Chance me - EDII Tufts

Colleges & Universities A-Z Tufts University
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Hi!

I’m applying EDII to Tufts University and I’d really appreciate it if you could lmk where I stand.

Gender: Female

Race: Asian (Chinese and Malaysian)

ACT: 34 (no SAT or subject tests)

APs: Government (5), Macroeconomics (5), Microeconomics (5), Calculus AB (4), US History (4), Physics 1 (4), English Lang (3), English Lit (currently taking), French (currently taking)
GPA: 3.81 unweighted, 4.6 weighted

Dual Enrollment: Statistics, Biology

Honors: AP Scholar with Distinction, Concours National de Francais silver medalist, Best Delegate at MUN conference, National Honor Society

ECs: Model UN (secretary general), Volleyball (varsity since sophomore yr), Make-a-Wish (President), Rotary International Interact Club (charter member and volunteer service chair), National English Honor Society (editor of school magazine, also helped to establish)

Employment: Public Health International Internship Program at Leadership Initiatives (currently virtual), Starbucks Barista as of April 2019

Essays and Recs: I think my essays were solid, very Tuft-sy qualities. Recommendations were from two teachers that really liked me as a student, so that’s good, nothing extraordinary

Interview: The interview went really well - She said she can see me going to Tufts and that I received full marks from her.

Academic Interests: Premed, Public Health, International Relations

Let me know if I missed anything. Thank you! :grin:

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Would you please help me understand the way your transcript looks, assuming I was looking at the exact one being sent to Tufts?

Just final grades?
Anything below an A- any year?
Obviously, I would see more A’s than B’s - but how many B’s would I see?
Would I see more A’s or A-'s

If you can get me comfortable, I will give you an admit or deny? Also, please tell me about your high school and geography.

Thanks

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As a parent with an ED2 applicant as well, I’m starting to think these chancing exercises are nearly impossible to determine - but I’ll give it a shot. :slight_smile: Any applicant first needs to make it past the review of grades and SAT/ACT. Your grades and classes in general reflect that you have taken challenging classes and have done well. Now, did you take the most challenging classes at your HS (since every HS is different)? Maybe, maybe not, but in general classes look good. Moving on to SAT/ACT, even if optional it helps to be at/above average just as a data point - and you’ve met that. With your ECs, we see you have progressed in to leadership roles in clubs, so those are good and to have some other life experience like your internship and Starbucks are also good. So now maybe you are in a pool of applicants but they can only now take 50%, so they keep looking. The hard part is that everyone thinks they have good essays and recommendations. These carry a huge amount of weight and I don’t pretend to have any unique insight. There’s lots of info on how to write essays but it is so that they reflect you and are unique and memorable. Putting those aside, I think the most important extra things you have done were to apply ED2 and request an interview. That shows interest and commitment to Tufts that may others have not. Does your location/demographic help fill in a gap for Tufts? Hard to say for any of us! Maybe they are seeking more first-gen, maybe more from the mid-west, etc. Who knows (and we can’t really worry about that). With so many talented applicants, my only question is does your EC show enough of focus on a few key areas that you were able to leverage in your essay/interview? Colleges want their applicants to have some extensive, deep interests that they can compile to then make a well-rounded incoming class. That all said, in the end, both you and our son will have far better changes in ED2 vs. the flood of apps that are in RD. Good luck to you and can’t wait to see how it works out!

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This is such a detailed response!! You clearly know your stuff. Would you mind possibly chancing me as well? I am also applying ED2 to Tufts. I posted an overview of myself and my application on my page a couple of weeks ago. If you could, it’d be super helpful! Thank you so much! Good luck to your son!

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Hey! I’m applying ED2 to Tufts as well. I think you have a great, well-rounded application! The internship looks really good since it is related to your academic interest, and the test score will certainly help you out. I think you are a competitive applicant! If you wouldn’t mind chancing me as well if you’re interested, that would be super helpful! Thanks so much!

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Of course! But to be clear I’m just a regular dad so am a total poser and amateur at this stuff, lol. The challenge is that I think we all start down this path from a quantitative perspective (acceptance rates, GPAs, ACT/SAT) which gets us past a few of those initial stages but then it gets all soft and mushy. :slight_smile: Meanwhile, things we can’t change about our apps play a huge part in who Tufts is seeking out. Increasing BIPOC and first-gen student representation, having broad geographic representation, EFC and how much Tufts thinks an applicant needs in order to accept an invitation, etc. At the end of the day, I think a huge part comes back to those essays (hard for me to analyze), interview experience, and applying ED/ED2.

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That’s definitely a good point. It’s super tricky to predict anything, with the craziness of this application cycle as a whole as well as those subjective aspects. What I think are the strongest parts of my application are those non-numerical (my essays, LORs, and extracurriculars) so I can totally understand why it would be tough to chance anyone accurately.

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Impressive way to describe it and I think you are very accurate (besides the nearly impossible part). One of the better explanations I have read on here.

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Thank you so much for this analysis, I really appreciate it!! Best of luck to your son as well in the upcoming week! Very anxious for this coming Thursday…

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I didn’t see this response when I returned to this thread the first time, but my school doesn’t have a discrepancy between A’s and A-'s, so you would see only final grades with all A’s (24, I believe) except 4 B’s throughout high school. And I live in suburban Ellicott City, Maryland.

Thank you!

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Your academics will look on the lower end of who they accept, but I still think you just might get in. The 20 (my guess) straight A’s will look like a sea of excellence. If 2 or more B’s showed up junior year, odds go down dramatically IMO. Hope you get it.

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