<p>Originaloog, I didn't think the Common App helped as much as I would have expected. Nearly every school had a required supplement and many of these supplements asked the same questions already answered in the common app. They all had more essays, often with the result that my son ended up writing more essays for Common App. places than the ones with their own application.</p>
<p><a href="http://apply.tufts.edu/supplement/%5B/url%5D">http://apply.tufts.edu/supplement/</a></p>
<p>this sounds so much better than regular ol essays</p>
<p>This sort of reminds me of my daughter's aplpication experience- to Pre-kindergarten. In a good way.</p>
<p>Hunter Elementary in NYC admits via testing. It is a great school, and free, so applicants beat down its doors every year to get in. </p>
<p>The school is affiliated with Hunter College's School of Education, so over many years they have studied these things. And have changed their admissions testing accordingly.</p>
<p>When my kids applied, there was a first rough cut based solely on aptitude testing (top 1-2%). But then the finalists had to come in and take a series of on-site tests administered by Hunter itself. These tests, plus the questions parents had to answer demonstrating certain aspects of the kid's personality and traits, were designed to bring out other aspects of achievement and ability that aptitude testing does not measure.</p>
<p>I remember some of the questions, eg relating to examples of the kid "thinking outside the box", were very easy to answer for D1. And then very hard to answer for D2.</p>
<p>D1 made it to the on-site tests, but I don't remember what they were. I think one was some guesses about whether certain things would float or not.
Maybe this would work for Tufts applicants too?</p>
<p>Interestingly my totally non-creative son when told about the Chicago choices, was easily able to come up with a possible answer to one of the questions. (If you were an equation what would you be?)</p>
<p>Tufts does suffer from a very disappointing yield. But they're not alone. Only ten schools in the US admit less than 50% of their applicants and yield greater than 50% of those accepted.</p>
<p>I don't know if these new supplemental essays will identify an applicant's creativity or intelligence. But it is sure to increase yield simply because the extra effort required would not be put in by someone throwing out a random "what the heck" application.</p>
<p>In this last admissions cycle, Tufts had an admit rate of 27% and a yield of 33.3%. They did not utilize the Wait List.</p>
<p>My D applied to Tufts this past year & chose not to do the optional essays. She absolutely detests "pretending" --- always has --- never played with dolls, thought her brother was an idiot for dressing up like Power Rangers or superheroes all the time, loved hearing stories but hated creative writing. She reads fiction only when she must, prefering nonfiction. She is an excellent writer, but she only discovered this when her school assignments went from creative/reflective writing to analytical writing. This is simply how she is. As I said, she chose not to do the optional essays, and she was accepted to Tufts this year. She did have an excellent interview, but it was with an alumni interviewer, and I am not sure just how much influence that actually held in the admissions process. If she had HAD to do the optional essay(s), she would have ... but I don't know if the outcome would have been the same.</p>
<p>As far as Tufts' yield is concerned, I am with the camp that attributes at least part of their "low" yield to financial aid. D might have gone, but it would have cost considerably more than several options she had. The actual price wasn't really more than the other schools, but the price after financial aid was just too much more before loans. I can't tell you how often I have wished that I could just say, "Do it," but life just doesn't work that way for us.</p>
<p>S. did the optional essays, though never got an interview. Perhaps like kelsmom's d., he was turned off by some of the 'examples of great essays' that several schools put out, that seemed to encourage quirkiness or kids who bent over backwards to show the world how different they were. Maybe the authors really are that way, but many examples sounded contrived. He stuck with his usual (probably somewhat dry) way of writing, though, and came up with a couple good essays pretty quickly. </p>
<p>As for yield, though, for the second time in two or three years, it seems, Tufts has underestimated the number of students who chose to matriculate, so there is now a housing shortage.</p>
<p>And yes, it sounds like financial aid is an issue there, but hopefully one that will improve. So many schools are increasing grants and decreasing loans, which hopefully will continue.</p>
<p>I think that the fact that their yield is more than enough is why their financial aid is what it is. They don't actually need to draw in more students than they do, so they may not see the need to beef up grants. However, I think they are going to find that their middle/upper middle class demographic may end up enrolling elsewhere. That may leave a polarized student body ... the lower income who may have opportunities for need-based grants & scholarships (not just internal; Gates, etc.) that the middle/upper middle students do not have, and those whose EFC is at least the sticker price. Then again, maybe not. I guess time will tell. It's something a lot of higher priced colleges are dealing with.</p>
<p>I'm a big fan of non-traditional questions, but by no means am I going to pretend that they are the best route for everybody or that they necessarily say something important about the applicant.</p>
<p>I live with two brilliant mathematical thinkers and their best thinking is not in answering questions like "Are you the door or the doorknob?" but "What route is best to take from point x to point y and why?" and "Here's a list of numbers-- find a way to link them together." These kinds of thinking are so straightforward and so common sense compared to somebody like me who is an English major who can't for the life of her remember the plot of a book but could write a long reflection on it.</p>
<p>Chicago's essays work for Chicago. Here's why:
-- If you come here, you have to like writing and thinking. We have a core curriculum that is as intense as can be and you'll have to do it. If you're like my mom or my brother in your thinking, you are a brilliant person, but you're not a fit for UChicago. The essays, in a sense, help to serve as a litmus test. If you don't like working, don't come. If you don't like writing, don't come. If you think these essays are silly and worthless, don't come. But I don't have to worry about telling kids that-- they won't even apply.</p>
<p>-- Though there are also no set expectations on what the essays should read like (see admissions officer Libby Pearson's comment: <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=364868&page=3)%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=364868&page=3)</a>, the essays are also not judged by objective standards.</p>
<p>-- Every year there is a free choice option, so if you want to use your common app, you can (admits have been quite successful using their common app essay and I don't expect that to change), OR, you can do something that's closer to your own kind of thinking.</p>
<p>I find these questions (and ones like Tufts) empowering to the student. They are exciting, nuanced, and much more fun. However, Tufts does need to account for the fact that they might turn off some outstanding applicants whose ways of thinking do not fit into these questions.</p>
<p>The question in the link above -- whether to write about yourself of not -- was interesting. My son wasn't crazy about writing a super-personal essay, and managed to give a good indication of who he was by writing about a historical figure. It killed two birds with one stone, and he was very comfortable with it.</p>