<p>I know it sounds odd, but I realized that the just under 26% admit rate for 2010 was the overall admit rate -- Is there a breakdown for Arts & Sciences, engineering, etc.? I remember reading that AriesAthena mentioned in a 2003 thread (I found it by accident reading through some of the archive threads on Tufts' humanities programmes) that the 2003 Liberal Arts admit rate was 19.8%.</p>
<p>I'm going to tack on another question as well. Why is it, that although Tufts is more selective than schools like Wesleyan (and w/ larger applicant pools) Tufts was not included in the "Greenes' Guides to Educational Planning: The Hidden Ivies"? Seems rather bizarre to me, as the credentials are obviously there...Same goes for a NYT article published a couple of years ago...</p>
<p>Because the idea that Tufts is more selective than Wesleyan is an urban myth that starts and stops at the borders of Medford. It's understandable that Jumbos are rightly proud that the 2010 admit rate (announced early in May and before summer melt) approached the 26% rate. But, that's probably the lowest it's been in several years.</p>
<p>Tufts is more selective than Wesleyan. Don't mistake this comment with bashing. Wesleyan is a very good school, and I am not stating that it is easy to get into.</p>
<p>WorldbandDX--those guides are for schools whose popularity have soared over the past few years as understood by the media and surges in the number of applications. Tufts was on it before and other similar publications, but it was reported that Tufts transcended the "hidden ivy" status (like georgetown, northwestern etc.) by becoming well known and popular.</p>
<p>And also, the admit rate had a lot to do with the housing crunch, I think. They admitted a lot less and hoped to fill holes from the waitlist. But of course it probably has to do with all colleges getting more selective in general, because of population increase and more people applying to college, and the spillover of qualified kids who didn't get into the top schools all choose schools like Tufts as 2nd place. To which I say: hell yes, bring on them overachievers. lol</p>
<p>mwehehe - your argument isn't with me but with the Tufts website:</p>
<p><a href="http://admissions.tufts.edu/?pid=121&c=111%5B/url%5D">http://admissions.tufts.edu/?pid=121&c=111</a> </p>
<p>Tufts selectivity rate is been pretty much the same as Wesleyan's and has been for the last several years:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.wesleyan.edu/about/profile.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.wesleyan.edu/about/profile.html</a></p>
<p>19.8% was liberal arts, RD. When you throw in the ED admit rate (which is often well over 30%), it goes up into the 20s. Fewer people apply to engineering; they have a higher admit rate (usually about 1/4 of those who apply).</p>
<p>haha, now i can tell my engineer boyfriend i'm better than him :-P</p>
<p>...not really. he takes physics while i take spanish, lol</p>
<p>johnwesley -- I do sincerely hope you didn't think I was in any way bashing Wesleyan...I think it is a superb academic school, with an excellent college press, by the way. </p>
<p>Mwehehe -- good point, I must have overlooked that (lol). Btw, Was the 19.8% for class of 2010?</p>
<p>They factor in ED to the overall acceptance rate? Really? I don't think so..</p>
<p>worldbandDx - Not at all. You and I have had this conversation before and we may have to simply agree to disagree. Btw, I think part of the perception that Tufts "is harder to get in" than Wesleyan is that, again, according to their website, Tufts admits about 68% of its applicants from public high schools. That's a lot for a school whose principal competitors are liberal arts colleges. And, the fact that public schools are more likely to have class ranks tends to feed the perception that Tufts is rejecting a lot of otherwise good people because they didn't rank in the top 10% of their class.</p>
<p>Wesleyan, contrary to popular perception, is currently the most popular LAC among the nation's top private high school graduates; they comprise nearly half of each frosh class. One result is that only about 51% of any incoming class bothers to report their class rank.</p>
<p>One might be tempted to say, that it easier to get into Wesleyan if you graduate from the right feeder school. Perhaps. But, again the facts suggest otherwise. According to the latest available USNews survey results, the middle 50% of SAT scores for comparable entering classes at Tufts and Wesleyan reveals a slight edge in Wesleyan's favor.</p>
<p>irt snuffles; I think so. I know at Yale for example, which had a published acceptance rate of 8.6 actually breaks down to an EA rate of 17.7 and a RD rate of 5.8%.</p>
<p>So Tufts' 26% rate (for class of 2010) could be something in the high 20's/low 30's for ED, but below 20% for RD?</p>
<p>This is probably what you're looking for. It's two years old (from the class of 2008) but gives you a pretty good of the applicant pool. I know they usually take about 32% of the accepted class during the ED process, so I guess if you really wanted to you could figure out the RD acceptance rate.</p>
<p>johnwesley-tufts competes academically with georgetown, brown, northwestern. it competes athletically with LACs like amherst, bowdoin, etc.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.wesleyan.edu/admission/Profile2010.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.wesleyan.edu/admission/Profile2010.pdf</a>
