Master of Arts (M.A.) in Learning, Design, and Technology
Master of Arts (M.A.) in Learning, Design, and Technology
Design the future of learning
Today’s evolving world calls for researchers and practitioners who can help schools, nonprofits, companies, and governments design engaging, learning experiences that draw on the most current learning technologies and pedagogies. The M.A. in Learning, Design, and Technology (LDT) will equip you with the hands-on design experience, interdisciplinary knowledge, and technical skills you’ll need to respond to that call.
By the end of the M.A. program, students will be able to:
- Apply an understanding of how people learn, how to keep learners engaged and motivated, and pedagogy for fostering learning and engagement to design technology-rich, effective, interactive learning experiences
- Apply an iterative design process to address different problems that require learning how to learn, applying multiple perspectives, evaluating evidence, problem-solving creatively, communicating effectively, and becoming lifelong learners.
- Use, design, and evaluate innovative learning environments that take advantage of new technologies by developing a critical mindset
- Develop the intellectual tools and interdisciplinary strategies needed for critically analyzing applied research and utilizing this in iterative design or future research
- Lead change and innovation in education through developing a whole-person approach for conceptualizing learning and addressing technical challenges in the design of learning environments
Upcoming events
At a Glance
Why Learning, Design, and Technology?
35,400
projected job openings in the U.S. each year through 2032
Bureau of Labor Statistics
$72,520+
median annual pay for educational training and development specialists in 2023
Bureau of Labor Statistics
Program Pillars
Learning Sciences
Learning science is an interdisciplinary approach that studies how people learn, seeking to improve learning environments with cognitive and social processes. You will develop methodologies to become learning scientists, who can design and study learning experiences in a variety of settings.
Whole Person Approach
Education begins with an understanding of the learner. This program is distinguished by its formative approach, which views the learner in a social context, as a whole person with intellectual, emotional, civic, moral, and spiritual dimensions.
Iterative Design Process
The iterative design process is a cyclical methodology that involves asking questions, creating prototypes, testing, analyzing, and refining them to continuously improve a process or product. You will engage in all aspects of the iterative design process and apply it to learning experience design.
Project-Based Learning
You will directly apply the skills, theories, and models they learn in the classroom to hands-on and/or real-world settings, creative projects, or independent or directed research. Your studies will culminate in an applied experiences project for a chance to practice your skills in a hands-on setting.
Community of Inquiry
Graduate study extends beyond coursework, immersing you in a supportive community of inquiry through resources like the department colloquium and the DevTech Research Group seminar series. Graduates will stand out for their capacity to critically analyze and address core issues.
Curriculum
Throughout the program, you’ll develop the expertise and imagination you’ll need to design learning experiences that dynamically engage learners’ interests, passions, and prior knowledge.
Requirements
- Courses: 10
- Credits: 30
- Applied Experience Course
Program Overview
The M.A. in Learning, Design, and Technology is a 10-course, 30-credit program that can be completed part-time or full-time. Students must take seven core courses offered primarily by members of the Lynch School faculty and must choose two elective courses from specially selected courses on the topic of learning, design, and technology, and one elective from a wide variety of disciplines across Boston College, such as curriculum and instruction, research methods, and business and management.
