Hey, just got accepted to BU under the January-Boston CGS program! I initially applied to Questrom for international business but I’m assuming they moved me to CGS because of space limitations? No financial or merit aid.
STATS:
From NJ
3.7 GPA
5 AP classes
Went TO
School Editor-in-Chief, MUN Co-Conference Manager, and some other leadership positions
I’m happy to have gotten in but a little bummed about the January admission. I am super motivated and I feel like a gap semester would stunt me a little, and I wouldn’t have access to any crazy internships or opportunities since I wouldn’t have access to BU resources during that gap semester. Also upset about the cost of the London semester. Its 45k for a 6-week “semester”, so I would be paying 120k total in the 2025 year alone without a summer vacation, and I’m not sure if admission into Questrom is guaranteed (although it seems like it?). If anyone has any information on the CGS program or has an experience with the program, please let me know. Any insight and advice would be appreciated!
Could you share the reference to the algorithms that you mentioned?
Business decision aside, I would think that it is an extreme for a school to gauge whether any individual student will enroll. They could just admit X% of student from each pool and predict Y% of students that pool would enroll and still be able to shape the class.
Personally I feel that all those programs like “international scholars”, “guaranteed transfer” are going beyond extreme.
where are you finding stats about number of applicants/acceptances for the current year (class of 2028)? is this RD only? 3K seats from 79K app is 4%!?!?!? BC’s letter said something similar which also came out to single digit admittion rate (around 6%). This can’t be right, can it?
A quick Google search led to a lot of articles. Some are better than others. I will let you decide which you want to spend your time reading. The bottom line is that many schools use sophisticated tools to help them determine admissions and financial aid.
The 79k is from the youtube video released by the head of admissions. The 3k is from last year’s CDS. (It’s actually around 3,600).
You aren’t taking into account yield. BU will offer admission to more than 3k knowing that not all will accept. I believe last year’s admit rate was around 10% for RD.
It’s so hard to explain to such an accomplished student that this is not a totally objective process. His hard work will pay off and it was worth it. Hang on. I really hope he gets some great news as the rest of the process plays out.
Outcoming ranking would be personal. Knowing that WL is the school’s buffering to potential under-enrollment, and the chance of coming off WL is much less than RD admit rate (e.g. according to its CDS, BU only admitted 3 off WL in 2022-2023), I would place WL even after ‘rejected’, as the latter allows you to move on earlier.
My point is that ‘International Campus’, ‘Guaranteed Gap’ really could be just an option ‘add-on’ after admission. My son is pretty happy with BU’s guaranteed transfer though b/c he already has quite a few equally excellent schools to attend, albeit OOS and he is yet to visit. He liked the option b/c if the school he choose to go did not work out, he could transfer back (being that we are local, we don’t have much concern on his adapting in BU should this happens). But still, as a parent, I really don’t like all those fancy names of admission games.
Of the 3300 seats in the Fall, 2024 class, about 2500 were filled through ED I and II.
I don’t think BU does this but Northeastern offers an ED pre-read of financial aid. You apply EA or RD, submit the form and paperwork and you receive an estimate of need based grants. If that makes Northeastern doable, you switch to ED. Those who reported doing this got the aid that the preread indicated and in a few cases merit aid on top of that.
For those waitlisted or denied for whom BU was their first choice, that is unfortunate. For those who are simply upset that they were not admitted but would likely not attend anyway, it is time to move on.
3.98UW 4.5 W 1490 SAT 34 ACT
Co-launched an award-winning nonprofit. Co-owns an award-winning sustainable business.
Serves on several boards and commissions and earned several national awards, including 4-year full tuition scholarships transferable to univ. of choice.
Acceptances: UCLA, UCSB, UCSD, UC Davis, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, San Diego State (Honors), Long Beach State.
Rejected: MIT
Waitlisted: University of San Diego, BU
Waiting on: Cornell, Harvard, Princeton, UPenn, and Vanderbilt.
Did not apply ED to any university because she/we cannot afford to commit without a full financial aid package in full view. Dorms, travel, and food add up!
For future applicants: son waitlisted for engineering with a 1510 SAT, top 5% of class, 98 UW GPA, 9 APs (all 5s/4s), and varsity/club sports & leadership. We toured, but no other show of interest. This wasn’t a favorite, so he won’t be joining the WL.
Rejected. 4.0 uw/ 4.3 w, 6APs (all 5s), 10honors, excellent leadership, volunteer, extracurriculars & outside work. Just a string of rejections with a few acceptances to safeties. This is exhausting.
