<p>I don’t know… I didn’t really have safeties (despite top10%, 2200+, ec’s, …) because I had a major disciplinary incident in high school. I applied across the spectrum, from umass lowell to mit, with very few expectations (would have been very ****ed of to be rejected by umass though) and am quite content with the outcome. I might have been able to get into ivies/what not, but I was somewhat a slacker in hs (could have been a much stronger student and have involved myself a bit more in school if I focused more) and this is something that I don’t think about too much.</p>
<p>I don’t hate BU that much; I am just very upset that they were not able to look past the incident and evaluate my personality holistically. The entire nature of “extrajudicial punishment” just never made sense to me… I had the highest GPA and SAT of anyone rejected from BU from my school (and above most people accepted too, thus the “safety” argument is false). BU asks you what other school you are applying to (just probably for internal statistics) but I believe they said they don’t use it in admissions and they don’t really care if you apply as a safety as they are not tufts (they have a 58% admit rate)…</p>
<p>They asked me to consider transferring to BU… I am not even going to waste another cent on application fees to them. If I am ever transfering from WPI, it would only be to a school that is clearly a tier higher AND offers better financial aid, as WPI gave me a good non-need based package, recognize that people make mistakes and don’t deny them for an isolated incident, and I like the school a lot. Since my brother will join college next year and my efc would be less than what I am paying now, if they don’t give me a much better package, I might try to transfer… but not to BU. I am not particularly obsessed with school “rankings” since they are often quite superficial.</p>