My D is a senior and Tufts is her top choice. We are hoping she will not only get accepted but that she will receive some decent financial aid since they give no merit scholarships. She wants to major in Biology with the hopes of getting in to Veterinary school after undergrad.
Here are her stats:
Top 10% of class of 256-- not sure of her actual #
4.0 uw gpa/ 4.7 w gpa
1st honors all semesters since freshman year but 1 (she missed by 1 point.)
SAT 1520. ACT 33
7 AP classes and all others are honors classes
National Merit Commended Student(possible semi-finalist won’t know until fall)
Ap Scholar
Top 10% award for freshman, sophomore and junior year( sure she will receive this for senior year also)
PA Free Enterprise Week-- top group award for Management Skills…she was the group leader and presenter
Clubs and activities at school: 3 years soccer, yearbook, Community Service Corps, Stage Crew for the show choir and school musicals, Quizbowl, started Environmental Club
Work: works as a food server at a residential facility for senior citizens
Summers: camp Counselor for Camp Invention science camp
Shadowed two different local veterinarians
Attended a week long camp for PA Free Enterprise-- a business camp at Lycoming College
Attended a week long veterinary Camp at Penn State Berks
Volunteer: volunteers once a week for Forgotten Cats rescue helping take care of cats in need of homes
Many service hours helping with school and outside fundraisers for all sorts of causes.
Tufts is as a selective school a reach for everyone, but if your daughter shows commitment and especially if she applies ED, I think she has quite a good chance! Even more so if she puts effort into her essays.
She sure seems to be in the range of students who get accepted; she has great stats – if she applies ED, and/or has a hook (URM, under-represented state, recruited athlete) that helps. If she needs FA, that will also play a role (and makes ED a harder choice). I also agree with the prior poster, that the essays must really give a true sense of who she is and why Tufts is the fit for her
Will needing FA decrease her chances? ED will be the way to go as long as we can be fairly certain of the aid we can receive.
Just to give the OP some perspective: I was accepted to Tufts RD and will be attending this fall. I got in with a 34 ACT and a 4.0 uw GPA (valedictorian). I’m not saying this to intimidate your daughter, but to rather shine some light on Tufts’ admissions. Although I had the numbers to get in, it was ultimately my essays that got me accepted (my admissions officer wrote to me after my acceptance). Almost all applicants have the numbers to get in, so what’ll separate you from the rest of the applicants are memorable essays. Tufts really wants to know that you know it’s the school for you, and you have to show that through the essays.
Good luck to your daughter. With good essays and early decision on her side, I think se has a great shot! Hopefully I’ll see her on the hill come next fall!
I can say Tufts will offer the best FA package out of all the private schools in the Boston Area that are not Harvard or MIT(I say this based on personal experience of having friends getting FA packages from Tufts, BC, BU, Brandeis, Northeastern, and Tufts was the most generous out of all). Personally, I was accepted ED and I was worried about whether my package would be the same as the one on the NPC, my package turned out to be 500 more than on the NPC and extremely generous. So go for ED if she really wants and her profile looks great. What gets her in or not now would not be stats or ECs, but essays. I would say avg-decent essays would get her in ED and great essays would get her in RD.
Tufts is need-aware, which means they do take FA into account when making admissions decisions, both at ED and RD. If you lurk around CC enough, you’ll read a lot of posts from people who are not happy with what a college decided their “actual need” was. Also, you should be aware that ED admission is binding, and really the only way out of it (absent a true tragedy) is a legitimate contest/appeal of the FA award. My D did apply ED, and we asked for aid – she was accepted with a very small amount, mostly loans, and we ended up appealing (based on new financial info), got a tad more, and off she went.