BU acceptance stuff

So most colleges (BU included) don’t look at your GPA and scores and immediately make a decision; they usually look at the school you’re from and make a decision from there. High schools are required to send them something called school profiles, which informs BU of average GPA/SAT scores/etc for that school, % of kids who go to college, all sorts of statistics like that.

BU is competing with schools such as Harvard, Northeastern, and MIT(all amazing schools in Boston) so their yield rate(students who are accepted that ultimately choose to attend) is fairly low. For this reason, BU is one of the schools in the country that labels "demonstrated interest" very important. They want to see that you will actually attend if accepted and ED is a perfect way to do this, as well as attending their live sessions.

BU also looks at your application holistically. They will review your essays and EC's so as long as those are strong, your GPA, while not in their middle 50%, won't make them automatically toss your application. BU also likes to see an upward trend of grades so if you have been gradually increasing your GPA, that will be something they take into consideration. They do take senior GPA into consideration as they request your first-period marking grades to be sent in with your application after they are made available.

Remember that when they report admitted student statistics, they represent the middle 50% of students admitted. 25% will be above their threshold and 25% below. A littler over 11,200 students were admitted out of 61,000 applicants for the class of 2024, so that means approximately 2,800 did not fit their freshman profile report of the 3.7 GPA. A 3.4 GPA is by no means a deal-breaker.

Hope this helps, good luck!

Hi! I agree with the below answer because it clearly lays out how BU selects applicants for admissions and why it is a selective (top 40 school). I also agree that your GPA is not a deal-breaker because your application will likely be holistically reviewed. If you feel other elements of your application will help you stand out from the crowd (i.e rigorous coursework, specialized and awarded activities, strong essays) I would not worry too much. Just know that, historically, ED raises a chance of admission by roughly 15-20%. So if you already have a chance of admission (which you can calculate for free with the CollegeVine chancing engine) of 35-50%, I would say you are in good shape for an Early Decision application.

Best of luck!