BU is not a school that meets need. They don’t promise or guarantee to cover need for accepted students. Instead, they have an evaluation system for accepted students, where they review their financial info against their competitiveness as an applicant (ie: how badly does BU want you to attend) and they dole out financial aid/grants/scholarships accordingly. It’s a system that benefits many, but lower stat, lower income kids are not best served by it. It works best for high stat/low income or high stat/middle income students, from what I’ve seen. (ie: high stat/low income kids who get full rides and can attend, and high stat/middle income kids who get decent offers and their families can afford to cover the difference)
This article is incredibly illuminating: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/education/edlife/finaid-pappano-t.html?_r=0.
Honestly I think your stats are too low to be competitive, and you won’t get aid. I could only see that changing if a) your SAT pulled WAY up (200-300 points) b) you have a really compelling reason for the lower GPA with a strong upward trend and increasing course rigor in recent years and c) an amazing essay. I went to an admissions session recently as an alumni and they showed us profiles of three applicants (based on real kids). One was admitted with a 3.2, 1800-range SAT, and a very good essay… but the catch with her is she was a URM whose single mother battled cancer her freshman year, leading to a dip in her grades… which then recovered beautifully, in advanced and AP courses, over the next three years after her mother recovered. She talked about coming from poverty in her essay. Basically, extreme outlier. Just to give you context.