Were you deferred by Boston College to the Class of 2030 in the Early Decision I round? If so, you’re likely wondering if you genuinely have a shot of earning admission to your dream school in the Regular Decision round or if it would be more worthwhile to cut bait and focus on the other schools to which you’ll be applying. 

If you were rejected from BC, you’re looking for a new dream school, right? We can help with that too! You’ll need to fix your applications and readjust your Regular Decision list. You’re not on the Titanic; we can turn this ship around!

Boston College Early Decision Admissions Statistics

This Early Decision cycle marks the seventh consecutive year in which Boston College has offered a binding admissions policy. Before the Class of 2024, BC had a non-binding Early Action policy. The Early Decision (or in the case of the Classes of 2023 and 2022, Early Action) statistics for Boston College over the last several years are below:

Boston College Early Decision Admissions Statistics

This Early Decision cycle marks the seventh consecutive year in which Boston College has offered a binding policy. Before the Class of 2024, BC had a non-binding Early Action policy. The Early Decision (or in the case of the Classes of 2023 and 2022, Early Action) statistics for Boston College over the last several years are below:

Boston College Class Year	Number of Early Decision Applications (Combined ED I & ED II)	Number of Early Decision Acceptances (Combined ED I & ED II)	Early Decision  Acceptance Rate (Combined ED I & ED II)
Class of 2030	Not Available	Not Available	Not Available
Class of 2029	Not Yet Published	Not Yet Published	Not Yet Published
Class of 2028	4,301	1,920	44.64%
Class of 2027	4,433	1,330	30%
Class of 2026	4,443	1,250	28%
Class of 2025	3,221	1,260	39%
Class of 2024	2,750	1,018	37%
Class of 2023*	15,682	~4,450	28%
Class of 2022*	10,350	~3,200	31%

* An Early Action policy was in place at BC.

5 Steps to Take If You’ve Been Deferred by Boston College

If you’ve been deferred by Boston College, we recommend you adhere to the following five-step game plan:

1. Take a breath. You need to take the fight to BC so you can turn your deferral into an offer of admission in Regular Decision. But first, you need to breathe.
2. Sign up for a complimentary consultation with Ivy Coach to learn about our go-forward services for deferred BC candidates.
3. Suffer through a PostMortem with Ivy Coach in which we dissect your application. This way, you’ll know what went wrong, what went right, and what needs to change for your Regular Decision schools so you don’t repeat mistakes.
4. Submit a wow Letter of Continued Interest to BC with Ivy Coach’s assistance. While most students know that they should submit a letter to BC after their deferral, in almost every instance, they take the wrong approach in said letter. The secret sauce of Ivy Coach’s letters (and the reason they’ve been so effective over the last three decades) is they contain no brags and no updates. Oh, want more details? We did mention it’s our secret sauce, right?
5. Bring your submitted Letter of Continued Interest to your school counselor in the New Year in the hope they’ll make an advocacy call on your behalf. You’ll have already submitted your letter in early to mid-December to BC. But in the New Year, your counselor can call the BC admissions office and present you as you told your story in your letter. Some school counselors won’t make advocacy calls, but good ones always will.

What Not To Do If You’ve Been Deferred by Boston College

1. Don’t call the BC admissions office to find out why you were deferred. You’ll only annoy them and the answer you get will rarely be the genuine answer anyway.
2. Don’t email the BC admissions office to find out why you were deferred for the same reason as above.
3. Don’t get in the car or book a flight to meet with BC’s admissions committee. They do not want to meet with deferred candidates.
4. After submitting your Letter of Continued Interest, don’t pepper the school with calls, emails, and further letters. Such moves will only drown out the power of your letter and render you a gadfly in their eyes.
5. Don’t even think of trying to torpedo the cases for admission of other applicants to BC from your high school. That would be very un-Jesuit of you!

What to Do After a Boston College Rejection

You’ve faced rejection. But there’s more out there than just rejection, we promise! Take a deep breath, as this isn’t the end, but instead an opportunity to reset your strategy! If your faith is what led you to apply to BC in the first place, don’t forget to hold it close at hand during this difficult time. We don’t know the proportion of rejected versus deferred applicants during BC’s Early rounds, but you need not concern yourself with that right now.

So what’s your next move? We’re glad you asked! It’s time to evaluate your application honestly and objectively. While this might seem daunting, Ivy Coach’s team of former elite college admissions officers will guide you through the process. Our PostMortem application review will identify weaknesses and help you develop a compelling new narrative oriented around a singular hook just in time for Regular Decision applications. Turn this setback into your comeback and set yourself up for Regular Decision success! It’s happened before, and with quick and savvy action on your part, it could very well happen to you too!

PostMortem Application Review

After hearing back about a rejection from BC, we recommend not waiting before you contact Ivy Coach for a PostMortem application review. You can absolutely take a beat to re-center yourself. But beyond that, we need to move quickly; those Regular Decision deadlines are imminent, and there could be (read: probably is) a lot we need to fix about your application.