The stats show that wesleyan has gone from 26-33% admit rate from 1996 to 2006.</p>
<p><a href="http://taap.tufts.edu/news/classof2010.asp%5B/url%5D">http://taap.tufts.edu/news/classof2010.asp</a>
This article shows that the admit rate for the incoming class was 26%. </p>
<p>The SATs for Tufts when compared to Wesleyan's Median are higher but only slightly (trivial difference if you ask me). The admit rate for Tufts last year was 28%, the two years before that it was 27%, so you're right it's been around 26-28%. Wesleyan shows that it has been 28% for the most part in the same years (again, small difference...so trivial). So basically what I'm trying to say is, Tufts is more selective, but not so much more that I'm trying to claim anything about the school, or criticize Wesleyan. Also, Tufts has a much much larger applicant pool, and it also has a better yield. we are comparing a university to an LAC so really it doesn't matter who is more selective. Both different schools, both very good schools.</p>
<p>I'm not really sure what your point is. Surely, there are better comparisons you can make to illustrate Tufts' ascension in the academic world. Tufts is more selective than Holy Cross. Tufts is more selective than Boston College. Tufts is probably more selective than The University of Chicago. </p>
<p>But if you really want to go head to head with Wesleyan, fine with me. You need only refer to your own TAAP website which shows that Tufts' selectivity has risen by more than 60% over the last ten years. That would have made Tufts selectivity somewhere around 41% the same year Wesleyan's was 33%. And unless you're willing to say that Tufts accepted no one off the waitlist this year (and we know they have) that 26% number is apt to change.</p>
<p>And lastly, about that applicant pool. Add up every Tufts matriculant from outside the Northeast and they add up to only a few hundred students out of a class of 1000. Wesleyan has nearly that many prefrosh from California, Texas and Ohio alone.</p>
<p>Don't get me wrong, I defer to no one in my admiration of what Tufts has been able to accomplish these last ten years. But, you have a ways to go before georgetown, brown, and northwestern can hear elephant hooves behind them.:)</p>
<p>Ok - I would advise both of you to stop this argument before it gets any further. You both make some valid points, and yet you are both beginning to go off the deep end. This thread had nothing to do with Wesleyan -- I was aking merely for a breakdown of Tufts' admission numbers for the class of 2010. We can ALL agree on the following: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>Wesleyan & Tufts are both academically prestigious. They are both extremely selective; their admissions percentiles (differences in btw) are neglible. Tufts has a larger applicant pool, yet both schools' pools are highly self-selecting. </p></li>
<li><p>Wesleyan is a LAC. Tufts is a Research University that used to be a LAC. Thus, thus, there are behavioural and ideological differences. </p></li>
<li><p>Tufts DOES directly compete with Georgetown, Northwestern, UChicago, Brown etc. for applicants, and their SAT numbers, student accomplishments et al are virtually identical. In some cases Tufts is more selective, in others less. The statement "But, you have a ways to go before georgetown, brown, and northwestern can hear elephant hooves behind them." is quite incorrect -- Maybe a decade ago, but now they are neck and neck. CC beliefs are a tad different from the real world. </p></li>
<li><p>mwhehe -- I thought we finished this discussion concerning Wesleyan. Wesleyan/Tufts is not the point of this thread. Your point about the Greene Guide was excellent, however. </p></li>
<li><p>Now, back to my original questions, thank you :)</p></li>
</ul>
<p>You're right DX. I will not make any further counterarguments, as it will be pointless. I typically don't respond to comments in general. I tend to get frustrated when people degrade Tufts. </p>
<p>Anyway, you probably won't get a more detailed breakdown of the Class of 2010 at least until the school year starts. They never post them on the admissions website until the class actually arrives.</p>
<p>Since the SAT medians are similar, the real measure of the relative selectivity for Tufts and Wesleyan is the RD yield rate for each (ie, the yield rate among applicants free to go elsewhere if admitted).</p>
<p>For the Class of 2008 (using stats reported by USNews) the RD yield rate at Wesleyan was between 28% and 29%, meaning that more than 70% of those admitted go elsewhere if they have a choice.</p>
<p>At Tufts, the RD yield rate was between 20% and 21%, meaning that nearly 80% of those admitted go elsewhere if they have a choice.</p>
<p>Thus, both are predominantly 2nd or 3rd choice schools, with "selectivity" primarily a reflection of the quality of the schools higher up the academic food chain which the admits at each seem to prefer.</p>
<p>Thanx, Byerly. Byerly, if you haven't guessed by now, posts regularly on the Harvard CC board. As I've always said, Wesleyan is the Harvard of small, progressive colleges for the congenitally quirky. ;)</p>