Any nursing acceptances out there? Mine applied RD for nursing, but it’s a top choice. I am lurking here to see what the acceptance stats look like for nursing….
Accepted to MCAS: UGPA 3.6, WGPA 4.1, ACT 34, 11 APs, Student Council (4y), Club pres., Lead student ambassador, Recipient of competitive fellowship, avg comm svc, 2 summer career/academic programs, sustained interests/activities, 2y retail employment. Strong essays.
Good luck to everyone!!
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Son accepted to MCAS. 94 Unweighted, 1530 SAT, 10 APs, National Merit Commended, athlete and captain (not recruited at BC), 4 yrs student govt, community service, camp counselor, summer internship with state assemblyman. Older sibling recently graduted from BC.
BC is a great school with excellent commitment to undergraduate teaching and mentoring. My advice is to focus on writing clear essays that show curiosity and thoughtfulness and also be sure your activities demonstrate some consistent service in your community—both really matter to Jesuit institutions. Good luck to all!
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Any ED1 acceptances that were test optional?
Doubtful unless it was a D1 student athlete or someone with similar “special” attributes.
Why would you not submit your test score (or take as many AP exams as you can)? Everyone has a 4.0 - or higher - these days given the rigor of most high schools is extremely low and grade inflation is rampant.
Do you really think the rigor of most high schools is low? My D26 goes to a public high school in a good school district, but by no means is it a feeder to any top schools. My husband who has an MBA from ND says she learned things in Macro and Micro that he didn’t learn until grad school. And the physics and calc she does is pretty advanced too. I think she works a lot harder in high school than I ever did. Perhaps this isn’t the case everywhere.
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DD was accepted to nursing RD last year. 4.48 weighted gpa, 34 ACT. 8APs and she reported her AP scores which were all 5s. Her extra-curricular activities reflected interests in public and global health. She did a couple of internships and played a lot of sports. It seems (to us) they are primarily looking for demonstrated ability to handle academic rigor as it is a very rigorous program.
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Agree.
Most parents I’ve spoken with over the past 12–18 months seem to get caught up with GPA and develop a false sense of how strong their child’s application will look based on how high their GPA is.
Of course GPA matters, and it matters a lot, but today - and for some time now - almost every student applying to top colleges has a high GPA. What truly differentiates applicants is rigor. Taking AP courses matters. Taking honors-level classes (if offered) matters. And, submitting strong SAT/ACT scores still matters. Rigor is often one of the deciding factors.
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Thanks for this. Mine has slightly lower but similar stats. 3.8 uwGPA, 4.9 wGPA, 33 ACT (35 math, 35 science), 9 AP classes (including AP Bio, AP Physics, AP Calc AB – so far 5’s and 4’s), 2 DE classes (incl. Anatomy/Physiology), the rest are all Honors or High Honors (except for PE/Health/Driver’s Ed, of course), hospital volunteering, varsity athlete/captain, etc. Is your D finding it super difficult?
I think I have the opposite problem. My D probably has the rigor (see above) but not the grades (grades are not terrible, but not compared to so many 4.0s). It seems you need both! It will be interesting to see how this whole application cycle plays out for her.
Our son took all honors-level classes (more difficult than AP classes), and that ended up being a major positive factor in his admissions “success”.
To be honest we were actually worried about this exact issue because he did not have straight A+ grades. We spoke with multiple college admissions officers, his school counselors, and private consultants, and every single one of them said the same thing: rigor matters more than a very high GPA. They all emphasized that colleges - at least the ones our DS was considering - evaluate a student’s GPA in the context of course difficulty/rigor, not in isolation.
They also strongly encouraged him to submit SAT/ACT scores and to take as many AP exams as possible, since strong scores in those areas further demonstrate the ability to handle demanding academic work.
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Well, it certainly seems to have worked out… Congrats to your son on his acceptance!
Your DD has impressive credentials which will surely result in some very favorable outcomes.
I would say the most important thing for someone like her is to be “strategic” and “thoughtful” about putting a college list that is balanced and offers her the risk she is willing to take on.
The biggest mistake I have seen over the past 18 months or so that we have been on this wild and crazy journey of college admissions is that kids put together crazy, unbalanced lists of colleges and that really hurts them more than anything else. They are led much more by their wishes/desires, their parents’ opinions and expectations, or uninformed sources (other teenagers, social media) than by being grounded and balanced and informed.
My child was admitted TO ED1 last week. 4.0uw, full IB diploma candidate, class president, three sport varsity athlete with all state recognition and captain of two of the sports (not a recruited athlete), strong ECs and volunteer commitments, sibling at BC (not TO, for what it’s worth, but similar academic profile). I also know of another TO ED admit this round from our area. Good luck all, I know it’s a tough process with so many uncertainties and variables but in my experience kids have truly landed where they thrive.
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I agree with the comment that the rigor these days is off the charts!! The idea that these kids should have finished a year or two of college level classes just to get INTO college is absurd.
We went through this process twice (both kids had 34 ACT) and our child with a high GPA and much less rigor (5 fewer AP classes!) did much better in the application cycle. Small sample size, but I think the GPA is king.
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Here is larger sample size:
1 in 8 freshmen at UC San Diego cannot do basic math, yet in many cases received an A in high school. UC San Diego is a selective school, with a 28% admit rate and many 4.0 GPA applicants.
According to the school, there’s been a 30-fold increase in the number of incoming students incapable of middle school math, unable to round numbers or answer the question “7+2 = 6 + _?”
Average SAT scores across the country have dropped by nearly 100 points in a direct inverse of the graduation rate, the Economist found. And, though GPAs increased, average ACT composite scores continued to decline, in 2021 reaching the lowest average score of the past decade.
It’s not just UC San Diego that’s seeing the problem - colleges across the country have also seen falling math proficiency, the Atlantic reported, with basic writing and language skills also deteriorating to below high school standards.
We went through this process twice (both kids had 34 ACT) and our child with a high GPA and much less rigor (5 fewer AP classes!) did much better in the application cycle. Small sample size, but I think the GPA is king.
this is counterintuitive at first glance - how big was the difference in GPA and the difference in rigor? how good was the “fit” of academic profile to their choice of major? i think there could be other variables that led to the difference in acceptances.
I wonder how much the basic math issue is is a result of Covid. My D26 is in MVC, earned a 5 on the BC exam, and her biggest struggle is algebra concepts. She took algebra during covid and I think she just didn’t get the same foundation as my older daughter did. And she loved online school, but there just wasn’t enough time going only 4 days a week to cover all the material. And it didn’t help that her Alg 2/trig teacher wasn’t good either.
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Thank you for the insight and congrats!!
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It sounds like your DD is a really strong candidate. I would also recommend writing an update/letter of continued interest after winter break, particularly if she can tie a recent experience into her desire to attend BC nursing (there’s a space for it in the common app). So far it’s been kind of a mixed bag. The work load is substantial but definitely doable. My DD has struggled a bit with finding a good balance between academic and social but she’s working on it - she’s made some great friends. She’s found some CSON students to be really friendly and chill others to be super competitive and overbearing. All in all, I think she’s happy with her choice. Best of luck to your daughter!
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