Do you have a source for this?
Grades are relative to the school size, competitiveness, etc. Where a private school kid can have an advantage is in the recommendations, particularly by the GC. At our public school, the student/counselor ratio is 700:1, so the GC’s rec is just perfunctory.
fwiw: in my D’s year, several of the WL acceptances were legacies.
Google Boston College “fact book”. It slices and dices everything about BC.
Including professors and their backgrounds and paychecks. As an aside, Full profs at BC make 230k a year on average, which surprised me a bit.
It goes through all the student demographics. Ethnicity and geography. Applications by state and ethnicity. Actual exact numbers of admissions versus applications in each category. How many living alumni there are where they live. Surprisingly California is way up there.
Finances for the school. Last year it cost a billion dollars to run BC. It was a wow.
Current Endowment, revenues and costs.
Org charts for every department.
Here’s what I’ve seen locally over the last three years.
Financially and school wise (Private vs public) it’s been a bit all over the map.
Can’t find a common factor from this small group.
Except they all had the remarkable academic profile to already have Villanova, William and Mary and high end flagship honors type programs already in hand.
I would judge my chances by a few factors.
The 25 to 75 ranges are important. They will know these before going to the Wl. Last year it was 1380 to 1460. And 31 to 34.
And over 70 percent are in the top ten of their school. Say an UW 3.85 average. Don’t change the average down and it’s a good sign.
No way anyone’s getting an email if not in these ranges unless higher. They will not sacrifice these numbers at this time to move lower.
If you are a white female, it probably will need to be at over above the 75 percent number. Same thing for white males. URM will get a break if in the range especially if the numbers in their current mosaic aren’t hitting their targets. We just don’t know. Geography will play a tie break perhaps.
Finances will not be a big determinant.
However, you may not get your financial aid package before you have to decide. That’s what hurts and seems like is advantage for full pay or will pay students.
It will also be from the pool that has an adcom as an advocate or was razor thin from getting in originally.
Make sure you send in a specific loci and get it in. Yes you love the school. You will go if called. Also anything interesting and brief. A new award, school recognition or fundraising achievement. Be brief but memorable for your politeness, sincerity and specificity. I would do that today.
@bluebayou makes a good point s out legacies. Hadn’t thought about that angle.
I do know a couple in the group mentioned previously had direct board level contacts.
@wisteria100 also makes an excellent point. I wasn’t clear on my post. I meant they took a lot more ea students this year and a much bigger number overall. Like 10 percent more. And lasts years yield was up 2 percent year over year with a smaller and higher academic profile than ever. It was just an idea that you will see a higher profile once again and if yield holds constant there’s no Wl. But it’s all supposition.
I hope they use every spot on the Wl for the all the students who really want to be there.
I’m rooting for all of you. But I would be very politely proactive.
Hi! Since you commented this last week, did they mean they will be releasing them the week of May 6? Also, did they specify if there would be a particular order in which they release the schools (MCAS, CSOM, Lynch, etc.)? Thanks!
@speedracer48 All we were told is that my son would get an email if he comes off the waitlist and were not given a time frame. I think we would have heard by now if it was good news because the deadline was almost a week ago. I assume they move fast?
@tbdwherehegoes I don’t think it works that way. Most colleges accept off the waitlist in small batches, not all at once, and the waitlist is often moving into the middle of summer. It all depends on how many they need and yield off the waitlist.
@BCBoundMaybe heard June 4th last year.
^And I believe he was one of the last to hear
@tbdwherehegoes I think what @evergreen5 said is accurate! I have been emailing my local representative inquiring about when they would begin releasing waitlist acceptances, and she only said they hope to start soon. I contacted a current BC freshman who went to my high school who got off the waitlist last year. He said he heard back May 23 since he applied to CSOM, but told me that MCAS came out earlier. I am assuming they release small waves of acceptances by the school and will continue to choose more from their waitlist into the summer if those kids decide not to accept admissions. Let me know if you hear any other info!
My daughter got off the waitlist May 21st. There were three rounds of releases prior to her. She did send an email saying she would 100% take the spot if she was realessed from the waitlist. Not sure if it mattered but we did not apply for financial aid and she was a Lynch applicant.
Heard from someone in admissions that it is unlikely that they have room to go to the waitlist.
I heard the same thing from our guidance counselor.
There are two kinds of WL, one is regular WL, which is used to fill the class if the enrollment is under expectation. the other one is the extended WL, which is used to fill the open spaces created by the dropouts of the committed students.
Sry, but that’s a distinction without a difference. All colleges experience summer melt, the term for your second point (deposited students who change their mind for whatever reason). As a result, colleges also plan for that in their WL calculations/estimations. Moreover, those are usually in the onesie-twosie category. Obviously, of a BC depositor gets off he WL at Harvard, they will move to Cambridge. Perhaps also true at a few other higher ranked colleges, such as ND or Georgetown, particularly if the student is legacy at ND. But summer melt movement is minimal and not worth thinking about from a WaitListee perspective. Summer melt rarely happens for a lower ranked college as the merit aid budget is used up by then.
has anyone gotten anything today? according to the previous years it was on a friday on may 11
Will they start sending anything soon? A lot of other schools have started opening waitlists!
I haven’t gotten anything, even though I was looking out for it today. I called this afternoon and they said they’re uncertain whether they will even pick from the waitlist 
I believe he said they will decide around next week if they will or not.
Thanks for this update @speedracer48 .
@JoRocks Of course! If anyone else hears whether there’s been any waitlist movement, make sure to post!
Got an email this morning from an associate director of admissions. " As of today, it is highly unlikely that we will be taking any students off the waitlist."