@limbo333: Hope so…I haven’t heard anything so far…staying positive and might reach out to my reg rep this afternoon. Praying for a chance to attend BC this fall…good luck to everyone!
@limbo333: I really want to attend BC class of 2019 as well, will make sure to post here to update everyone if I hear anything. :-h
Massmom2015, if you gain any general insight from your call, please do let us know.
From Boston College Admissions Facebook Page:
To all students on the wait list: We will be using the wait list sparingly this year, but will not know the extent to which we will use it for 2-3 weeks. We will strive to resolve our waiting list by the end of May.
Please call us (617-552-3100) with questions or concerns.
The Facebook page is called: Boston College Admission
Again, the page posted on Monday, May 4 at around 10 am that “we will be using the wait list sparingly this year, but will not know the extent to which we will use it for 2-3 weeks. We will strive to resolve our waiting list by the end of May.”
@Liana330: Oh boy know I’m really nervous, I think I’m going to call my Regional Rep…keeping my fingers crossed!
As a parent who has lived through the dual disappointment of our son’s i) deferral through the EA process and ii) wait list through the RD process, I am deeply disappointed in this most recent cryptic and very unhelpful post from BC admissions.
As a preliminary matter, I fully realize that when balancing the needs of Boston College versus the earnest desire of wait listed applicants for final resolution, that Boston College will act solely in a manner that suits their best interests. That being said, at this stage of the process, why can’t BC just be more transparent and forthcoming?
What does “sparing use” really mean in terms of raw numbers? When comparing the yield from acceptance offers to the remaining vacancies in the Class of 2019, what is the actual number of students that BC needs to pull from WL in order to fully populate the Class of 2019? At this stage of the process, these are not unknown variables. The bottom line is that BC knows by now, how many students have affirmatively responded to acceptance offers and actualy submitted deposits. Why not just say that we have only approximately X spots left in the Class of 2019 to fill from the wait list?
Transparency, however, isn’t the only problem with this post. Their stated rationale is simply inconsistent. Although clearly cautioning WL applicants against any optimism (use of WL will be “sparing”), BC Admissions goes on to say that “although we really don’t expect to draw too much from the WL but know we will need to offer some WL candidates admission, but we don’t know how many nor do know when we’ll know, but know it might be in 2-3 weeks when we’ll know what we don’t know…”
Really, does the gap analysis of the accepted pool versus the desired pool really take “2-3” weeks?
In fact, BC’s tweet reminds me of the great obfuscator Donald Rumsfeld:
“Now what is the message there? The message is that there are no “knowns.” There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we do not know we don’t know. So when we do the best we can and we pull all this information together, and we then say well that’s basically what we see as the situation, that is really only the known knowns and the known unknowns. And each year, we discover a few more of those unknown unknowns.”
There are over 1,000 students on the WL who deserve much better than this from BC Admissions.
@NedTNolan I understand your frustration. However, I think it takes 2-3 weeks because some students who committed to BC may get an acceptance from a waitlist at a more desirable school and will withdraw.
@NedTNolan: This might open more potential spots for those of us on the waitlist, I know the waiting is the hardest part but you need to have patience and try to be optimistic.They say everything has a way of working out for the best.
What are you guys doing in these last few days? Making phone calls, sending emails, or just saying prayers?
The prayer idea seems fitting.
Liana330 the press release on FB is the shortened version of this. http://bcheights.com/news/2015/acceptance-rate-drops-to-28-percent-for-bc-class-of-2019/
@NedTNolan I don’t think BC is being cagey. They’re just being conservative. The school seems to be feeling its way with a more accomplished applicant pool. As you pointed out yourself, the numbers won’t be solid until they how many accepted students withdraw because new opportunities become available to hem. With a more qualified applicant pool comes the potential that more students could regard BC as a safety school.
I think the takeaway is that the yield this year was what they had hoped it would be, but they won’t know their exact numbers for a couple of weeks. My sense is that the number of students on the waitlist who will receive offers will a double digit number instead of a triple digit number.
The “waitlist number” that BC or any school has on April 1st is always a moving number between now and when classes start. That’s because many applicants accept and pay deposits to multiple schools. Or some will get off a waitlist at another school and forfeit their deposits.
