<p>daytripper, best of luck at Tufts this coming fall. For those interested in the connection between Sternberg, the SAT and the CB, I am reposting the following link on Sternberg's Rainbow Project and the SAT III from the "Why Not Chuck the SAT" thread.</p>
<p>Also worth a look at - in this Inside Higher Ed interview Robert Sternberg talks about his work with the CB as well as his plans to bring PACE to Tufts.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The idea of "Tufts Syndrome" and "Tufts as a safety" relaistically makes little or no sense, especially when the school has been employing the same stringent admissions criteria that can be found at other top universities and LAC's.
[/quote]
Well, as the Tufts Daily article pointed out, the incoming class has an average SAT of 1406. Safety for whom? </p>
<p>Tufts has ALWAYS been excellent at admitting students from a huge variety of backgrounds. Of my seven roommates, four had parents who immigrated to the US; several of them had lived in foreign countries; and there were exactly three white Christians. Freshman year, I dragged home a few friends for family Easter. I'm an atheist and my family uses the holiday to get everyone together. It was me (atheist girl from the area), my Chinese roommate, a Jewish friend, and a Hindu friend. So Tufts.</p>
<p>Yeah... I don't think they feel the need to "increase diversity" like lilly-white LACs - yes, they are always striving for an interesting, diverse class, but Tufts has always admitted students who can bring something interesting to the table. That might be the root of Tufts Syndrome - you are pretty boring, good student but nothing special, and your friend with a zillion ECs who speaks five languages gets in, although SATs are a bit lower. Tufts Syndrome? Or do they only take the interesting students?</p>
<p>I think that Tufts admittees are, on the average, admitted to four other schools. Considering that, and considering that Tufts (while it does not gap) has a very high price tag, is the 26% yield rate a shock? Or is it pretty much right about what you would expect?</p>
<p>Excellent points.</p>
<p>ah... is tufts doing this for the comming year (excited!) And if so, would they specifically send you the questions, or would it be on their website and you have to send in the optionals of your own initiative?...</p>
<p>If Tufts does this and other colleges follow, then the majority of the cut-throat college confidential people (the ones who do the typical stats) will not get into college, right?</p>
<p>"Tufts Syndrome" involves the use of admissions techniques designed to increase the yield rate. </p>
<p>Most schools want a student body that is as talented as possible and as "diverse" as possible.</p>
<p>It can be difficult to achieve these goals without being able to rely on an exceptionally large ED pool. At Tufts, the RD yield rate is only a little over 20% - meaning that of those with a choice, 4 out of 5 decline the offer of admission and enroll elsewhere. </p>
<p>Now surely that fact that the SAT median is still high means that Tufts is a backup school for some pretty talented kids. But is damnably difficult to "design" a class when only one out of four or five admits will take you up on the offer. </p>
<p>Thus the need develop measures better able to predict in advance an applicant's degree of interest in the school. Likewise, it is critical to identify and reduce the numbers of those who, no matter how talented, will predictably decline admission if offered.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Now surely that fact that the SAT median is still high means that Tufts is a backup school for some pretty talented kids.
