Hey everyone! Does anyone know the acceptance rate for the class of 2022? Normally, schools post this information right after they release regular decisions, but I haven’t seen anything from Tufts.
What concerns me is that other top NESCAC schools had acceptance rates for the class of 2022 drop below 14%, even getting as low as 10%. Will Tufts be able to keep up with these schools? With lower applicant increases in comparison to other NESCACs, combined with a seemingly declining US News ranking, will they eventually get left behind?
@jsparrow17 yep totally agree. Not that acceptance rates should decrease but that they are decreasing everywhere.
Just look at my “Tufts not reporting top 10% of high school class/US News decline” thread. It is almost as if Tufts does not care about rankings/acceptance rate. Yet ironically, there is that old phrase “Tufts syndrome” hanging around telling everyone Tufts cares a lot about yield/rankings. Someone should totally shoot them an email/ask them.
http://now.tufts.edu/articles/select-admissions
14.6% for the class of 2022 (14.3% for the class of 2020, 14.8% for 2021, and 14.6% for 2022).
With the addition of SMFA at Tufts – Tufts fully integrated the SMFA beginning with the class of 2021 – which accepts more than 70% of applicants, Tufts’ acceptance rate will seem much higher for the next couple years until its popularity catches up. Without the SMFA, Tufts’ acceptance rate this year should have been around 12~13-%. This year’s accepted students’ SAT average was 1467 and compare that to 1468 of Boston University this year (pretty sure it must have been 1490-1510 just for Arts and Sciences/Engineering… JHU which had the same mean SAT average score three years ago reached 1500+ for the SAT mean this year) … Colby’s mean SAT hit 1490 this year too.
Interesting to see that while Cornell, Tufts, and Swarthmore which all had around 14% acceptance rates back in 2016, Cornell and Swarthmore now accept less than 10%, compared to 15% of Tufts. Also, Wellesley College which had 30% acceptance rate in 2016 reached 19% this year after its ranking soared up to #3 in the US News liberal arts category. Not to mention, USC which had around 20% acceptance rate reached 13% this year after its ranking rose to #21. (Yes, it seems evident that there is a strong correlation between the US News ranking & acceptance rate, unfortunately.)
As someone who just went through the college admissions process, it seemed very odd that I did not receive a single email/ pamphlet from Tufts – even though it was one of the few schools I actually visited – while my mailbox was literally bombarded with postcards and pamphlets from literally every top 50 national/ liberal arts schools, including all the Ivy league schools…
The most important thing, however, is that the decreasing acceptance rate does not mean that the institution’s quality increases, while it will certainly make Tufts appear less selective and attractive to the general public.
While Lee Coffin, the previous Admissions Dean who is now the Dean of Admissions at Dartmouth College, focused a lot on making Tufts more selective and improve its ranking – Tufts’ selectivity ranking reached 15th in 2015, compared to 57th this year – the current Admissions Dean, Karen Richardson, seems to focus more on expanding the socioeconomic diversity at Tufts through various programs such as the Voices program.
It seems apparent that Tufts no longer wants to be a part of the college admissions frenzy, but rather tries to tone it down to make the process less stressful for high school students, I have to guess! I really think that other elite institutions should join Tufts to bring down the pressure, but who knows what will happen. There’s pros and cons for both strategy, but it is clear that getting into Tufts is extremely difficult still!
Interesting…it’s a little disappointing that in a year where basically every one of Tufts’ peer institutions saw huge drops in acceptance rates, Tufts remained relatively stagnant.
If Tufts fails to correct its slipping US News ranking this year or next year, its selectivity might even lag behind those of BU and Northeastern soon, two schools that are known for gaming the ranking system (When Tufts was ranked #27 in 2009, BU was around top 80ish. Now, Tufts is ranked #29 and BU is ranked at #37.)
While Tufts used to be far more selective than USC, UCLA, UC Berkeley, Emory, NYU, BU, Northeastern, Colby, Wellesley, etc., they all have either caught up/ exceeded the admissions selectivity of Tufts. Interesting that Tufts Univ.'s admissions selectivity was comparable to those of Cornell, Dartmouth, Vanderbilt, Bowdoin, Williams, and Swarthmore just a few years ago… It just shows how quickly the college admissions landscape is shifting… Also interesting to see that while Tufts had higher SAT mean just five years ago, while JHU’s mid-50% SAT is now 1480-1560, compared to 1410-1540 of Tufts.
If Tufts truly cares about its status among other elite U.S. colleges and universities, it should pay more attention to its slipping ranking. Tufts’ global ranking (QS, Times, etc) dropped ranging from 150~250 places just within the past decade (Tufts was ranked #53 globally in 2010 by QS; now it’s ranked around #250), Forbes ranking dropped by #15, Times ranking by five places, US News by two place, just within one year. The problems seem evident: it’s not that Tufts’ educational quality dropped that significantly, but it has failed to provide the data to various ranking systems --which doesn’t really make sense to me…-- while other colleges have gamed the system, exactly the other way around.
If Tufts really doesn’t care about it, it will lag behind other colleges in selectivity, etc. much quicker than they might think, given every other college is implementing aggressive admissions strategies.
As someone who will be paying full at Tufts, while I am certainly paying for my top-notch quality liberal arts education @ Tufts, but I also intend to craft my resume/persona through my undergraduate institution. As much as I look forward to interacting with the world-class professors and brightest classmates in the nation, I am a bit worried about its dropping status in national/international higher educational ranking metrics. In the long run, it will impact its endowment, strength of academic programs, and global/national reputation it has built up over the past decades.
I hope that Tufts administration & admissions are at least aware of what is happening, after all…
@aegis400
SAT means and Medians are not the same, also admitted and enrolled data is not the same. If you look on collegeboard Tufts has a higher enrolled median than all off those schools. Tufts admitted mean last year was a 1445, but ENROLLED MEDIAN( which is what is eventually reported to ranking agencies) was a 1475 tied with Vandy. Interesting enough, Emory had a higher mean last year at 1475 but enrolled a median of 1435. Tufts must be doing something right. Hopefully Emory can beat y’all this year 
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Can someone explain what SMFA means? Thanks!
School of The Museum of Fine Arts.
Nevermind! Figured it out- School of the Museum of Fine Arts. I would delete my question but this site won’t let me!
It looks like that SMFA is really a big drag to Tufts’ selectivity and SAT scores. It may be used as a backdoor to get into Tufts.
Tufts really should restructure the SMFA and apply similar admission standard to it. It will lead to less enrollment. SMFA should serve as an enrichment program for Tufts students, for double majors, or minors, or interdisciplinary majors, for example Computation media arts etc.