It’s fair for BC to manage those numbers internally without disclosing them publicly.
@maof4 I will be praying also!
@scottj:
I recall in the last month you had a reply with some very interesting input about BC legacy wrt to admissions. I can no longer find it, no matter how I search. Did any of those posts get deleted?
Thanks.
The article of March 26, 2015 says:There are approximately 1,200 students currently on the waitlist. In previous years, as few as 50 students and as many as 300 have been admitted to the University off the waitlist. The number of students on the waitlist is dependent on how many students accept their offers of admission—ultimately, admissions staff will delve into the waitlist and perform a qualitative examination to identify the strongest students, Mahoney said.
The Facebook post of Monday, May 4, 2015 uses the word “sparingly,”…which makes me think of a number lower than 50! We’ll see!
Prayer is indeed fitting…that what is meant to be, will be! 
This has gotten so ridiculous that we now have to try to decipher what “sparingly” means. My daughter was accepted to all her schools and wait listed to BC like many others here only bc she doesn’t fit into one of percentages they need to meet. From day one a middle class girl from down the street to BC has less chance to be accepted. At this point we have decided to spend our $250k elsewhere.
Dear @jpm50 : Yes, I had a post here that I requested for removal. That post was in the BC Law/Professional school discussion thread. The material focused on the different academic and social orientations between undergraduate and professional institutions. The data points that I included in that essay were directly taken from my own family experiences which on review seemed a bit too much “look at these people” as opposed to illustrating the point that a professional school is focused on producing top caliber candidates in one particular field.
I have not however specifically addressed the legacy issue in quite some time.
Dear annoyedmom15 : While I can appreciate the frustration that comes with a wait list appointment, your family’s focus needs to be on that school where you daughter has been accepted and you have placed a deposit (assuming a May 1st deadline).
Remember that Boston College is need-blind so while I am sure that the University would appreciate another full-freight, paying customer, it is not part of the general acceptance criteria. Once financial aid becomes thinner as the wait list is explorer, ability to pay might be a point to consider. However, there are so many “ifs” in that sentence and thinking, you are best advised to focus on your daughter’s top accepted choice.
Dear Liana330 : Remember that the number of acceptances this year was higher than last year - as a result, if more potential students from that expanded acceptance list have put down their deposits, you start to understand what sparingly actually means (to me) that the number will be very low this year.
Dear NedTNolan : Thank you for your note and expression of concern. Several points in your note are critical for consideration.
First and foremost, many readers believe that an EA deferral is actually a “preferred” application in the RD round and nothing could actually be further from the truth. From the EA round, about 20% of students are outright accepted, 60% are deferred to the regular pool, and 20% are rejected. EA acceptances are reserved for truly top candidates who have a demonstrated advantage in their application.
Now, you move from an EA pool of some 4,000 applications into a pool that now has an additional 24,000 applications. Many years ago, I did some statistical analysis for our readers on College Confidential, but think of it this way : you are increasing the pool size by 6x meaning there will be even MORE students in that top 20% of that pool that you did not “beat” in the first place. In order words, an EA deferral to RD acceptance is actually a rarer combination than a combined EA/RD deferral.
You ask for BC transparency. What more transparency would you want? How many slots are available? It just isn’t that simple. If you are thinking that the gap analysis is as simple as saying “do we have 2250 enrollees?”, you would be very wrong. For example, CSOM has fixed capacity - you cannot place 1000 enrollees there at the expenses of CAS - or Nursing or Education. Second, you try to balance the potential incoming load by subject area to make sure that the faculty can be properly loaded. Third, did the financial awards system get overloaded with students who put down deposits as opposed to students paying full freight? These are just three surface questions that take weeks to solve when thinking about the number of students to pull from a waitlist.
As I said, you should stop worrying about Boston College’s process because being harshly realistic right now, you are not accepted. Period.
You should assume that your child’s deferral will be a rejection and focus on your ACCEPTED schools as opposed to wondering about BC’s processing of the May 1st deposit list.
If you should be pulled from the waitlist and face the decision between your enrolled school and BC, only then can you decide on the right answer. However, right now, you only have one answer and no choice.
I apologize for the harsh view espoused here however pointing to the BC process is not the right answer for your situation.