<p>Yeah, I also think Tufts engineering is not as good as in the other institutions Lolabelle compared to. There certainly are some departments which are pretty good, it is true for almost any University: there will be some strong depts and some weak. But the top schools (IVys etc) have a huge number of great departments.</p>
<p>Tufts is certainly a great school, it just simply isn’t on par with any of those other universities (jhu,cornell,gtown,etc…) I mean with regard to selectivity all those scholls have similar sat/act averages/means/mid 50 percent, but personally I think the aforementioned Universities are alot more self-selecting than tufts. Just from my experience at an elite private high-school tufts is for the most part considered a safety or match for many of the people from my high-school while JHU, cornell, etc… are regarded as high-matches or reaches.</p>
<p>just my personal experience, my college advisor at hotchkiss classified cornell, JHU and such as reach and tufts as low match for me…and looking at the GPA spread for my school, 3.0- 3.5 admit rate is way above 50%…while there are like 1 or 2 below 3.5 for cornell, except for PGs or other athletic recruits</p>
<p>Oh, to be 17 again … and so sure my opinion of what constitutes “great” in a school is so obviously correct!</p>
<p>To ease your stress Ninjaman…</p>
<p>I have a friend who was accepted to Yale and Brown, but deferred…then rejected from Tufts. Once Tufts heard about his legacy, they wanted him back…but he’s at Yale now. lol</p>
<p>And…
Around my town area…there is a private school well known for the Ivy hopefuls, but I go to a public school and they always accept the public school kids to Tufts rather than the private…which is funny if you think about it because the private schools send 20-30 kids to yale…harvard…and princeton. in that order…especially yale…10 kids get sent there every year. and…this year…four kids (8 got accepted) in my school are going to tufts…0 from the private school (they were all rejected).</p>
<p>Tufts is sporadic.</p>
<p>Can we all just accept the belief that college admissions in the top schools are really unpredictable despite knowing applicants’ stats since the admission officers has loads of super bright applicants to begin with?</p>
<p>…and, the admission officers have worry about the yield, so they sometimes accept a less bright student instead of a super bright one!</p>
<p>Tufts asks the question “Why Tufts?” in their supplement to the common applcation…if a student can’t convince an officer that they are a good fit for the institution, they aren’t going to get in - no matter how strong they are. This happened a bit last year, when several very strong applicants clearly didn’t take their time to answer this question…they did not get in.</p>
<p>Thank you, AdOfficer. I am guessing that ad officers might prefer that the answer to “Why Tufts” not be “so I don’t have to go to a school like American.” Tufts is a terrific school and I know an outstanding young man who is a student there, but I also know an outstanding young woman who is a student at American. The OP’s comment to start this thread made me happy for Tufts that he wouldn’t be going there. Character might have been a factor in the decision. Stats aren’t everything.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Absolutely.</p>
<p>It’s also important to keep in mind that for students at competitive boarding schools, most highly selective schools do what they want - often times, ranking doesn’t matter in these school groups if a student is strong. Tufts is a great place!</p>
<p>It’s funny how citygirlsmom has pointed out several times that his post is most likely fake and yet people are still posting as if this is a real thread. Seems like a ■■■■■, and everyone is fooled by him. lol</p>
<p>“It’s also important to keep in mind that for students at competitive boarding schools, most highly selective schools do what they want - often times, ranking doesn’t matter in these school groups if a student is strong. Tufts is a great place!”</p>
<p>my point was, at hotchkiss and from what I heard from my friend who goes to choate, almost all the kids with 3.6 or above who end up at HYPS got waitlisted and rejected…while kids from 3.0 - 3.5 have well over 50% admit rate…that’s what prompts us to think that tufts syndrome exist</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I hated answering the “Why [Insert School Name] Question.” It’s very difficult to not sound cheesy.</p>
<p>sfgiants: I agree, but it is part of life. With respect to job interviews it is the dreaded “where do you see yourself in 5 years?” question. Maybe the correct answer is “at Tufts”.</p>
<p>Ha Ha, lol, Garrity!</p>
<p>bearcats…</p>
<p>i see where you are coming from. also remember that students who attend schools like choate and hotchkiss have an advantage in admissions in that their counselors usually are very verbal with admissions officers…they talk to us a lot (some times too much, actually). while many of us think that it is, in a way, an indulgence, it still happens. if your counselor happens to know that you, say, will be admitted to dartmouth, they will tell, say, tufts, when they have their “counselor call” with the tufts officer who reads the school to get you out of your school group/pool to help another student get in. tufts knows it’s going to loose kids to brown and georgetown and others…if they here from your counselor you’re getting in to one of those schools and that you are a better fit for that school or prefer it, they won’t waste the spot on you. </p>
<p>in a way, many private schools have created this self-perpetuating viscious circle that really makes it look like the college or university is making weird decisions…the truth of the matter is that the schools are just helping the universities and colleges identify students who are tight fits for them. they will be very honest with us and let us know whether or not you are a good fit for our institution. </p>
<p>are these conversations necessarily fair in the grand scheme of things? i don’t really think so…but that’s what $30k/year for high school will get you.</p>
<p>“if they here from your counselor you’re getting in to one of those schools and that you are a better fit for that school or prefer it, they won’t waste the spot on you”</p>
<p>That sounds like collusioin and if it isn’t illegal, it ought to be!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Hum…if the student asks a teacher or counselor to write him/her a recommendation, is the teacher/counselor obligated to write a glowing recommendation? He/she should be free to give some honest opinions to the universities. If the opinion is that the student is not a good fix or student prefers other schools, I would not call it a collusion.</p>
<p>Come on, honest opinion on fit is not the same thing as telling a competing admissions committee what other schools a student is applying to or has been accepted to in order sabatoge an application so as to aid other lower ranked kids, cozy up so that the GC’s school is looked at more favorably, or to aid the university in yield management. Any of those motivations are an abuse of the counselor’s position and a conflict of interest that serves to reduce an applicant’s otherwise positive appeal to the university. </p>
<p>Would you not feel betrayed if your GC did that and sunk one of your applications? Don’t you want to evaluate all of your options before you decide? Wouldn’t it be more honest if she advised a student who got accepted to a better school that he withdraw his other application to aid his classmates, but left the final decision up to him? What gives her the right to take away that decision? That’s what waitlists are for.</p>