What can I do to have a chance?

Colleges & Universities A-Z Boston College
1

<p>UW GPA: 3.1
ACT Composite: 25</p>

<p>Freshman Year S(1):
Honors English 9 - B
Honors Biology - C
Honors Algebra II - C+
Honors World Studies - B
Spanish I - B
Outdoor Pursuits - A</p>

<p>Freshman Year S(2):
Honors English 9 - B
Honors Biology - C-
Honors Algebra II - C
Honors World Studies - B-
Spanish - C
Health - B+</p>

<p>Sophmore Year S(1):
US History - B+
Chemistry - B-
English - B
Spanish II - A-
Debate - A
Honors Pre Calc - C+</p>

<p>Sophmore Year S(2):
US History - A-
Chemistry - A
Honors English 10 - A-
Spanish II - A
Honors Pre Calc - B-
Astronomy - C+</p>

<p>Junior Year S(1):
AP English - B-
IB Biology - B-
Psychology - A-
Spanish III - A-
Economics - A-
AP Calculus AB - C-</p>

<p>Junior Year S(2) [Estimated]:
AP English - B+
IB Biology - B
Creative Writing - A
Spanish III - A
Government - A
AP Calculus AB - B-</p>

<p>Senior Year Rigor:
AP Chemistry
AP Calculus BC
AP Literature
AP European History
Spanish IV (Worth taking?)
Psychology II, Intro to Business</p>

<p>Sports:
Played tennis for four years.
Three years were junior varsity.
One year will be varsity.</p>

<p>Extra Curriculars:</p>

<p>Quiz Bowl - 4 Years
Qualified for States each year</p>

<p>Debate - 3 Years
2 Years Varsity Debate, 1 Year Novice Debate</p>

<p>Multi Cultural Club - 3 Years
Participated</p>

<p>One Small Step - 2 Years
Fundraisers and more</p>

<p>Chess Club - 2 Years</p>

<p>Astronomy Club - 2 Years</p>

<p>Ourdoors Club - 2 Years</p>

<p>Work Experience:
Helped in Restaurant management 50 hours</p>

<p>Community Service:
100 Hours volunteered at hospital</p>

<p>I will make sure I will apply early.
I was born and still live in Michigan.
My brother recently graduated from Lyman Briggs Michigan State
I will get three letters of recommendation</p>

<p>Please let me know my chances, I’m really worried. I won’t be able to get my GPA up anymore and I probably can’t raise my ACT score much if not any.</p>

<p>Other Choices:
Syracuse University
Boston University
Northeastern University</p>

<p>Money is not a problem either, I am of Indian ethnicity (M).
Top 35% of Class </p>

<p>I also attended Boston University summer challenge program so two of the teachers there wrote good letters about me.</p>

<p>I know my GPA sucks but if it was my the normal weight scale it would be a 3.4 or 3.5ish?
I have also taken mostly hard classes which I heard they like a lot.
Money is not a problem either.</p>

<p>I don’t think I will be able to get a 30 or higher on my ACT or over a 1800 on my SAT what should I do to give myself a “decent chance” at getting in? Take easier senior classes and get a 4.0? or take a lot of hard classes and do decent?</p>

2

<p>Dear vijpenguin93 : Boston College’s admissions process values applicants in the Top 10% of their High School graduation class. From the most recent profile data, Boston College has almost 85% of accepted students come from the top decile of their High School classes; approximately 97% of accepted students come from the top quartile. Being in the Top 35% means that you fall into that very small 3% remainder which makes you a statistical longshot before even looking into the details.</p>

<p>Your ACT score at a 25 composite is below the performance of the bottom quartile at Boston College where the most recently published middle 50% ranges from 30 to 33. These data points are publicly available from Boston College (search for the BC Fact Book) and you will be able to gain more academic details. Have you taken the SAT I to offer some other data points?</p>

<p>Honestly, the grades here are just not competitive with your cohort group. While the curriculum you have followed reads well, the academic performance overall is below where you need to be for an acceptance letter by a fairly substantial margin.</p>

<p>It is unclear that a strong senior year performance in isolation will be enough to sway your application to be one of the 7,000 acceptances from 31,000 applications. Some strategies we would advise :</p>

<p>[1] Do not back off your senior year rigor - longer term whether in Boston College or not, your academic pursuits will be the most important asset from your profile. Stay with it.</p>

<p>[2] Improve your board scores - take an SAT prep class if needed. We do not understand how you can actually be taking Calculus AB and not be able to break an 1800 SAT score given that many Calculus AB/BC test takers score in the 700+ range on math alone. (This would mean that you are really struggling with reading sections which, for the core at BC, would be a serious academic issue for you to overcome.)</p>

<p>[3] If you can make significant improvements academically, do NOT apply during the EA phase and only submit your application during regular decision.</p>

<p>[4] Start looking for academic options which are more fitting with your current standing by using the search facilities available through collegeboard.com and other similar sites.</p>

3

<p>I can’t possibly imagine what more I could add to scottj’s post. But as he mentioned, your stats are nowhere up to par, and your slew of unrelated extracurricular activities makes me question your commitment to any one of them. This may be too late, but I would recommend bringing your GPA as high as possible, and instilling some focus into your activities to convey an identity that makes you unique. But most important, I suggest that you take some time to simply reflect about ideas for your personal essay- from what I’ve heard, BC values essays just as much-if not more- than mere statistics. Give them a story that they can’t put down.</p>

<p>Best of luck.</p>

4

<p>

</p>

<p>Do NOT apply EA. To have any chance, you’ll need a senior transcript, preferably with all A’s. And, as Scott notes, the test scores just HAVE to increase.</p>

5

<p>Definitely follow the advice from scottj and bluebayou: Do NOT apply in the early round if you want to have any chance at all (and as others have noted, your chances are pretty slim to begin with). AT BC, the EA round is more competitive than the RD round. And your application really needs to show a very strong performance grade-wise for the fall semester next year and much higher test scores.</p>

6

<p>Actually guys, I meant to post this thread in Boston University not Boston College. haha.</p>

7

<p>Dear vijpenguin93 : Normally, when one uses terms such as …</p>

<p>Other Choices:
Syracuse University
Boston University
Northeastern University</p>

<p>… one is led to believe that Boston University is an “other choice” to the intended board. None the less, the analysis stands and if you check your ACT score, you will find that a composite score of 25 is bottom quartile at Boston University. It is also mildly amusing that you knew to come back to the Boston College board to see these responses as opposed to wondering what happened to your intended post on the Boston University board. None the less, best of luck with whatever your future college application trail might have in store.</p>

8

<p>Please don’t assume scottj. I just copy and pasted what I put on the MSU boards which is why it says BU.</p>

9

<p>I also didn’t notice I posted on here until today. I didn’t come to these boards intentionally, I went to my recent threads.</p>