Highlights from the Class of 2011's application essays

lolabelle
Wed, 29 Aug 2007 17:45:18 +0000

Dean of Admissions Lee Coffin has put together his yearly essay where he excerpts the best and most interesting essays written by the matriculating class.

As usual, I am deeply impressed by the unique people that make each class of incoming Jumbos.



Introducing the Tufts Class of 2011

Lee Coffin, Dean of Undergraduate Admissions
Matriculation 2007

“I want to go to a school with and for people like me,” declared an incoming student in her application for admission, “people who believe they can and will make a difference, people who are concerned with the world around us, people who are enthusiastic about education and ideas.” Echoing her sentiment, her new classmate characterized Tufts undergraduates as people “who all have something to say about everything.” Happily, the Class of 2011 embodies the qualities these students admired as applicants, and it is my privilege to introduce these extraordinary young women and men to the Tufts community.

Drawn from 15,387 candidates for admission—the second-largest pool in the University’s history—the 1,375 members of the Class of '11 are an exciting collection of academic and personal achievement. Freshmen arrive from 44 American states, D.C., Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and 37 nations, including such diverse countries as El Salvador, Kazakhstan, New Zealand, and Trinidad & Tobago. As usual, Massachusetts and New York send the largest contingents to Tufts, but California ranks third, with a record-setting enrollment of 126 freshmen. In a clear reflection of the university’s increased national profile, 12 percent of the entering class hails from the West Coast. South Korea produced the most international freshmen (10).

Americans of color represent 27 percent of new domestic students, and the ethnicities and creeds of the class span the rainbow of human diversity. “I consider myself an ‘African in America’ rather than an African-American,” noted a Kenyan from Maine who is “still assessing” his “true” identity.

The School of Arts & Sciences matriculates 1,185 freshmen while the School of Engineering welcomes 190 new undergraduates, 28 percent of whom are women. Overall, the class includes 707 women and 668 men. Americans of color represent 27 percent of new domestic students, and the ethnicities and creeds of the class span the rainbow of human diversity. “I consider myself an ‘African in America’ rather than an African-American,” noted a Kenyan from Maine who is “still assessing” his “true” identity. Increasingly, “third culture kids” are common, too. A Bulgarian arrived at Tufts via Australia and New Jersey while a North Carolinian was born in Paris to a French father and a British mother who met in Kabul. Ethnicities blend in interesting ways: a Dutch-Puerto Rican and a Haitian-Argentine are new students as is a multi-linguist who chronicled his “native Spanish, familial French, ESL and the Hebrew of my forebears.” He wrote, “My brain’s cross-talk is both a chorus and a cacophony, and Tufts’ internationalism is my score sheet.” Indeed, a language other than English is spoken in the homes of nearly a third of the freshmen class.

Applicants were asked to describe the environment in which they were raised, and their personal narratives were illuminating. “When one pictures a small Midwestern town,” wrote a student from rural Illinois, “you can imagine Waterloo: one main street with an over-abundance of churches and taverns surrounded by cornfields.” A cul-de-sac in San Diego; an Eastern Orthodox seminary in New York; an ARAMCO compound in Saudi Arabia; and an extended foster family in New Jersey offered defining familial backdrops. Nearly 43 percent come to Tufts from urban environments around the world while 40 percent were raised in a suburban community. Several have agricultural roots, including a solar greenhouse in the Rockies; a sheep ranch in eastern Turkey, an orchard in Maryland and a goat farm in Wisconsin. Four percent characterized their homes as rural but, as a Montanan noted, “While I have mingled with my fair share of cows, my interests lie in how best to stabilize Africa.”

For many, religion emerged as an essential, if fluid, aspect of self-identity. “My parents are mystified that a family of conservative, Catholic businessmen and lawyers produced a left-leaning Buddhist bent on pre-med,” one wrote. A Long Island Filipina decided “it was cool to go to church during my lunch period instead of going to McDonald’s.” Conversely, a parochial school graduate is “caught somewhere between atheism and Christianity.” He noted, “I do not label myself an agnostic because then it sounds like I have found an answer.” One embraced his upbringing as “one of the few Jews in northern Vermont.” Another student, brought to term by a surrogate mother, worried about his religious identity: “Judaism passes down through the blood of the mother so I cannot be truly Jewish, regardless of my beliefs, devotion and involvement.” Tufts Hillel welcomes them both. In fact, 21 percent of enrolling students identified themselves as Jewish on the Enrolled Student Survey this year. Sixteen percent are Roman Catholic and 16 percent are affiliated with a Protestant denomination. Two pagans, a pantheist and a Coptic Egyptian also enrolled, as did a Druze. A plurality–nearly 30 percent–indicated no religious preference.

