<p>I generally agree with what you posted Pohsmom though I do think there are some other factors in play. I think part of what plays into NYU’s and BU’s focus with respect to undergraduate academic numbers are school policy decisions that they don’t want BFA kids to mess up too badly their overall numbers. The BU faculty person I spoke with two years ago when my daughter was auditioning was quite candid about it. The school had given him overall numbers within a range. He could slip a few in but not many. This had been a change over the last few years but it wasn’t driven by a conclusion that prior BU BFA kids were not cutting it academically. I don’t think they take any heavier academic load than many other BFA programs. I never talked to anyone at NYU about their policy but I’m sure the very large class they take plays into pressure to make sure the numbers aren’t too far off the rest of the school population. Obviously, at a school like UNCSA that doesn’t have any programs but BFA programs there isn’t going to be any school pressure to maintain GPAs or SATs at any particular level. </p>