Hi, I’m deciding between Tufts and Skidmore as my top choice for next fall. Both I think I would be happy at, but when decisions come out, I’m hoping to have made up my mind on my “number one”.
Tufts has the right academics that I want to study, the location (near a major city), and is a bit larger and probably a bit more socially diverse. I like the school but I’m not as connected/familiar/comfortable with it as I am with Skidmore. From what I’ve seen online and from visiting the campus, I could make it work for the academics and eventually I know I would love it.
Skidmore, on the other hand, has academics that I’d be okay with studying and that I could make work with what I want to do, is smaller/more intimate, and I feel somewhat more connected. It feels more comfortable, and my father is an alum so I have been with it my whole life. When I stepped on the campus, I Instantly fell in love with it and the vibe, but the academics and location aren’t ideal.
My gut says skidmore, but my brain says tufts. thoughts?
In addition to making sure your major is equally well-served at either–which is excellent advice–I strongly encourage you to resist magical thinking.
Some of us were steeped early in superstition, and so look for “signs” and associations that take pressure off the responsibility of choice: It makes us feel safer to be guided by stars. That predilection helped humanity cope with anxiety before we had science. It’s ancient and not very useful now, except as a kind of security blanket.
I urge you to take this opportunity to step into your adult shoes. Use your reasoning skills, exercise your self-determination muscle. If you can’t revisit the campuses, weigh other facts objectively. Do not seek advice!
Take dear old dad out of the equation. Love him but make your own path. In the future you will understand exactly why you chose and have no grounds on which to reproach yourself.
You may not always be right, but you will be free. Your fate is not in your stars but in yourself.
As to the divide you assert between your head and gut–banish that. It’s a false binary. Live as a whole person, not a halved being in conflict.
If you know you were already accepted to Tufts then there’s no question; Tufts. You may not realize it but Tufts is a prestigious University for Biomedical and is notoriously difficult to get in. Many people with perfect grades have tried to get in and are frustrated and confused when they get rejected hence where the phrase, “Tufts Syndrome” originated.
These 2 schools are not really in the same league. Tufts is a highly regarded and very selective school. Skidmore a bit less so. If you’re hesitant about where to apply ED and you’ve got the stats to possibly get into Tufts ED, then your stats are a high chance to get into Skidmore RD.
Just one opinion here. My son will be going to Williams where he was accepted ED, but he also really loved Skidmore and I do believe he could have been very happy there. He had ruled out visiting/ applying to Tufts. Both Skidmore and Tufts are wonderful colleges, but my son preferred small liberal arts colleges in or adjacent to rural areas.
Yes, Tufts is harder to get into than Skidmore. But both attract smart, serious students, and Skidmore has a really great environment. Neither is of such worse quality than the other that you would be out of your mind for picking it.
You have visited and read up on both, so you have a good sense of each. It is good that you could be happy at either, because you never know where you will be admitted.
But if you end up applying to and being accepted by both, I see no reason not to pick whichever you feel would be the better “home” for YOU for the next four years. I capitalized YOU, because it does not matter if someone else would make a different choice.
When it comes to a final decision, imagine picking each one. Which do you feel worse about giving up? Go to that one!
But there is no need to do that exercise until you are admitted. Even if you are applying ED to one school, I think it is best to keep an open mind and a lot of enthusiasm about the other schools on your list. The idea of a “dream school” seems a set-up for disappointment, when there are so many schools where any given person could be happy and get a great education.
This is a situation in which you really need to look at your planned major. There are a few areas in which Skidmore would be stronger than Tufts, primarily studio art as they have great facilities and opportunities as well as music and theater. It would also of course depend on financial situation. Neither is known for offering merit aid except in specific music scholarship at Skidmore. My d studied for a summer at Skidmore and was accepted in the small honors program but with zero merit money as compared to several nice packages she received from other schools. She did not apply to Tufts but several of her close friends did and graduated from Tufts, all doing will with good law school or med school/graduate school acceptances.
In terms of academics and programs, each of these schools has their relative strengths. However, by overall attributes and characteristics, they are fairly dissimilar, and you will find fractions of potentially qualified applicants for both of them who would nonetheless not consider both of them (n.b. @TheGreyKing’s reply).