<p>In making my list of schools, I had recently added BC, but eliminated my original backup school (Illinois) because I wanted one that I actually would like to go. I was having trouble finding a school like that, until a friend suggested BC as a backup. I was under the impression that BC was just as hard to get into as other schools I’m applying to (like NYU), so I wanted to see if applying to it as my safety would be a bad decision. </p>
<p>Here are my stats by the way</p>
<p>Ethnicity: Indian (as in from India)
Location: Suburban Chicago
GPA UW: 4.0 cumulative
W: 4.9
Rank: 1/590
Public high school. It’s all right… nothing special
ACT 33: writing 11 & Super-score 35 (35 E, 36 M, 35 R, 34 S)
SAT: 2260 Superscore (690 CR, 770 M, 800 W) Retaking in Oct.
SAT IIs: 790 Math II, 780 USH</p>
<p>EC: Internship for politican
Internship for pharmacy
Internship for pharm warehouse
planning massive community service project
Tutoring (in-school, both paid and unpaid)
DECA International Qualifier, running for state officer
Model UN,
Newspaper Editor,
P.E Leader for freshman class,
Youth in Action,
Life skill mentor for junior class,
1 year Track,
1 year Mock Trial,
2 years scholastic bowl.
Many volunteering hours as a TA.
Attended biz camp, performed a mock merger as a C.E.O</p>
<p>I would say it is idiotic to think of BC as a backup school. There are students every year with similar and superior stats than yours who get rejected or waitlisted. That being said, you are however an above average applicant to BC. I would suggest you to apply for many other schools as a backup. I had a friend who only applied to borderline/reach/safety schools and get rejected. </p>
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<p>I have an idea what organization this is associated with. :)</p>
<p>Thanks for the insight. I’ll definitely look for a real backup school to apply to then. Any suggestions on what a good backup on the east coast is? I really don’t want to apply to Illinois (in state) because I really really really don’t want to go there.</p>
<p>hoysaxa: If you are not affiliated with BC at all, then why do you continue to ■■■■■ its threads? If you truly believed that Georgetown is superior to BC, then you wouldn’t think twice about BC, let alone post on its threads. So, perhaps you’re worried that Georgetown may not actually be superior (as you would like to believe). Your every attempt to say that Georgetown is better than BC just seems like a self-esteem issue to me.</p>
<p>BC can never be considered a safety, but for you, it could be a match. You have good chances, but there is the possibility of rejection, as others have mentioned.</p>
<p>I apologize about my characterization of BC. I need to correct my statement. BC is not simply a backup for Georgetown–it is far more than that. It is a backup for Georgetown, Harvard, Notre Dame, Duke, Dartmouth, and probably a dozen other universities.</p>
<p>Chicago701–your credentials are wonderful, and there should be NO possible way that you would not be offered admission to BC. However, as BC continues to struggle to win top students, it has begun to engage in yield protection (see Tufts, Wash. U., etc.) to improve their admissions statistics and has waitlisted some of their top applicants to determine if those students are “really interested” in BC.</p>
<p>^^^ This is pure speculation on hoyasaxa1’s part. He has absolutely no inside knowledge as to BC’s admission practices and simply has a personal axe to grind, as is quite evident from his continual postings on the BC forum.</p>
<p>OP, your credentials are rock solid, so you have an excellent chance for admission. BUT BC is not “continuing to struggle to win top students.” It gets over 30,000 applications a year and many, many of them have profiles similar to yours, so it is not a “slam dunk” that you will be admitted, and therefore BC is not an appropriate choice for a backup or safety school. Not because BC is trying to manipulate yield data, but because it simply can’t fit in all of the wonderful applicants who want to go there.</p>
<p>Worried_mom: You are right; I don’t have inside knowledge of BC’s admissions process–do you? If so, please tell me how many valedictorians with 2260 SATs (stats of Chicago71) were REJECTED by BC? Waitlisted? The number of applications does not just reflect the strong student interest in BC (which there is) but also the fact that SO MANY PEOPLE use the school as a backup, just like Chicago71 should. </p>
<p>I do know quite a bit about college admissions due to my involvement in the process at 3 schools and the Consortium on Financing Higher Education (COFHE)–an organization that consists of many/most of the most selective private schools in the country (BC has not been invited to be a member).</p>