Core Courses
| Course | Course Title | Credit |
|---|---|---|
| LREN7101 | Introduction to Learning Sciences This course introduces the content and skills needed to thrive as systematic designers of learningexperiences, environments, and technologies. It focuses on four themes: (i) how people learn –cognitive processes involved in learning and social, cultural, physical, affective, and otherprocesses that work alongside those to influence what is learned; (ii) how to foster or promotelearning -- what we know about the help learners need to engage and participate at their best andultimately to become more knowledgeable and capable; (iii) designing for learners andanalyzing those designs -- how to apply what you are learning to the design and analysis oflearning experiences, environments, and technologies; and (iv) integrating learning technologiesto provide support for learning -- imagining the roles they might play and the functions they needto have to play those roles well. Examples come from across disciplines, developmental stages oflife, a variety of learning venues. It sets students up to know what they need to learn more deeplyto become masterful designers of learning experiences. | 3 |
| LREN7102 | Foundations of Learning Technologies This course explores issues of designing and using technology to support learning. Students will become familiar with the affordances of various technologies and how activities can be structured around those for learners. Course meetings and projects are structured to help students think imaginatively about how technology can contribute to engaging and equitable learning experiences. | 3 |
| FORM7210 | Design, Innovation, and Formative Experience This course explores the role that design and innovation can play in the development and implementation of technology-rich formative learning experiences in different settings such as schools, non-formal educational environments, community-based organizations, and museums. Students will read materials from a variety of disciplines such as design thinking, entrepreneurship, developmental psychology, learning sciences and artificial intelligence and will be exposed to expert guest speakers. In addition, students will gain design skills. Working on a final project of their choice to be determined in consultation with the professor, students will create a prototype, test it, evaluate it and revise it to meet the needs of the identified setting. | 3 |
| FORMXXXX | Educating the Whole Person The dominant approaches to education are narrow, instrumental, and fragmented. Thinking is separated from doing/making and then reduced to a narrow set of skills. Aspects of our humanity beyond the intellectual are trivialized if not entirely ignored. Study is driven not by the felt need to understand self and world, but simply in order to climb the credentialing ladder. To challenge this attenuated vision of education, we will turn to texts that offer a more capacious vision of self-cultivation and restore questions of meaning and value at the center of the educational conversation. Topics include: moral and civic education, aesthetic and spiritual awakening, education for understanding and self-knowledge, and formative education as the search for meaning and purpose. | 3 |
| FORMXXXX | Research Design in Formative Education This course will explore design-based methodological approaches that can be used in the study of new learning environments. This includes covering the merits of the experiment (e.g., randomized control trial design), quasi-experimental designs, measurement validity, qualitative research methodology, and design-based research. The content will therefore balance an understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of various research approaches with the practical knowledge of implementing them. In so doing, examples will be provided from research on topics related to formative development in educational contexts, such as the development of meaning, purpose, virtue, thinking and reasoning as well as research on learning environments and technologies. | 3 |
| FORMXXXX | User Experience for Learning This course teaches students the fundamental principles of User Experience Design (UXD) with a focus on education and technology applications. It uses an immersive and human-centered pedagogical approach to teach students the fundamentals of the three-stage UXD process that is widely used in the software, e-learning, technology, and gaming industries. In the first stage, students will learn how to understand their potential users by conducting research into their backgrounds, behaviors, and goals. Next, they will learn how to use customer insights to develop scenarios and conceptual models. Finally, they will use their software and programming skills to create a prototype UX design and evaluate it. This project-based course will help students develop skills in design research and ideation, project and journey mapping, and prototyping and iterative design. It uses a hands-on approach that will prepare students for roles in software, elearning, technology, and game development. Students will finish the course with a prototype deliverable. | 3 |
| FORMXXXX | Applied Experiences in Learning, Design, and Technology The Applied Experiences in Learning, Design, and Technology capstone is an experiential course that allows students to get hands-on practical experience with companies, products, and research. This capstone project can take the form of conducting research, creating a learning environment, or designing a product in which students apply a whole person approach, iterative design, and/or user design explored throughout the coursework. With guidance from the course instructor, students will collaborate with a “client” to produce a culminating LDT project with deliverables. Milestones and final deliverables will be determined by the course instructor, “client,” and student and may include defining a problem of practice, literature review, assessment and evaluation, preliminary and final prototypes, and/or a final report or presentation. The final deliverable(s) will serve as the master’s comprehensive exam for the program. Students may work with their advisor to select an alternate course. | 3 |
Elective Courses
The M.A. program has been designed to provide flexibility and customization opportunities for students. Students have the option of selecting electives from the four groupings below, with a minimum of two electives taken from Group 1: Learning, Design, and Technology. To emphasize the cross-disciplinary nature of the program, elective courses are offered across the Lynch School, the Carroll School of Management, Woods College of Advancing Studies, and the School of Social Work.