[/quote]
Um, hello, no.</p>
<p>I don't follow. Tufts is extremely difficult to get into; it is not a backup school for anyone save the extraordinarily talented. If you have a 1400 SAT, then Tufts is a match for you. I fail to see how being a tough school to get into equates to being a safety school. That's like saying that since Harvard has such a high median SAT score, it's a safety school for talented kids.</p>
<p>Now, if Tufts were picking kids whom they thought would go there, don't you think they would do better than 20%? </p>
<p>Said it before and will say it again: I've never seen a student who complained of "Tufts Syndrome" who has higher stats than I did. Perhaps those kids just aren't good enough, not interesting enough, or apparently don't care about the school.</p>
<p>News flash: EVERY single school in this country tries to admit students who will be happy there and succeed there. That isn't "Tufts Syndrome;" it's building a class. </p>
<p>You can design a class when 25% of the kids take you up on the offer. You know from previous years what types of students take the offer (i.e. more engineering than liberal arts). There's also this thing called the waitlist. You can also only accept kids who will be happy there. For RD, liberal arts, Tufts typically rejects 80% of the applicants. Now, how the hell is that any indication of a school that can't get the people it wants or can't build a class? Tufts has its pick of excellent students.</p>
<p>As they say about another school... "It's okay if you haven't heard of it, you wouldn't have gotten in anyway."</p>
<p>Some folks might decide to attend the "other school" in Cambridge because Tufts is simply too academically rigorous for them. ;)</p>
<p>That was the rationalization made by Douthat's waiter - a Tufts student:</p>
<p>Funny - I thought I was citing Nancy Herzlinger, professor at the Harvard Business School. ;)</p>
<p>A prof at HBS knows little if anything about rigor at the College.</p>
<p>(Which makes it kind of funny to have her writing articles moaning the departure of Larry Summers. It's just a chuckle....;))</p>
<p>I agree completely with AriesAthena and to be frank I'm getting extremely tired of this CC perception that Tufts is somehow a "lesser school" and "non elite" when all the facts prove otherwise. Thread after thread argue the validity of Tufts' standing, and it has become sickening. Apparently when you have academically superior students, excellent professors, an extremely high level of selectivity, a large applicant pool, extensive overseas interests, etc. etc. that equates to an "elite" institution -- unless it's Tufts. This idea of double standards to constantly put down and minimize this institution must end. Period. Also, I should note that a College Admissions group led by Dave Berry advertises heavily on this web site, and it is an interesting coincidence that his PR book on elite colleges includes Bates and Colby but not Tufts. Hmmm...do I detect a website-wide bias...?</p>
<p>To what do you attribute the extraordinarliy low RD yield rate that seems to inhibit Tufts development?</p>
<p>That "Extraordinarily low yield rate" is actually around 33% I believe. Doesn't sound too low to me. And, In recent years, Tufts has admitted some 1/3 of their class ED. I don't see any "inhibited Tufts development" either.</p>
<p>Well, then the yield on ED's being close to 100%, the yield on RD admits must be 20 or so?</p>
<p>None of this says anything about anything, however. With the possible exception of H. and a few others, as the number of rejects goes up beyond a certain point, actual selectivity - meaning the chances of schools actually getting the students they really want, and who really want to be there (and not somewhere else) actually goes down. And with it, the quality of the educational experience might actually decline.</p>
<p>I doubt that the so-called "new method" of admissions will net Tufts a student body in any way, shape, or form substantially different from the one they already had (which is pretty darn good.) It's just a matter of jiggling the numbers.</p>
<p>According to USNews, Tufts admitted 45% of ED applicants to fill 43% of the seats in the Class of 2008.</p>
<p>If you exclude the near-100% yield on the ED admits, you are left with a yield of 20.8% on the RD admit group. The RD yield number might be lower than that if ED-deferreds are taken into account.</p>
<p>Byerly, What exactly is your difficulty with Tufts University?</p>
<p>Yes, and they may very well have ended up with a better class, one much more filled with students who really wanted to be there, hence providing a superior educational experience, as a result.</p>
<p>Or they simply saved on financial aid. ;)</p>
<p>"Byerly, What exactly is your difficulty with Tufts University?"</p>
<p>He's just jealous that he is associated with a less rigorous place, one in which a President who tried to beef up the rigor was moved to resign. And hence they remain, 27th in students' own ranking of academic quality :)</p>
<p>Is that the old "the best defense is a good offense approach"?</p>
<p>Its fine to love Tufts, just as its fine to love any school. But why pretend it doesn't have a problem that is inhibiting further progress up the food chain? </p>
<p>Analyize the problem and try to deal with it. </p>
<p>I gather that's what the new enrollment management consultant is trying to do.</p>
<p>More power to him.</p>
<p>Now is the time to get a firmer idea of who your core group is, rather than waiting until the worm turns later this decade. The number of applicants from the top economic quadrant is going to plunge. The number of potential white applicants is going to decline steeply. The number of potential black applicants will rise, and the number of potential hispanic applicants will soar.</p>
<p>Balancing the budget may depend on recruiting heavily among the children of moneyed elements abroad, in Europe, Asia and India.</p>