"BC accepts a ridiculous amount of people from the waitlist for that very reason"</p>

<p>I would like to see a link for this. BC admits about 27% from a pool of 29000 applicants. That yields about 7830 students being admitted. BC matriculation rate is about 33% which means 2583 students matriculate for about 2250 spots. I fail to see massive draw from wait list on this one. This year transfer pool fielded 1600 applicants, about 12% were admitted. BC simply does not admit many from their waitlist (which is quite large). From my class, 2009, only about 100ish were taken from the waitlist of several thousands. I know this because a friend of mine, who was waitlisted, was calling BC everyday to find out any scrap of news he could.</p>

<p>I'm not denying that BC is a safety school for many fantastic students, but that doesn't mean BC is so desperate to field "massive amount from waitlist."</p>

<p>Since I asked you for link, I should also provide a link. This is two years ago fact book, it's not updated but it should reveal pretty clear what I mean.
Class of 2010 and backward:
<a href="http://www.bc.edu/publications/factbook/meta-elements/pdf/06-07/06-07_freshman_admission.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.bc.edu/publications/factbook/meta-elements/pdf/06-07/06-07_freshman_admission.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Transfer for 2006:
<a href="http://www.bc.edu/publications/factbook/meta-elements/pdf/06-07/06-07_top_crs_and_transfers.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.bc.edu/publications/factbook/meta-elements/pdf/06-07/06-07_top_crs_and_transfers.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

10

<p>nevermind then. i guess i was mislead.</p>

11

<p>Still considering BC after being accepted to Stanford?</p>