Group 1: Learning, Design, and Technology
Students must select two or more courses from this group of electives.
| Course | Course Title | Credit |
|---|---|---|
| FORM6150/CSCI2265 | Tech Tools for Playful Learning This course explores the design and use of new technologies for learning and engages students in current debates around educational technologies, computational thinking, coding and robotics. Students will learn how to develop, implement, and evaluate technology-rich curriculum and will design their own computational meaningful projects. They will visit K-2 classrooms to implement technology-rich curricula, will learn how to use video to document their experiences and will become researchers to assess the thinking and learning fostered by the different tools. | 3 |
| APSY3233 | Motivation, Emotion, and Self-Regulated Learning Self-regulated learning is a process that involves setting learning and academic goals, monitoring your progress toward these goals, and making adjustments when you realize that you are not on track to be successful. The course will primarily focus on the ways that motivation and emotion contribute to this process. For example, students will examine the motivations that lead individuals to adopt particular achievement goals (e.g., the goal of getting a good grade), the ways in which these goals impact learners behaviors, and the impact of these behaviors on important outcomes (e.g., grades and well-being). | 3 |
| EDUC7308 | Designing Learning Environments in a Social and Digital World In today's society, what counts as knowledge and expertise has changed considering the global shifts in interconnectivity, social interactions, and technology. Previous models of learning focused on knowledge as a collection of facts within curriculum and learning environments helping individuals obtain those facts. However, today technology can enable all individuals to quickly obtain facts. Instead, expertise requires deep knowledge in which ideas are applied across multiple contexts in particular contexts with people and tools. These shifts in knowledge as well as technological advances have significant implications for how we design curriculum and other learning environments. In this course, we will examine different learning environments as well as various aspects within those environments. For example, we will examine curriculum to evaluate the scaffolds to support student learning, analyze digital learning environments for professional development to support teacher learning and critique video of classroom discourse to examine student interactions and community development. In this course, we will consider the environment both as conceptualized by its designers (the design) and as it is experienced by participants as learning interactions unfold in particular settings (the enactment) to evaluate the effectiveness of those learning environments. | 3 |
| SCWK8848 | Practicing Design Thinking for Social Change In this course, students will practice methods connected to the theories and approaches introduced in Theories of Design Thinking for Social Change. Design thinking refers to a non-linear, iterative process that organizations use to understand users, challenge assumptions, redefine complex problems, and create innovative solutions to prototype and test. Design thinking processes are becoming increasingly present in organizations striving to increase equity or push for social change and when done well are notable for their inclusion of users throughout the design process. Through a combination of teaching methods, including didactic classroom lectures, structured role-playing, and other classroom exercises, students will become well-versed in how design thinking methods are applicable to a wide variety of work environments (e.g., those focused on education, healthcare, research, legislation, community organizing, and others in both clinical and macro roles). Major topics covered include prototyping, interviewing, usability testing, measuring impact, and planning for sustainability as well as scalability. | 3 |
| BZAN6670 | Physical Computing - Interactive Art, Robotics, and Tech for Good* Low-cost microcontrollers, sensors, and computing devices like the Raspberry Pi make it possible to create technical projects that humans can physically interact with. This course assumes no prior programming experience but will progress quickly through block-based MakeCode programming, then CircuitPython programming so that all students have coding knowledge necessary to create hardware projects. Students will purchase an amount of hardware and tools similar to the cost of books in a standard course, and we'll use these parts to build a series of projects that control lights, read sensors, produce sound, respond to touch and app control, capture camera images, and more. We'll also build a wheel-based robot, and students will have an opportunity to create and present several original projects and share their work with classmates. This course was formerly numbered: ISYS2170 | 3 |
| BZAN6660 | Intro to Programming using Swift for iOS App Development* In this fast-paced course, students will learn the Swift programming language and iOS app development skills. Using a "flipped-classroom" approach, the students take lectures in a series of online videos embedded in a web-based course/reference/quiz book, following along with videos as they learn programming concepts and build apps. Although this is a flipped class, expect a challenging course. Class is mandatory (this is NOT an online course) and class time will be used for additional exercises, concept review, and student questions. Students are required to bring a fully-charged Mac laptop to each class with the latest version of Apple's free Xcode software installed (make sure you have access to a Mac that meets these requirements before enrolling). The course assumes no programming background, but students with some experience will likely have an easier time. Students should be prepared to spend significant time each week on self-directed learning and regular programming projects. This course was formerly numbered: ISYS2160 | 3 |
*These undergraduate courses will be listed with a 6000 or 4000 course number to allow for enrollment from graduate students.