During Ivy Coach’s PostMortem, we:

• Reevaluate your current applications. Our counselor will comb through each and every section of your application, including both the essays and non-essay portions. We’ll readjust which schools you’re prioritizing now that you’ve been rejected from your first choice. Oh, and if you think that these applications are anywhere close to done, we’ve got a reality check for you. Something wasn’t working; that’s why BC rejected you. This is your only opportunity to get off the Titanic and into a lifeboat!
• Craft a narrative that portrays you as a uniquely talented individual rather than as a well-rounded one. You have now learned the hard way via your rejection that a well-rounded candidate won’t do well in this elite college admissions game. That’s the opposite of what we (and admissions officers) want to see in an application! During your PostMortem session, we’ll correct this misconception throughout your application and help you pivot to a strategy that actually works: Ivy Coach’s singular hook.
• Correct little-known missteps and mistakes that stand out to an admissions officer. Rejection can boil down to something as simple as a thought or idea that was miscommunicated and didn’t jive with that college’s culture, especially for a school like BC, guided by its Catholic Jesuit values. For instance, students who brag make themselves unlikable to admissions officers (and, yes, writing about how you fundraised $15,000 for a charity or were chosen out of a pool of thousands for a seemingly prestigious but actually totally blasé summer enrichment program at a highly selective university is totally bragging, not a wow factor!) Bragging is not very Jesuit!
• Take stock of your realistic admissions prospects moving forward. You may want to consider taking advantage of the Early Decision II round for a school that hits the sweet spot between prestige and admissions feasibility. Of course, not all students are right for ED II, and not all schools provide an ED II round. A different path will be right for each individual applicant.

Application Assistance

Following your PostMortem, a crucial first step for us to understand what went wrong and to reposition your application narrative, we:

• Rework your applications with Ivy Coach’s assistance. You learned your lesson. You’re not going to be like the band playing in the movie Titanic, going down with the ship, right? Right! It’s time to put everything you’ve learned from your PostMortem into practice and make every necessary change on that application. We can’t fix every mistake you’ve made throughout high school, that’s true, but there’s a whole lot we can still correct at this late date in terms of how you tell your story and get admissions officers to root for you.

What Not to Do After Being Rejected by Boston College

Below are five pretty easy ways to sink your Regular Decision admissions chances to the bottom of the ocean after receiving a rejection from BC:

1. Do not submit your remaining applications as is to other schools. Instead, look this gift horse right in the mouth and say “Thank you!” Clearly, something isn’t right about your application, and it ultimately resulted in initial rejection. Do not, we repeat, do not ignore that iceberg!
2. Do not reach out to the BC admissions office with useless questions about why you were rejected. We said it above. Admissions officers don’t want to hear from you. Period! Your rejection is the final word for the 2025-2026 admissions cycle.
3. Do not be picky with your choice of Regular Decision schools and/or leave off safety schools from your Regular Decision list. Unsure what counts as a safety school? That’s where our team of former elite college admissions officers comes in to help. But the bottom line is: you cannot afford to turn up your nose at any school right now.
4. Do not blame your school counselor for an admissions decision that is ultimately your responsibility. High school counselors are not always perfect at their jobs, we know that. But you can’t take your disappointment out on them; you’ll need their help later on.

Boston College Deferral and Rejection FAQ

Does BC admit, defer, and reject both Early Decision I and Early Decision II candidates?

Yes, BC admits, defers, and rejects in both Early Decision rounds of admission.

Is a Boston College deferral meaningful? How about a rejection?

Yes, a BC deferral is meaningful because, unlike some other elite universities that shall remain nameless, the school denies many Early Decision candidates rather than string students who have no shot of getting in along.

As BC’s admissions committee states on its website, “Admit, Defer, or Deny. Highly competitive candidates not admitted through Early Decision will be deferred for additional consideration in our Regular Decision round. Candidates who would not be competitive in our Regular Decision process will be denied admission. This allows them to focus their time and effort on other options for college.”

So, if you were rejected ED I from Boston College, take heart. Lots of other applicants are now in the same position as you. BC clearly stated that for some reason, you weren’t a fit with what they’re looking for if you were denied in the Early round. That’s okay! Now you have more time to focus on finding a school that, dare we say it, you might even like better than BC.

Even though I was rejected, can I reapply to Boston College in the ED II round? How about the Regular Decision Round? 

Definitely not! Once you’ve been rejected, you have to let go. There’s no hope for you to earn admission to BC in this admissions cycle. There is no appeal process. You can always apply as a transfer student from another college or as a first-year applicant next year (should you pursue a gap year or postgraduate year next year), but you will not be on BC’s campus next fall. Understood?

Ivy Coach’s Assistance with Boston College Deferral or Rejection

If you’re interested in optimizing your chances of turning your Early Decision deferral from BC into an offer of admission in Regular Decision or making the most of your rejection by optimizing your case for admission to your Regular Decision schools, complete Ivy Coach’s complimentary consultation form, and we’ll be in touch to outline our college counseling services for deferred or rejected candidates.