Boston College
Boston College publishes 14% (Class of 2029). Early Decision applicants got in at 33%; everyone else at 14%.
Acceptance rate
What Boston College's 14% is made of
The published rate averages groups with very different odds. These are the splits Boston College reports itself.
By application round
Class of 2029 (Fall 2025 entering class)
Read the full decomposition →Early Decision advantage
33% of 4,288 ED applicants were admitted (1,434), against 14% for everyone else.
Fall 2024 entering class (Common Data Set 2024-2025, Sections C1 & C21) · as of August 2026
See where Boston College ranks →Part of Real Acceptance Rates, our series decomposing published rates from each school's own Common Data Set.
Testing
Test-Optional for 2026-27
- Policy
"Boston College has a test-optional admission policy. Students who opt not to submit test scores will receive full consideration." No end date or reinstatement announced on BC's site.
- SAT middle 50%
- 1440–1540sum of section 25th–75th percentiles
- ACT middle 50%
- 33–35
- Average HS GPA
- Not published by the school
Applying
Deadlines, essays and AI policy
- Early deadlines
- Nov 1, 2026 (ED); Jan 4, 2027 (ED2)
- Regular decision
- Jan 4, 2027Source
- Supplemental essays
- 1 required
One required essay, 400-word limit, choice of one of four prompts (tradition/conversation partner/stereotype/Jesuit values); a fifth prompt applies only to Human-Centered Engineering applicants.
- AI use in essays
Limited Use Allowed — applies to Personal statements, supplemental essays, and free responses in the undergraduate application
“Personal statements, supplemental essays, and free responses provide students with a valuable opportunity to have an authentic voice in the college admission process. While students may turn to a variety of resources such as parents/guardians, English teachers, and school counselors in order to generate ideas, the content must be their own. Generative artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT may also serve as a resource, but must only be used as a guide; content must never be directly copied from AI or other sources. The submission of original content not only adheres to the ethical expectations in applying to college, but benefits the applicant by having their authentic personal story valued by the Admission Committee.”
Full cycle calendar: Application Deadlines.
At a glance
Size and cost
- Undergraduate enrollment
- 10,085
- Tuition (out-of-state)
- $70,702
- Category
- Elite Private
- Admissions site
- www.bc.edu
What should this school mean for your list?
A published rate is one input. Working out what it means alongside the rest of your list is the part that actually changes an application. Free 25-minute call, no commitment.
Sources
- Boston College test policy (2026-27)
- Boston College deadlines
- Boston College AI-use policy
- Boston College admissions pages
- Boston College admissions pages
- Acceptance rate, test-score percentiles, enrollment and tuition: U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard, pulled 2026-08-19.
Test policy and deadlines last verified 2026-08-17.
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