Group 2: Curriculum and Instruction
| Course | Course Title | Credit |
|---|---|---|
| EDUC7301 | Teaching, Curriculum, and Learning Environments: Global Perspectives What kinds of education are most needed for a world characterized by spiraling political polarization, increasing economic interdependence, rapid climate change, and a global pandemic like COVID-19? This online course will introduce students to contemporary debates about how educators should teach, what students should learn, and how schools should interact with society. The course is global in scope and will require in-depth study of country cases and failed and successful models of change. International students and U.S. students curious about other countries' approaches to education are strongly encouraged to enroll. | 3 |
| EDUC7302 | Models and Theories of Instructional Design Now well into the twenty-first century, schools struggle with the challenge of offering a high quality education for all learners regardless of race, family status, national origin, language, or ability. Increasingly, curriculum is accessed digitally and student work is generated and exhibited using technology tools. The once familiar artifacts of classrooms are rapidly giving way to radically new forms of teaching and learning. Within this context of change, this course reviews the evolution of theories of learning and instruction and then critically examines a range of contemporary models and theoretical frameworks. Learning activities in the course will allow participants to develop their own personalized framework for planning and implementing instruction. | 3 |
| EDUC7435 | Social Contexts of Education Examines the role of situational, school, community, peer, and family factors on the education of children. Participants in the course will strive to understand the effects of their own social context on their education, to develop strategies to help students understand their context, and to understand and contribute to what schools can do to improve teaching and learning and school culture for all students regardless of internal and external variables. | 3 |
| EDUC7436 | Curriculum Theories & Practice Asks teachers to analyze the philosophical underpinnings of educational practices. Also asks teachers to examine their own philosophies of education and to construct meaning and practice from the interplay between their beliefs and alternative theories. Designed for individuals advanced in their professional development. | 3 |
| ELHE7704 | Ethics and Equity in Education The course explores how schools are used as a vehicle of the state to de-culturalize various communities of people throughout the country's history. Students will explore how schools can more appropriately promote respect for valuing diversity as a generative source of the country's vitality and its relationship to the global village. The role of educators is not only to act ethically in the many individual situations of their daily professional lives, but more importantly to see that the institutional structures and processes of the school system are themselves reflections of a system of justice and care. | 3 |
| ELHE7707 | Leadership for Social Justice This course introduces students to the theory and practice of leadership for social justice at the school and district level. Definitions, approaches, and controversies in this emerging field will be examined. Readings, films, class discussions, and case studies related to the topics of race, ethnicity, culture, language, gender, social class, religion, sexual orientation, and disability will focus on how these issues affect educators, students and their families in today's K-12 schools. In particular, students will learn about leadership which is culturally and linguistically responsive; strengthens parent-community-school relationships; and formulates diversity policies to promote educational equity for students from diverse groups. | 3 |
Group 3: Research Methods
| Course | Course Title | Credit |
|---|---|---|
| FORM8860 | Experiential Knowledge and Ethnography as Method This course offers an introduction to ethnographic methods, set within a broader consideration of what it means to know and learn from an experience. Drawing on historical and contemporary examples of ethnographic research, we will consider the central questions that have shaped ethnography as a method, including those related to the ethics, positionality, and subjectivity of the ethnographer. We will study tools such as participant observation, interviewing, fieldnotes, and digital ethnography, while practicing these skills in a mini-ethnographic project conducted during the semester. Finally, we will grapple with the challenge of analyzing the often complex and variegated data produced through ethnographic research, learning how to capture our observations and analyses in writing. | 3 |
| MESA6469 | Intermediate Statistics Topics and computer exercises address tests of means, partial and part correlations, multiple regression, analysis of variance with planned and post hoc comparisons, analysis of covariance, repeated measures analysis, elements of experimental design, and power analysis. | 3 |
| MESA8417 | Data Visualization and Storytelling This course will introduce the principles for guiding the development of compelling stories based on data and how to use visualizations to assist in articulating key findings. Visualization and storytelling are important tasks in the lifecycle of a data science project and essential skills to communicate effectively. Data visualization allows data scientists to take complex data and present it in a way that is easy to understand, while storytelling allows them to add context to their findings and explain their importance. Students will learn various data visualization techniques for reporting purposes and the widely used software tools for implementing these visualizations. Students will also learn how to create interactive reports based on dashboards deployed on cloud servers to maximize client engagement. | 3 |
| MESA6310 | Evaluation Practice & Methods This course addresses the theoretical and philosophical foundations of program evaluation, with emphasis on the roles of social and political theory, methodology, epistemology, and philosophy of science in various models of evaluation in education. Each evaluation model will be examined in terms of the purpose, knowledge construction, the role of the evaluator, relationship to objectives, relationship to policy and decision-making, criteria, and design. The course also includes a focus on issues of value-neutrality and value judgment. | 3 |
Group 4: Business and Management
| Course | Course Title | Credit |
|---|---|---|
