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• Lance Batson on February 6, 2017

  As an African-American alumnus (ENG ’85), I have a different perspective on this news. I’m actually glad to hear about the 15 percent increase in African-American applicants, and the 9 percent increase in Hispanic applicants over last year’s percentages. There has been a lot of talk in the media about the ‘achievability’ gap between non-minorities and minorities, as well as the underrepresentation of minorities in institutions of higher learning and in the marketplace. BU’s recent multicultural student outreach and access initiative efforts are absolutely vital to helping to effectively address these realities. If these efforts result in a larger applicant pool, then that is a nice problem to have, in my opinion.

  The University of Pennsylvania only accepts 10 percent of its applicants. Penn’s applicant pool may very well be smaller than BU’s, however, that reality still requires a lot of rejection letters to be sent out. U of Penn was one of the schools that I applied to when I was a high school senior back in 1981. I was not accepted outright (I was placed on the waiting list), however, that absolutely did not deter me from pursuing a quality engineering education (and it would not if I was applying to colleges today). I can’t stress enough the utmost importance of exposure and access to college opportunities, particularly for minorities. History has shown us that minorities excel when opportunities are available and aggressively pursued, as the movie ‘Hidden Figures’ so powerfully demonstrates.

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• James D'Angelo GSM '91 on February 2, 2017

  I’m a little surprised so many alums find the figure to be a negative. I doubt the admin is just seeking to increase the number of applicants for the sake of sheer numbers. I think rather it just shows the continued good management of the university and fine, ever-improving academic quality. If B.U. is considered a better and better school, people say to me, “Oh, you got an MBA from B.U.” and they are impressed. Good on us!

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• Barbara Muzeni on January 30, 2017

  While I applaud the diversity of the applicant pool: I think back to my own application process and time at BU (SMG 84(now Questrum)) and imagine that I never would have had the wonderful educational experience. With so many applicants, many qualified applicants will be rejected.

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• Dean Plakias on January 30, 2017

  As a double legacy (father LAW ’50 and myself CLA ’77) and a parent of a HS junior starting to look at colleges, BU is high on the list. After reading your article gloating about breaking the 60,000 application mark, I am disappointed that the focus is on maximizing the number of applications who have little or no chance of being accepted. Rather see more targeted recruitment rather than just focusing on the number of $75 applications. You have made us rethink applying to BU for the class of 2022.

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• sumner sachs on January 29, 2017

  A breakout by individual schools would be interesting

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• Tony Rivera on January 29, 2017

  As a proud BU alumnus I am concerned with the recent obsession of driving up the number of applications. Particularly as the number of enrollments contracted over the past few years. Somehow other very prestigious colleges are able to enroll similar size classes with 50% of the applications BU is getting. That seems like a smarter approach all around (for the recruiting office, potential students etc…).

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• James Middlekauff on January 29, 2017

  I don’t understand why you want so many applicants. It just means that you have to send a huge number of rejections.

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