I think students should know that essays are read and they're read carefully and they're
far more important than students imagine in the admissions process what I say to students
is imagine fifty four thousand applications your essay is your one chance to tell us who
you are to tell your story to make yourself stand out to distinguish yourself from your
peers and it's a powerful voice in an admissions uh application file I think it's important
for students to write well of course make sure it's grammatically correct but equally
important is to make sure they tell us who they are and we have a funny phrase here at
Boston University where we say to students be you and we really mean that be yourself
when you're writing your essay don't try to be someone else but really everyone has something
that's unique about themselves and it doesn't mean that you've climbed Mount Kilimanjaro
I mean I think students think big and grandiose when they hear words like be distinctive uh
that's not what we mean just tell us your own story one of my favorite essays last year
was by a young man who wrote about his grandfather most students have a grandparent and they'll
say that's not unique but it was the story this young man told about his grandfather
who didn't finish high school who never had an opportunity to go for higher education
and that how his grandfather instilled in him from a very young age how important it
was to do well in school to reach for the stars whatever your dreams may be and he was
a great uh motivator for this young man and this was a young man who wasn't the strongest
student in our applicant pool but his essay was so poignant that we decided to give him
a chance so essays make a difference it is interesting how many of our elders who were
deprived the opportunity of education see how important it is and inspire you know their
family members to pursue education at the highest level would you accept an application
from a student with a GEd certificate without a doubt yes then how do you assess the student
first of all they get a GED diploma and we get GED exam results so we know where they
fall in relation to the norms on the GED so we know where there strengths are because
they give us individual GED scores for mathematics so we get some information we don't have four
years of a high school diploma but we understand how well they did uh on the GED we still ask
for letters of recommendation if the student has been out working we would ask for a letter
of recommendation from an employer because often these students have life experience
that we want to know about sports at BU and many of the boston schools are you know where
it's at for kids so how do you deal with the student applicant who is really an athlete
we're a division one institution so yes sports are important we want winning teams for both
our men and our women so uh athletics is important to Boston University but the admissions process
and the athletic recruitment process are parallel processes but admissions is handled by admissions
and athletic recruitment is handled by the coaches uh of our athletic teams they let
us know when they're interested uh in a student uh they let us know if uh a particular candidate
is going to be life changing for a team that's going to take us to a national championship
those are things that we want to take into consideration but at the end of the day admission
decisions are made by admissions I think most people don't think it's that way they think
there's a separate deal made for the athlete that doesn't have to comport to BU for example's
standards so good information if a student is a recruited athlete there are guidelines
and standards that have to be met by the NCAA right and because students are often asked
to sign what's called a national letter of intent that comes from the athletic office
it does not come from admissions and I think that's where some of the confusion comes into
play because the national letter of intent says to a student you know we want you to
commit to Boston University for fill in the blank sport this is not a letter of admission
but if you're admitted these are the conditions that you need to adhere to so I think even
though that is very clearly in our mind not a letter of admission there is some misunderstanding
about the weight that that letter carries and it does carry weight we've looked at a
student and said to a coach we think the student can be successful at BU but it's still not
an offer of admission This excerpt is brought to you by the Massachusetts School of Law