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There are 41 comments on Number of Applicants to BU Class of 2017 Sets Record

    1. (For those keeping track, ahem…Class of 2016, that means this year’s applying students earned a lower average SAT score and average GPA than you did.)

  1. I’m surprised that BU still has Early Decision, instead of Early Action. Early Action better allows students to compare financial aid packages before accepting, while Early Decision constitutes a binding contract whereby, if you are admitted, you have to attend.

    In this day and age, with students graduating into a sluggish economy and mountains of student loan debt adversely affecting their lives, it seems foolish to keep the Early Decision pool. Most other schools have moved on to Early Action, including many of the Ivies, and I do not see why an expensive school like BU has not followed suit to financially help out its prospective students.

    1. I don’t see the point of early action. The whole point of applying “early” is to demonstrate commitment to a particular institution. Regular decision exists for people who want to compare their options.

  2. Hope Admissions will do something to address the gender ratio. Must be over 60% female by now. I see at Harvard, Tufts, BC, Northeastern it’s about 50:50+/-1%.

    1. Peter,

      Why would you want administration do something to address this ratio? As a guy, you should appreciate this statistic!! And so should prospective (male) students.

    2. Hope Admissions will do something to address the gender ratio. Must be over 60% female by now. I see at Harvard, Tufts, BC, Northeastern it’s about 50:50+/-1%.

      Really?? The most qualified person should be accepted. No exceptions at all.
      This has nothing to do with the sex of the person. Most qualified individual.

      Peter welcome to the real world. It is not always going to be 10 boys and 10 girls in every class.

      signed – everyone

    3. Sorry peter, you’re wrong. Nationally many more women go to school than men, so artificially keeping it at 50/50 would just disadvantage women simply because they’re women. That’s probably not something you want to support.

    1. We are already discriminating on the basis of gender here.
      How then, do these other comparable institutions arrive at gender parity? I don’t understand what you mean by”higher admission standards for women”, are you referring strictly to Academic performance?

  3. So basically more average students applied because the university invested a ton of money trying to attract high school students rather than on academics. Great.

  4. As a two-time alum (SED 73′, 81) I am especially encouraged by the rise in international applicants. It would allow for full tuition being paid by affluent students from aboard, helping with the overall pool available for scholarships. It also makes BU a more valuable educational experience for everyone by making it a more global learning place. I can personally testify that BU has a highly respected reputation internationally, especially in South Korea–where I currently reside and where I taught while in the Peace Corps.

  5. What does this mean to people like me that are good, but not great students. I applied early decision. I HAD my heart set on going to BU. I was deferred. Now I find out that TONS of other students, some super-high achieving, some more like me are applying. I was ready to sign on the dotted line, ready to commit to the University and now I wait. Will they choose someone with a higher GPA and maybe higher test scores just to improve the University’s statistics? I hope not, but I am beginning to think that this is all a game to improve the reputation of the University — it doesn’t seem like creating a community of young leaders and scholars who really want to attend the University is their number one priority.

    1. Hey don’t sell yourself short! I’m only in the top 25% of my class, not top 17% and I got in! :) My SAT scores were pretty good but that’s about it. The rest of me is average. I wish you luck!

  6. (For those keeping track, ahem…Class of 2016, that means this year’s applying students earned a lower average SAT score and average GPA than you did.)

    The above statement is totally unnecessary. With a 20% increase, you can expect a lower mean GPA from an average of 52,000 applicants (more variation as well as a higher probability of students with lower GPA’s applying) than from 44,000.

    1. For the sake of statistics? So you are saying that last years applicant pool had a different normal distribution than this years. If these are all meant to be a standard of the University and how well it is doing, then it should remain the same every year, regardless of the applicants.

  7. BU Alum, you may be correct. It will be interesting to see the “yield” of this great increase in applicants. It could be that BU is an appealing safety school as well.

  8. I am a BU parent. Both of my children attend BU. I have a senior and a freshman. So far, our experience has been great. I am happy to hear such news.

  9. My daughter is a SMG alum. I’m happy with what she had become….confident, smarter, and with a well-developed business acumen. One of the lucky ones who got offered a job before graduating. BU’s SMG has an excellent reputation not only in the US but also around the world.

  10. I’m surprised the article didn’t mention the fact that BU will be a Patriot League school next year, and how that may have contributed to the increase in applicants. Personally, I think it may have been a major contibuting fact.

    Also, someone mentioned that the GPA and SAT averages being lower than last year was likely due to the fact that the pool of applicants was larger. I would have to agree. It makes complete sense. To think the average would remain the same or increase over the averages of a smaller pool is simply not reasonable. There are only so many top applicants out there.

    Larger schools are generally disadvataged when comparing numbers. For example, when you compare BU SAT scores to that of other smaller schools, it would appear that BU has less qualified students due to the lower score range. However, the score range is for the middle 50%. Thus, because BU has roughly 4000 freshman, we have roughly 1000 students with scores above the score range, whereas smaller schools may only have 1000 freshman total, with scores below, within and above their score range. In other words, BU may actually have a largher number of top students, but a lower score range. Averages can be misleading, especially for larger schools.

    I think when the the class of 2017 is enrolled, we’ll see an article in September stating that its GPA and SAT scores are the highest in BU history.

    This is great news for BU.

  11. As a parent of a college student and a high school senior I want to tell all of you applying to college that I can understand your apprehension about acceptance, but you will all get into college and this awful time of waiting will fade into euphoria and the realization that it matters not what college you attend, but that you attend and give it your best effort! Enjoy the next 4-5 years of your life they will take you on a wonderful ride:)

  12. Reading this article was extremely frustrating. I had my heart set on BU for a while now so I was looking forward to hearing from the school. I thought I had a good shot because I am graduating 3rd in my class on 385 students with a cumulative gpa of 97.3. I have taken 8 AP classes and have gotten 4’s and 5’s on every one of those exams. I have an SAT score that is just a few points below their average(I figured since my gpa is about 10 points higher than their average, it wouldn’t matter that I’m just a few points below their average SAT). I have very good extracurricular activities (tutoring, volunteering for youth leagues) and I even play sports and have been on a varsity team for three years. Sorry for the ranting, but I thought these credentials would have been good enough for BU class of 2017, but I just got my decision and I was denied. I really don’t understand why and I hope maybe someone can explain a possible reason to me?

    1. Well… You sound like a great person and all (other than the odd GPA), but no one really knows what people in Admissions are looking for. It’s not just “credentials”. It’s more than academics and volunteering. I was accepted, but I couldn’t tell you why they chose me and not you. I’m sorry.

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