Hi there everyone,
I've been frantically looking on the Tufts website to try and find optional essay/video assignment, but the only Google results and search results from the Tufts website are from 2008, 2009, and 2010. Is there not an optional assignment this year? And if there is, where is it/how do I submit it?
Well I'm working on the common app supplement, but it says that all three short answers are mandatory. I thought the third one (where they give you multiple topics to choose from) was optional, but apparently not. The website has a portion that says "The following items are optional for your application" but underneath it, it only says "alumni interview!"
It used to be Why Tufts, and two shorter answer ones, and then the optional. Now, it's just Why Tufts, and two shorter answer ones. We dropped it because, in part, no one took us seriously when we said that optional means optional.
Great idea! It will save the admissions folks a lot of time because they won't have to keep repeating over and over again "It really is optional! Really!".
And will reduce stress for those poor applicants too :-)
It was one of those "if you can't beat 'em" moments. We realized that even if optional really did mean optional, that didn't matter if no one believed it.
Last year when my son was applying to Tufts he asked his guidance counselor if he should really do the optional essay. He told him absolutely do it. That even though app says optional most students will do it and that is who you will be competing against. So as much as he didn't want to do the optional essay he felt like like he had to.
Yep. That's what I'm talking about. You can imagine how frustrating it is to get asked the question so many times, and to have no one believe your answer.
Just as frustrating as trying to get people to believe that there is NO "Tufts Syndrome"!
The pops up on CC in other forums and I've given up trying to fight it :-(