<p>Ignore anything posted by hoyasaxa1. He is a very disturbed individual who has a habit of ■■■■■■■■. One can find various posts by him scattered throughout cc. Nobody takes him seriously.</p>
<p>I will have to agree with hoya on this one. The chances that the OP is not admitted to BC is low, assuming great essays and recs. However, IMO, a safety only brings with it a 90% chance of admissions; in other words, 10% chance of rejection. If the OP applies EA, s/he might even be competitive for the Presidential Scholarship.</p>
<p>BC is more selective than NYU, btw.</p>
<p>However, I disagree with Hoya’s comment about BC playing games with admissions to boost its yield. It is entirely possible, but I have seen no such evidence, since BC doesn’t pull too many from the WL (unlike WashU). And of course, Tufts, (for whom the infamous Tufts syndrome is named), likely hits the WL more because Tufts is need-aware in admissions. </p>
<p>But, let’s not forget that Jesuit school in DC: Georgetown cares so much about its yield that it forces students to self-select with subject test scores. GU is the ONLY college requiring three subject tests, which eliminates a lot of wannabes, but not-too-serious applicants. (Yes, I know that GU has dropped it’s ST requirement to ‘recommended’ but does anyone really believe that recommendation is a defacto requirement for the unhooked applicant?)</p>
<p>The simple fact is that ALL colleges are concerned about yield. Too many students and it has a shortage of housing. Too few, and a college loses money</p>
<p>To clarify, I’m applying to Carroll (and for the person who mentioned NYU’s selectivity, I’m applying to Stern, so it’s a bit more selective than regular NYU)</p>
<p>How competitive is admission to Carroll relative to arts and sciences? I’m pretty much convinced to apply to another school as my backup. Is EA at BC the single choice one? I was going to apply EA to Michigan’s preferred admission business program. Could I do both?</p>
<p>Also, do you think BU would be a good option as a backup for me? (the management school) I’d much rather apply there than U of Illinois, because I want to end up in a city on the east coast, not in a cornfield only 3 hours from home.</p>
<p>Dear Chicago701 : There are many on the College Confidential board who report and strongly believe that the admission statistics at Boston College for CAS and CSOM are wildly different and as a result, a potential winning strategy is to apply for the “easier one” and then transfer to the school of choice. I am here to authoritatively tell you that the stretegy is bumf.</p>
<p>Truth be told, the admission percentage between CAS and CSOM differs by less than one percent of the application pool and this past year was actually closer to one-half of one percent. Internal transfers into CSOM from CAS are heavily scrutinized and rarely accepted. Many CAS students who discover a passion for business after arriving will avail themselves of the courses which CAS students can take in CSOM (four or six classes in total).</p>
<p>The earlier discussion about “backup” schools is best answered by looking at the dozen cohort schools of BC applicants year on year - these are the dozen schools each year that enrolled BC students identify as their other options/applications. Each year, you will see seven of the eight Ivies (without Columbia typically) and schools like Georgetown, Tufts, NYU, and the like. You will find that the cohort group will be Northeast schools in the Top 30 nationally.</p>
<p>With all due respect, scottj, cross applications is a meaningless statistic. IMO, it falls under GIGO; we have students from our HS who are not even top decile apply to HYPMS (hoping to win a lottery or get struck by lightening?). The simple fact is that half of BC’s student body is less than a day’s drive from home. In other words, they live in the NE-mid-Atlantic corridor. And the fact is that most students in America attend a college close to home. Thus, like every other high school senior who applies to the ‘lottery’ schools close to home - it’s Stanford in California, BC’s students will and do apply to the other private colleges in the Northeast, many of which are highly ranked. But since Harvard has the highest yield, followed closely by Yale and Princeton, we can assume with near certainty, that no one at BC turned down HYP. (Ok, perhaps A Presidential Scholar on a full ride, but even that would be questionable since HYP have the best financial aid around.) And since every other Ivy save Cornell has significantly better financial aid than BC, it would lose those students too.</p>