Tufts vs. Georgetown vs. Dartmouth

RenaissanceMom
Wed, 04 Apr 2018 17:07:57 +0000

My son’s GF will be graduating from Tufts this May as an international relations/German double major. She’s had wonderful internships and internship offers, such as working for the German Marshall Fund in DC last summer, working for a MA congresswoman during the academic year in the Boston office, an offer from the Council on Foreign Relations in NYC, and just was awarded a Fulbright.

Regarding Tufts and how its students interact with Boston and neighboring schools: I can speak for my son and his friends’ experience. They socialize both in Boston and Cambridge, as well as in Medford (Davis Square), and work in those locations. He has friends majoring in STEM who are working in labs at Harvard and MIT, such as the Broad Institute. Friends who are majoring in International Relations who have had internships at the Harvard Kennedy school of Govt during the academic year and also at the Harvard Law school, as well as at Fletcher. They also work at govt offices in Boston during the school year and on the Hill in DC during the summer.

In terms of socializing, Tufts students eat, see movies (like Harvard Square’s Brattle Theater’s Bugs Bunny all-day event), go to museums, and to bars and parties in Cambridge and in Boston. They get free admission to the Harvard museums and to the BMFA, both of which my son visited often cuz he took some art history courses and took his GF on dates. My son and his friends have also attended Celtic games. Every time I’ve visited my son during his four years at Tufts, I’ve stayed in Cambridge bc it’s just 10 mins away from Tufts and two stops on the subway. Tufts students also attend the annual Head of the Charles Regatta, the most prestigious collegiate rowing race, to support their teams. It’s usually held on tufts’ parent weekend and it’s a blast to attend.

Not sure where Happytimes2001 is getting his/her info, but I’m presuming he/she has no affiliation with Tufts because he/she isn’t well informed. I can’t speak to Georgetown or Dartmouth bc I’ve never had a student there, but I have visited both and can say they have lovely campuses (my older son applied to Dartmouth and my Tufts student had an internship in DC last summer, so we ate in Georgetown. It’s reminded us a lot of Greenwich, CT. A cute, upscale town within a city. Neither of my kids applied to Georgetown bc its vibe is the antithesis of what they were seeking; oldest had brown, uchicago, and penn as his top choices, was accepted to all and chose Brown; and youngest had washu, tufts, USC and Ucla as his top choices, was accepted to all and chose tufts).

What I can say is you have excellent choices in all three schools. They each have very different vibes, as you noted. I think you have to spend time figuring out which suits you best.