Like its recent predecessors, the Class of '11 was chosen through a “most selective” admissions process in which 27 percent of all applicants were offered a place at the University. As usual, freshmen arrive with an impressive record of academic achievement. When ranked, 80 percent graduated in the top 10% of their high school class, a figure that includes 67 valedictorians and 37 salutatorians. Forty-one are National Merit Scholars. For the second year in a row the freshman class posted a combined score of 1405 on the two-part SAT, which ties the all-time high set last year. The mean SAT scores are 704 Critical Reasoning (formerly Verbal) and 701 Math. As usual, international relations and biology are the top anticipated majors for the College of Liberal Arts. Among students heading for Anderson Hall, majors in mechanical or chemical engineering are most common.

Most described themselves in straightforward, if unusual, ways. “I am the girl who isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty. I flip over rocks to see what’s underneath,” a biologist asserted. A Texan noted his “addiction” to coffee, pretzels, incense and NPR, while a Coloradoan likes “being weird.”

As admission officers shaped the class, a strong voice was a defining and decisive characteristic of many candidacies. Most described themselves in straightforward, if unusual, ways. “I am the girl who isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty. I flip over rocks to see what’s underneath,” a biologist asserted. A Texan noted his “addiction” to coffee, pretzels, incense and NPR, while a Coloradoan likes “being weird.” He reported, “I wear a kilt and a fedora when the mood strikes.” Another loves plucking her eyebrows, “adores” grammar and terminology, and fancies the fact that she was born in the Year of the Snake during an earthquake in San Francisco.

Others were succinct: “I am an Arkansas Democrat.” Some played against type: “I’m a Republican hippie. I sing Bob Marley, forgo meat, and idolize Gandhi but, at the end of the day, I am still a pro-business, laissez faire Republican.” Metaphor was popular: “I’m like using Chapstick instead of licking one’s lips—temporary solutions just won’t do when there’s a feasible, long-term solution.” A few were poetic: “I’m an artist, a poet and a patriot without a canvas, pen or gun.” And some defied categorization: “I am a punk-trendsetting-nerdy-jock who is apparently confused about her place in the ancient high school pecking order of cool.”

More than any Tufts class in the past decade, the Class of 2011 is defined by its socioeconomic diversity. Forty-two percent received a financial aid award, up from 36 percent last year, and 528 received an institutional grant from Tufts, the highest number since 1995. For comparison, 431 students were grant recipients last year. Moreover, the number of Pell Grant recipients (awarded to students with family incomes under $40,000) soared from 94 to 156 in one year, a stunning example of the increased economic diversity of this class.

Seventeen experienced the death of at least one parent while a Medford resident convinced her mentally-disabled mother to emancipate her when she was 13. Others were raised by celebrated chefs in Beverly Hills and Manhattan; a great-grandmother in a two-family, multi-generational home in New Bedford, Mass.; and a Korean missionary in Kenya. One father is in prison. A limousine driver, a retired colonel and a Nobel Laureate; a senior cashier at Target; the director general of the Bangladesh foreign ministry and a seafood wholesaler in Honolulu have children in this class. So does a New York Times reporter and a casino supervisor in Atlantic City; a UNICEF representative in Sudan and a Kuwaiti ambassador in Brussels; a Bronx plumber and lawyer from the Clinton White House; the CEO of Pfizer and the CFO of McDonalds Poland. Nearly 10 percent were raised by parents who did not attend college while 85 are the sons and daughters of Tufts alumni. Seventeen are the offspring of Tufts faculty and staff.

An engineer from Kinshasa described his flight from Congo after two civil wars. His father hopes a Tufts degree will help his son “create a brighter and more prosperous future for Congo.”

As America’s immigration policy sparks debate Tufts welcomes recent immigrants and refugees from Cambodia, Colombia, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, Somalia and Sudan, to name just a few. Their journeys to American higher education were often inspiring. A New Yorker escaped escalating violence in Venezuela “with my mother and two suitcases”; a Serbo-Croatian born in Sarajevo spent most of her childhood as a refugee in Germany; and a Peruvian Marine corporal via Florida enrolls at Tufts after completing two combat tours in Iraq. In sobering detail, a Guatemalan via LA reported her family in Central America had been killed “for political reasons” and an engineer from Kinshasa described his flight from Congo after two civil wars. His father hopes a Tufts degree will help his son “create a brighter and more prosperous future for Congo.”

The Class matriculates from 889 high schools; 62 percent attended a public secondary school and a third graduated from an independent school. Several were home-schooled, including a Montanan taught by his widowed mother “in a cabin so remote we had to sled a mile from the road to the house in the winter.” Impressively, he earned Academic All State recognition while tending chickens and pregnant ewes on the family farm. (He is pre-vet.) Despite the broad array of secondary educations, a strong intellectual yearning united many students. “I want variety in my education,” declared a student from Western Massachusetts. She “craves relevance, range, and going beyond the accumulation of knowledge for knowledge’s sake.”

