Just before Labor Day in 2003, BCM photographer Lee Pellegrini was on hand for freshman moving-in day on the Newton Campus. At his invitation, families paused in the work of unpacking their cars to pose for a final pre-college portrait, before lugging the bags and boxes of the Class of 2007 into dorm rooms.

The Class of 2007 entered Boston College with the highest mean SAT scores in the University’s history (a title that changed hands every year thereafter). On May 21, 2007, they graduated: 1,433 from the College of Arts & Sciences (most popular major, communication), 534 from the Carroll School of Management (most popular major, finance), 206 from the Lynch School of Education (most popular major, human development), and 87 from the Connell School of Nursing.

On the day before graduation, a Sunday, Pellegrini met the families again by prearrangement, for the final student-era portrait. The setting this time was the main floor stacks in the southeast corner of the O’Neill Library, near the RJ400s (Library of Congress classification) and, coincidentally, the Journal of Child and Family Studies.

“Do we look better than we did four years ago?” subjects invariably asked between clicks of the shutter. Pellegrini’s answer, every time, was “yes” (Mom looked fabulous, Dad had more hair, and both had gotten thinner). As impending graduates struck the same poses they had taken four years earlier, as little brothers who weren’t so little any more watched from the wings, and as Boston College staff made the final preparations for the University’s 131st Commencement, the observation echoed by every family was just how long, and also how short, four years really is. Photographs from 2003 and today follow.

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Tim Czerwienski

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