| ADHA7060/ ADGR7708/ ADLP8600 | Project Management This course introduces students to the basic tenets and components involved in project management. The primary objective is to provide frameworks that make it possible to track and measure project performance, overcome challenges, and adapt to changes in a variety of professional environments. Specific topics covered in the course include project scope, time, cost, quality, human resources, communications, risk and stakeholder management and a variety of other operational issues that emerge during project planning initiation, monitoring, and execution. | 3 |
| MGMT8146 | Leading High Performance Teams High performing teams do not just happen, no matter how talented the individual members may be! Successful teams need the support of a leader to help them establish a shared purpose, who can set clear performance goals, foster collaboration, and sustain individual and group commitment.This course will cover select leadership and management theories to establish an understanding of the strategic aims and tactical goals for using teams in organizations. Students will learn to identify the steps necessary to shift the mindset (their own or others) from that of individual contributor to a member of a high-performing team. They will learn to recognize the complexities leaders face balancing strategies needed to drive collaboration on a team, while also recognizing the contributions of individuals to keep them motivated and engaged. Specific leadership styles will be reviewed and students will be able to evaluate how (or if) certain approaches are more effective in leading teams to high performance outcomes. Through in-class activities, projects and case studies, students will analyze real-world situations and develop suggested approaches to solutions using their personal experience in team and/or leadership experience and the application of academic theories covered in the course. | 3 |
| MFIN7704 | Financial Management This course deals primarily with a firm's investment and financing decisions. Topics treated intensively include valuation and risk, capital budgeting, financial leverage, capital structure and working capital management. Also discussed are financial statistical analysis and tools of planning and control. Some attention is given to financial institutions and their role in supplying funds to businesses and non-profit organizations. | 3 |
| MGMT7701 | Introduction to Strategic Management The course is designed to provide you with a general understanding of how firms formulate and implement strategies to create competitive advantage. Relying exclusively on the case method, it will expose you to some basic strategy concepts, which will lay the foundation for the strategic management core course that you will take later on. The cases chosen for this course will place you in diversity of managerial situations—large multinational firms and small startups, manufacturing and service industries, growing and mature organizations, U.S. and non-U.S. settings. Discussion of these cases will enable you to learn different analytic techniques, and illustrate (1) the essence of strategy, (2) how to understand the external competitive environment, (3) ways to consider beyond the current business landscape, and (4) the role of top management in strategy implementation. | 3 |
| MGMT7709 | Managing People and Organizations This course focuses on the analysis and diagnosis of organizational problems. It attempts to enable students to apply these concepts to real organizational and managerial problems. It also provides opportunities for participation in ongoing work teams while learning about team effectiveness. Finally, students can examine their own behavior and beliefs about organizations to compare, contrast, and integrate them with the theories and observations of others. | 3 |
| MGMT8104 | Nonprofit Management This course provides an opportunity to explore essential management issues in a nonprofit context alongside topics that are somewhat unique to the nonprofit sector, including distinctive funding methods, governance, and staffing structures. Topical areas include Social Entrepreneurship, Venture Philanthropy, Leadership, Strategic Planning, Performance Measurement, Cause Marketing, and Microfinance. In addition to case and article discussion, the course features local, national, and international nonprofit leaders as guest speakers. The course aims to provide future nonprofit managers, volunteers, board members, donors, or supporters with a more nuanced understanding of critical issues and important trends in the nonprofit sector. | 3 |
| MKTG7720 | Marketing This course focuses on the managerial skills, tools, and concepts required to produce a mutually satisfying exchange between consumers and providers of goods, services, and ideas. The material is presented in a three-part sequence. Part one deals with understanding the marketplace. Part two deals with the individual parts of the marketing program such as pricing, promotion, product decisions, and distribution. Part three of the course deals with overall strategy formulation and control of the marketing function. Students in this course will come to understand the critical links between marketing and the other functional areas of management. | 3 |
| MGMT8315 | Digital Innovation and Transformation In the last two decades, innovative digital products, processes, and business models have become increasingly prevalent. These digital innovations are transforming how we live and work, how companies compete, and the structure of entire industries. As a result, it is essential for aspiring managers to have a strong grounding in digital innovation in order to effectively work in, manage, lead, and transform organizations that are increasingly dependent on innovative digital technologies. Through a combination of seminar-style discussions, brief lectures, case studies, in-class exercises, and guest speakers, students will learn about: (1) fundamental innovation concepts; (2) how digital technologies and platforms are different from non-digital technologies, and how these differences shape their evolution and impact; (3) how to implement effective organizational processes for digital innovation discovery, development, and diffusion; (4) how to evaluate the transformational impacts of digital innovation on businesses, individuals, and society; (5) how to nurture the innovative capabilities of individuals and the firm. | 3 |
Our Impact
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“Professor Bers is a creative, innovative and passionate educator. Her work consistently pushes the boundaries of education by introducing novel ways to think, teach, and learn with technology.”