Her new classmates echo that sentiment. “I am a fossil hunter who would rather spend a day in a creek,” reports a new Jumbo from Cincinnati. An erudite valedictorian from New Hampshire enjoys "old world scholarship—mathematics, nature, articulate debate and all things rational. A decidedly hip literature student composed a rap about The Crucible. He changed the lyrics of an Eminem song so they pertained to Abigail, profanities and all. He plans a major in English and a career in comedy writing. A student from Schenectady developed an equation to map his wit and intelligence; “people say their first impression of me is one of decided intensity,” he observed. And a student with interests in physics and history mapped a different type of equation when he won a local “Punkinchunkin” contest two years in a row: he designed and built a medieval trebuchet that launched a pumpkin more than 700 feet. He also finished sixth out of 52 entrants in the World Catapult Championships!

Film noir and Puerto Rican salsa; “global water issues” and solar cars; volcanoes, Shakespearean acting and Scottish socialism; and the separation of church and state in modern American politics capture the emerging intellectual curiosity of enrolling students. “The simplicity of roots reggae helps me articulate what I believe,” wrote a drummer who hopes to compose musical scores for the circus. “It amazes me that words create entire worlds,” said a Floridian interested in community health. “I love the way books feel, look and even smell, especially used books, because they develop their own personality with use.” A fellow humanist from Seattle plans to launch “Shakespeare without Borders” to “indulge me in the language I love” and provide “a new means of healing and cross-cultural connection for people in poverty-stricken and war-ravaged areas of the world.”

An innovative impulse drives many engineers. “Every time I leave the lab my mind is buzzing from intellectual excitement,” stated a Chinese immigrant who plans to continue his research on anti-malarial drug resistance as a biomedical engineer.

An innovative impulse drives many engineers. “Every time I leave the lab my mind is buzzing from intellectual excitement,” stated a Chinese immigrant who plans to continue his research on anti-malarial drug resistance as a biomedical engineer. “I am interested in the way varying alloys affect the tone of brass,” wrote a jazz musician with interests in chemical engineering. A member of his school’s marching band, he hopes to develop brass instruments that maintain their pitch despite changes in temperature. An environmental engineer from Shanghai intends to examine the chemistry of precipitation and its relation to aerosol in her hometown. (In an eerie bit of foreshadowing, her name means “dream of rain” in Chinese.) And a chemical engineer melts recyclable water bottles to create structurally sound building insulation. His patent is pending.

Undergraduate research is, of course, an important signature at Tufts, and students arrive with surprisingly clear plans for projects they hope to pursue. “To me, nerd is the word,” wrote an aspiring ichthyologist from Maryland. “My idols are not pop culture figures but female oceanographers.” A saxophonist from Minneapolis, a potential double major in music and history, is “fascinated with the experimental and avant-garde, from the squealing free jazz of Coltraine to the cinema escapes of David Lynch.” A Vermonter proclaimed, “I dig dirt.”

Many are politically savvy and alert. “I have a reputation as a dissident,” reports an incoming student from “the conservative suburbs” of Dallas. On the opposite side of the political spectrum, a Massachusetts conservative proudly described himself as “a member of an endangered species in a hostile environment” but notes “my ideology stems from rationality rather than religion.” Arriving at Tufts from Washington State, another revealed a shifting political impulse: “I wanted to be Karl Marx and Che Guevara, revolutionary thinkers and gods in the eyes of their followers…Now I want to change the world with words, rational speeches, incremental steps and rational discussion. I want to be Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama.”

The daughter of Vietnamese refugees sees Tufts as a catalyst for change. “The empowering, multicultural students and faculty…will challenge me to rock the foundations of our world,” she declared, “one day, one class and one question at a time.”

Indeed, a commitment to active citizenship and public service is a common theme. The daughter of Vietnamese refugees sees Tufts as a catalyst for change. “The empowering, multicultural students and faculty…will challenge me to rock the foundations of our world,” she declared, “one day, one class and one question at a time.” Others arrive with well-articulated plans to use their intellect to make a difference in the world. “I plan to be a traveling, cubicle-free, intelligence-using world helper,” said one potential IR major. To reduce his carbon footprint, the founder of the Campus Green Initiative in Carlsbad, Calif., rode his bicycle to school each day: he lives 22 miles away. A self-described liberal, gay rights activist from a traditional Muslim family keeps a journal in which she chronicles her “personal, running definition of Human Decency.” She wrote, “Sometimes I feel like the oppressed people standing up to the monarchy, that my nuclear family is a microcosm of the very kind of war I am against—a war based on a clash of ideology and beliefs.”

