Boston University
Boston, Massachusetts · Founded 1869
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Get your matchTesting policy
Test-optional
The SAT and ACT are optional at BU, and its own Common Data Set rates test scores only as CONSIDERED - the lightest weight it gives any academic factor, well below the rigour of your coursework and your GPA, which it calls very important. About a third of the enrolled class submitted an SAT and a tenth an ACT. You choose at application time whether you want your scores read. THIS HAS AN END DATE: BU says it will remain test optional only for students applying through fall 2028 and spring 2029, so anyone entering after that should expect the rule to change. The policy covers every undergraduate school at BU and every scholarship programme. International applicants are exempt from the SAT/ACT but must still send TOEFL, IELTS or Duolingo results as proof of English. Source: BU Common Data Set 2025-2026, section C8 (verified September 2026).
About
BU is one of the biggest private research universities in the country and it does not feel like a bubble: the campus is a two-kilometre ribbon of buildings along a main road, with a subway line running down the middle and Boston on both sides. Seventeen schools and colleges sit inside it, so students can move between engineering, business, communication and the arts without changing university. Undergraduates apply directly to one of those schools.
History
BU dates itself to 1839, when Methodist delegates meeting in Boston established the Newbury Biblical Institute - the school that later became BU's School of Theology. The university itself was chartered in 1869 by three businessmen, Isaac Rich, Lee Claflin and Jacob Sleeper. Its first president, William Fairfield Warren, backed higher education for students regardless of religion, race or sex, and during his term BU became the first university anywhere to award a doctorate to a woman.
What stands out
- 17 schools and colleges, and undergraduates apply to a specific one
- The College of Communication is one of the largest and best known in the United States - communication is BU's fourth biggest field by degrees
- Students come from more than 140 countries
- The campus has no gates: the Green Line runs down Commonwealth Avenue through the middle of it
- Division I athletics without a football team - hockey is the sport the campus organises itself around
Popular majors
Campus life
Almost every first-year student lives on campus (99 percent), but only about 57 percent of undergraduates do overall, so upper-year students spread into the surrounding neighbourhoods. Of the women, 13 percent of first-years and 11 percent of all undergraduates join a sorority; BU does not report a figure for fraternities. Hockey is the centre of gravity in sport; there is no football team.