Is Boston College harder to get into than Tufts for undergraduate admissions?

The biggest practical tradeoff is that these two schools sit in a similar reach-school band for many applicants, but Tufts is typically seen as the tougher admit overall, while Boston College is still very selective and can be especially hard in certain schools or applicant groups. Tufts tends to have a more selective reputation in undergraduate admissions, and applicants often treat it as the narrower gate. Boston College, though, is absolutely not a “safer” option in any casual sense.

So if your question is simply which one is harder to get into in a general sense, the answer is usually Tufts. That said, the difference is not so large that most students should build a strategy around assuming BC is meaningfully easier. For a strong applicant, both should still be approached as serious reaches or high matches depending on the rest of the profile.

Part of the confusion comes from overlap: both draw high-achieving applicants from the Northeast and nationally, both care a lot about academics, course rigor, and personal fit, and both can reject many qualified students. Tufts is often associated with a slightly more selective admissions environment overall, while Boston College can be especially unpredictable because of applicant volume and its own institutional priorities.

In practical terms, I would describe Tufts as the harder admit overall, with Boston College just close enough that the distinction should not change how seriously you take either application. If you are making a college list, it makes sense to treat both as highly selective schools rather than thinking of one as a clear backup to the other.