<p>Schmaltz,</p>
<p>The only thing “ridiculous” is that a BC alum would think that BC only cares about admitting numbers and stats rather than people.</p>
<p>Schmaltz:
BC has had the OTE program, which ilovemycoffee was accepted through, for the last 31 years. The programs successes have more than demonstrated its value. </p>
<p>As an alumnus, aren’t you proud to be part of a school that sets aside a few slots to reach out to those who didn’t have the opportunities you had?</p>
<p>To my limo liberal friends,</p>
<p>NRG, nice straw man. If anything is out of date here it’s policy by ethicity.</p>
<p>jpm, I wasn’t focused on the OTE program, and you don’t have any knowledge about what opportunities I had.</p>
<p>Kelly, yeah, I could do without legacies, too.</p>
<p>Kiterunner, you think valuing academic achievement over ethnicity is elitist? Are you one of those everybody-gets-a-trophy folks?</p>
<p>“Some people were accepted for a reason while others were not.”
That’s pretty profound. But it’s not a given that just because there were reasons, the reasons were good ones.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You’re correct. I have no knowledge. I could only infer from a quick scan of your many posts that you and the OTE participant in this thread had very different opportunities before arriving at BC.</p>
<p>I don’t want to fuel the negativity alone, but in many cases I do believe that URMs are accepted in many cases where their ethnicity is the deciding factor. At a couple colleges I applied to and was rejected from, I read through the chance or decision threads and noticed 3-5 people in each who were accepted with a 27-28 ACT score (5 points lower than mine), and each and every time, the person was a URM. I understand subtly stressing diversity, but in no instances should someone’s skin color alone compensate for scores that are in the bottom 5% of the college’s range. I don’t believe diversity has to be a trade off for academic excellence, and as hard as anyone tries, I’m not going to be convinced that something else in the URMs applications that I mentioned previously set them apart and made them seem more desirable to the admissions board other than the fact that their attendance would add to the percentages of minorities in the given school’s ethnic composition. Also, one of these colleges acknowledged the fact that they did not consider ethnic background in the decision process, so am I to believe that it is a mere coincidence that all of those individuals with far inferior test scores (and GPA’s in some cases) were all URMs by chance?*
I was accepted to and am attending BC, by the way*</p>
<p>In many cases I beleive in websites like collegeboard and the like, colleges should post two different SAT/ACT ranges-one for minority applicants and another for “majority” applicants.</p>
<p>^ i hope your kidding. I wont bother to argue with you on your previous post, because you are entitled to your opinion. we can agree to disagree. but to post seperate SAT and ACT scores based on race? that is borderline discrimination.</p>
<p>The post about the score ranges was somewhat facetious but everything else to me is completely accurate</p>
<p>@Schmalz - We don’t know what goes on inside of the admissions office. You CANNOT assert with 100% confidence that a student was accepted because of his/her ethnicity. Consider this…You have applicant A - 4.0 GPA, 2200 SAT, some extracurricular involvement, middle to upper class, generic or elitist essays, average rec letters, etc. Then you have applicant B with a 3.8, 1900 SAT, lower income, VERY passionate about one or many extracurricular activities, and VERY strong essays/ rec letters. REGARDLESS of ethnicity, I’m pretty sure most <em>reasonable</em> people on here would pick Applicant B (for BC, at least). Who would pick A? Nobody wants a wet blanket on campus who is solely interested in academics. Adcoms want to shape a class of interesting individuals. Furthermore, if we ARE going to take a look at ethnicity, you should check out MANY published studies that show a direct link between ethnicity, income and test scores. There are many low income, first generation, minorities (like myself) who don’t have the same opportunities as the rich private school kids who can spend 1K on test prep. I’m not trying to say that everyone deserves a trophy, however, people do need to be evaluated in context of their situation (if we are going to give ethnicity as much weight as you are giving it). </p>
<p>BTW - I’m not really surprised that some of the high stat kids on here got rejected. I mean, if they’re pretentious and snobby enough to insult others on a forum… I can only imagine how they come off in real life.</p>
<p>“however, people do need to be evaluated in context of their situation”</p>
<p>couldn’t be put any better than that</p>
<p>I couldn’t agree more with what kiterunner18 said.</p>
<p>Accepted: College of Arts and Sciences</p>
<p>Stats:
SAT Verbal: 790
SAT Math: 630
SAT Writing: 750
SAT Total: 2170
SAT II: Bio M: 670, US history: 650
ACT: N/A
AP/IB taken/scores: US History 5, World his.: 4, Lang/comp: 4
GPA weighted: 4.2
GPA unweighted: 3.9
Rank or % estimate: Top 5% (18/480)</p>
<p>Subjective:
Essays: really good
Teacher Recs: Didn’t read (I assume they were good)
Counselor Rec: great
Hook (if any): Nope</p>
<p>Location/Person:
State or Country: NY
School Type: Public
Ethnicity: White
Gender: Female
Legacy Yes/No: No
Recruited Yes/No: No
Important ECs: Lots, 2 varsity sports, captian of science oympiad team, lots of clubs over 250 hrs of service</p>
<p>Other Factors: none</p>
<p>General Comments/Congratulations/etc: Congrats to accepted BC class of 2014!! so excitedd 
still deciding but i think im going to end up going here!!</p>
<p>Rejected: College of Arts and Sciences </p>
<p>Stats:
SAT: didn’t send
ACT: 34
AP/IB taken/scores: US History 4, Chinese: 5, Chemistry:3
GPA weighted: 3.67
GPA unweighted:
Rank or % estimate: Top 25% (73/724)</p>
<p>Subjective:
Essays: pretty good. apparently it made my friend’s mom cry? idk why.
Teacher Recs: 1 was decent, and the other was much better
Counselor Rec: didn’t read
Hook (if any): Nope.</p>
<p>Location/Person:
State or Country: NJ
School Type: Public
Ethnicity: Asian
Gender: Female
Legacy Yes/No: No
Recruited Yes/No: No
Important ECs: Design editor of school newspaper, vp for mock trial, and a few other positions. over 250 hrs of service</p>
<p>Other Factors: none</p>
<p>General comments/Congratulations/etc: Not really surprised, it was a reach for me. But I was a little let down since I had gotten into Brandeis. oh well, it wasn’t my top choice anyway. Congrats to everyone who got in !</p>
<p>Kelly37 and kathleen21. your comments about my maths skills are much appreciated. </p>
<p>just to clarify things…i just couldn’t be bothered to add up my score.
in fact, i’m a national mathematics medal holder… and have been competing in math olympiads since i was 12.</p>
<p>^ Right… with a 630 on SAT Math?</p>
<p>yes…with a very low SAT score. scores aren’t everything. multiple choice is a weird way to do maths…</p>
<p>I’m doing the IB…higher level maths. im not sure if you’re familiar with that…but its pretty challenging. I’m predicted to achieve a 7-thats the highest grade. type into google- IB higher level mathematics…the first search describes it as following…“This course is designed for the most successful mathematics students”</p>
<p>so yes… with a 630 in SAT maths…</p>
<p>I’m sorry, but a 630 on the math section of the SAT is indicative of some serious flaws in your mathematical abilities. I suck at math and I got a 790. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but the SAT math section should be trivial for anyone really good at mathematics.</p>
<p>^“I suck at math and I got a 790”. Apparently sucking at math means that you are in the 99th percentile.</p>