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“If you’re interested in bringing innovation to education, if you believe that technology can empower people to learn new things in new ways, while making them more human, if you want to develop a critical mindset alongside design skills, then this program is for you!”
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“This is not your ordinary lecture program that is only about theories, concepts, and readings. This is also about practical ability, creativity, collaboration, communication, and more.”
Tuition & Aid
Education should level the playing field. We feel the same way about financial aid.
The Lynch School of Education and Human Development provides more than $11.4 million in financial aid to students each year. As a result, the quality of BC’s instruction, the benefit of our alumni network, and the impact a BC degree will have on your employment options is both affordable and invaluable.
Careers
Employers
- Schools, districts, colleges, and universities
- Museums, zoos, aquariums, and national parks
- Businesses ranging from startups to large corporations
- Nonprofits and foundations
- Social service and community agencies
Job Responsibilities
- Designing the next generation of educational technology
- Developing online, hybrid, makerspace, and active-learning environments
- Constructing technology-enhanced curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment
- Creating employee training and consumer education programs
Positions
- Learning Engineers
- Learning Experience (LX) and User Experience (UX) Designers
- Instructional Designers and Evaluators
- Curriculum Developers
- Educational Technology Consultants
- Corporate Training and Development Managers
Application & Deadlines
A non-refundable application fee of $75 is required. The fee is waived for select applicants.
Deadlines Fall 2025:
- Priority Deadline: January 7
- Rolling Admission: Until July 15
Resume
To be uploaded to your online application.
In addition to your academic history and relevant volunteer and/or work experience, please include any licenses currently held, any social justice-related experience, any language skills other than English, and any research experience or publications.
Personal Statement
To be uploaded to your online application.
In 1,000-1,500 words, describe your academic and professional goals, any experience relevant to this program, and your future plans, expectations, and aspirations.
Letters of Recommendation
Two letters of recommendation are required, with at least one preferably coming from an academic source. Applicants may submit one additional recommendation of their choice.
Transcripts
Transcripts from all college/university study are required.
Applicants who have received degrees from institutions outside the United States should view the ""International Students"" section for additional credential evaluation requirements.
Please begin your online application before submitting your transcripts. Details on how to submit transcripts and international credential evaluations can be found within the application. In order to ensure your transcript reaches our office, it is important to review and follow the instructions.
Standardized Tests
Submitting GRE test scores is optional for this program. If you wish to send GRE scores, the Lynch School GRE code is 3218.
Please view the "International Students" section for information on English Proficiency test requirements.
Writing Sample
Not required.
International Students
Applicants who have completed a degree outside of the United States must have a course-by-course evaluation of their transcript(s) completed by an evaluation company approved by the National Association of Credential Evaluation Services (NACES). Submission of falsified documents is grounds for denial of admission or dismissal from the University.
Applicants who are not native speakers of English and who have not received a degree from an institution where English is the primary language of instruction must also submit a TOEFL or IELTS test result that meets the minimum score requirement.
Please click the link below for full details on these requirements.
Requirements for International Students
Quick Links
Contact Us
gsoe@bc.edu
617-552-4214