Is the Acceptance Rate Really 6 percent?

<p>I live in Mass and just recieved my denial today. I expected to get in, 2200 and about a 3.8 unweighted. I didn’t have too many EC’s, which probably hurt me. But then I got my letter in the mail and it said out of 34,000 applicants, only 2250 got in. Doing some quick math in my head, that’s an acceptance rate of about 6 to 7 percent. That number shocked me. These are the rates you’d see at HYP! This not a nod against BC at all, it’s an extremely selective institution but I never imagined it to be that selective! If the numbers are correct, I believe BC will see a huge jump in the ranking next year. Can anyone verify that these numbers are correct, but an official letter from BC seems accurate to me.</p>

<p>wait, 2250 got in or there are 2250 spots in the freshman class?</p>

<p>2250 spots. All schools say this in their letters.</p>

<p>No. Think about it. Not every student is going to accept BC’s offer. So they have to offer enough people spots so that their 2250 spaces are filled. My guess is that they would accept about 7000 kids to get 2240 acceptances. Even a school like Harvard has to worry about yield–they have to accept more kids than they have spaces, knowing that some kids will turn down the acceptance.</p>

<p>There are ~2400 spots in the class (all undergrads). BC has an acceptance rate of ~30%, many of which choose to attend other colleges. According to IPEDS, BC’s yield is ~25%. Thus to end up with 2400 students, it has to make offers to ~9,600.</p>