Optimism pervades the experiences of incoming students who faced personal and physical challenges. “I find myself drawn to the limitations imposed on people who are forced to shape their lives around the word no,” declared one student. She has a kindred spirit in the freshman with muscular dystrophy who has lived with a wheelchair since fourth grade; “he was and is a fighter,” noted his guidance counselor. Childhood treatments for endocrinopathy, a growth hormone deficiency, required over 1,500 injections to stimulate the growth of one pre-med. “There is far too much to be learned from the experience for me to quibble,” he wrote. Similarly, a cancer survivor from Pennsylvania hopes to channel her medical experience into research opportunities to reduce the pain of chemotherapy drugs.

The arts scene on The Hill has been enhanced by the presence of the two-time All Ireland World Champion in the Irish tin whistle.

The arts scene on The Hill has been enhanced by the presence of the two-time All Ireland World Champion in the Irish tin whistle. Students earned All-State recognition in voice, saxophone, violin, French horn and jazz, while others bring talents in the steel drums, tuba, and bagpipes to campus. During a home stay in China, one freshman’s host father caught her singing a Cher impersonation in her bedroom. “Without words to explain the situation,” she wrote, “it had to stand on its own: sometimes I sing in funny voices.” A Greek-Cypriot American raised in Japan is renowned for his “unusual and amusing acts” on You Tube, where his lip synching routines to Russian ska have been viewed by over 200,000 people. For what it’s worth, his guidance counselor praised his performances as among “the most entertaining and humorous acts I have ever seen.”

The Class features a Russian rapper from suburban London; an Abercrombie model from San Juan; a motorcycle-riding female engineer from South Carolina; a cartoonist from Mississippi and one of the top five llama handlers in the Eastern U.S., a status he earned through 4H. Seventy-three freshmen served as president of their senior class or student government last year. The godson of Oscar-winner Tom Hanks and the granddaughter of the Oscar-winning writer of “Driving Miss Daisy” are new freshmen. So are a pilot; a ball boy at the US Open; 55 editors-in-chief of a high school newspaper; the 2003 Quiz Net national champion; and a “mad scientist” from Denver with an 8-foot slide rule are new Jumbos.

“Style” matters and many freshmen celebrated their unique spin on it. Look for the computer engineer with the pink, “Hello Kitty” backpack or the pro skater from New York City with the giant hammer and sickle tattooed across his chest; not surprisingly, the Communist Manifesto is his favorite book. One gal is partial to chrome-colored nail polish; “a glance at its deficiency speaks of the impossibility of perfection.” Celebrating her dreads, one first-year declared “natural and powerful hairstyle is one of the ways in which I demonstrate my inner beauty.” Similarly, a self-described “punk” revealed, “I chose this lifestyle in contrast to those around me, to be an example for the community…of clean living, free thinking individuals who live in harmony with the world.” A Korean enjoys socializing in the nude. “It’s the best way to strengthen friendship,” he informed us. The Naked Quad Run should be his Nirvana.

“As a scholar, a humanitarian and a citizen of the global community, I seek an education that will enable me to flourish socially, emotionally and academically,” one wrote. “Tufts will cater to these desires as it inspires me to live larger, reach higher, and smile wider.”

More than 220 freshmen—or 16 percent of the class—were elected captain of at least one varsity team in high school. Ten earned All-State recognition in lacrosse, track, football, cross country, volleyball and baseball; one was All New England in soccer and another earned All American honors in swimming. A member of the U.S. national field hockey team; the USTA national doubles champion; the two-time Hawaiian female wrestling champion; an All-Ohio quarterback; the New Jersey champion in pole vault and Connecticut’s two-time champ in the 200 meter relay are members of the Class of '11.

The winner of the 2003 Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee and the three-time U.S. junior chess champion are new Jumbos. So are a reporter for the on-line Sports India; three sets of twins; the Governor’s Young Maine Writer of the Year for 2005; a beekeeper; the Vermont State Historian; someone who climbed all 48 peaks in New Hampshire and the page for former House Speaker Dennis Hastert.

For these many points of distinction, the Class of 2011 arrives on The Hill with great expectations for a dynamic undergraduate experience. “As a scholar, a humanitarian and a citizen of the global community, I seek an education that will enable me to flourish socially, emotionally and academically,” one wrote. “Tufts will cater to these desires as it inspires me to live larger, reach higher, and smile wider.” And one young woman summarized eloquently what Tufts is all about: “I want to go to a school where students apply knowledge to real-life situations; where I am encouraged to do research and discover for myself; where wanting to change the world is the norm; and where I will learn, be challenged, and grow. To me, this is Tufts.”

The Class of '11 is here. Enjoy the ride.



I took this essay from here: Tufts University;

Also worth a look—full essays by class of 2011 students that the admissions committee deemed really spectacular: Tufts University;