<p>"As some peer schools look to add students, administrators say expansion unlikely at Tufts"</p>
<p>By: Arianne Baker</p>
<p>Posted: 12/5/07</p>
<p>With the number of well-qualified applicants to Tufts increasing, administrators, alumni, students and staff have kicked off a new branding campaign focused on defining the Tufts community and experience. </p>
<p>Other elite institutions such as Stanford, Yale and Princeton have reacted to their own applicant surpluses by considering a different direction: adding hundreds of additional students to their undergraduate populations in an effort to expand their universities in sheer manpower.</p>
<p>Yale University recently announced that it may expand, adding two to four new residential colleges and admitting hundreds more undergraduate students over the course of several years. Princeton University is currently expanding its undergraduate body by 500 students, also over several years. Stanford University's president, John Hennessy, proposed a similar idea in a recent edition of the school's alumni magazine.</p>
<p>Hennessy explained in the magazine that in being forced to reject so many well-qualified students, his university may be missing out on talent "that could contribute to the university and society at large in a significant way."</p>
<p>At Tufts, however, administrators say expansion in the near future is unlikely. The university generally enrolls about 1,275 undergraduates in each freshman class, and total undergraduate enrollment has hovered around 4,800 for at least the past seven years, according to statistics in the 2006-2007 Tufts Fact Book.</p>
<p>"Tufts has no plans to expand its undergraduate enrollment beyond our current size," Dean of Admissions Lee Coffin said in an e-mail to the Daily. "We typically enroll between 1,275 and 1,300 freshmen per year, and that is the ideal size for our academic program and campus infrastructure."</p>
<p>University President Larry Bacow said that this consistency in enrollment exists for a reason.</p>
<p>"One of the best things about Tufts is its size - small enough so that no one gets lost, but large enough that no one gets bored," he said in a statement provided to the Daily by Director of Public Relations Kim Thurler. "We have no plans to expand."</p>
<p>Financially, expansion would take a toll on Tufts, according to Associate Professor of Economics David Garman.</p>
<p>"The bottom line on undergraduate education is that it costs more per student to provide an undergraduate education at Tufts than we collect in tuition," he said.</p>
<p>Additionally, expanding the Tufts undergraduate body would change the direction in which the administration is trying to steer the school.</p>
<p>"The only way we might break even [on costs of education versus tuition income] if we admit a larger class would be if we say we will only admit x number of students who are able to pay full tuition," Garman said. "It would skew the undergraduate class in the opposite way of what we're trying to do: The goal of the administration is to get Tufts to be need-blind in admissions, and if we were to expand the undergraduate body we would be going in the opposite direction."</p>
<p>In order to allow for more students to be admitted, universities undergoing expansion must increase their faculty and educational facilities, too. Yale is adding new residential colleges, and Princeton and Stanford have been hiring more faculty members to help accommodate the change.</p>
<p>Tufts has been working to accomplish the same goals, but without expansion of the student body as an impetus. Dean of Undergraduate Education James Glaser told the Daily that Tufts is attempting to add more tenure-track faculty members to increase the overall size and quality of its faculty.</p>
<p>"There will be continued attempts to grow the faculty over the next several years," he said.</p>
<p>According to Glaser, space constraints are the largest obstacle to adding faculty members, as many departments lack the space and resources to accommodate new bodies.</p>
<p>In the years between 2003 and 2007, Tufts' full-time faculty appointments increased by 22, and part-time appointments went up by six. Additionally, Tufts will be expanding and improving the athletic facilities available to undergraduates in the upcoming year. At the same time, the construction of Sophia Gordon Hall has increased on-campus housing for students. </p>
<p>The recent addition of Sophia Gordon Hall as a dormitory might seem to be an indicator that Tufts is indeed preparing to grow its student body. But Thurler explained that Sophia Gordon is intended not for expansion but primarily for seniors.</p>
<p>"Building Sophia Gordon Hall was intended to enable more Tufts students,</p>
<p>particularly fourth-year students, to live on campus," Thurler told the Daily in an e-mail. "It was not designed to allow us to expand the number of students enrolled at Tufts."</p>
<p>One argument against expanding the pool of admitted candidates is that admissions selectivity will inevitably go down. Tufts has consistently admitted 26 to 27 percent of its applicants since 2000, according to the Fact Book. Because Tufts will not be expanding, Coffin said there is little reason to worry about admissions statistics.</p>
<p>"There's no way to know how competitive our admissions profile will get from year to year," Coffin said. "We are currently regarded as a 'most selective' admissions environment, and I see no reason to doubt that we will lose that status in the near future."</p>
<p>Bacow cited another potential reason not to expand: community relations. Expanding the undergraduate body would entail building potentially unwanted dormitories and academic facilities in the local area.</p>
<p>"I have made a commitment [that Tufts will not expand] to our host communities," Bacow said.</p>
<p>Furthermore, Bacow said that the ultimate decision-makers at Tufts - the Board of Trustees - have no desire to expand the school, so the undergraduate body will most likely stay around 4,800 students for some time.</p>
<p>"The trustees are also comfortable with the size of Tufts," Bacow said.</p>