<p>I’m not a student or alumnus of Tufts but I know quite a bit about the school. I’ve been reading posts from skateboarder and lightbearer since admissions decisions were announced and I have to say, in a charitable way, that each of them has a serious attitude problem which (hopefully) will change quickly. Skateboarder, who purports to be so concerned about Tufts’ prestige and reputation among the CC community, posts derogatory, disingenuous, and prejudicial comments about the school that do nothing but undermine Tufts’ perceived reputation among readers. And the idea of needing to know whether banking and financial institutions interview at Tufts only because you want to keep such a career open “as an option” strikes me as ludicrous. As for lightbearer, crowing that he got accepted off the waiting list “with a full $55000 in financial aid!” and then denigrating Tufts’ engineering school (while maintaining that he intends to use the same as a base in America to aim for the ivies in postgraduate management) seems to me to be exceedingly arrogant and confused at the same time. Perhaps the other US universities that rejected him did not do so because of his need for financial aid, after all.</p>
<p>Many - if not most - pre-freshman are nervous and anxious about attending highly selective colleges and measuring up against class members with similar stellar academic accomplishments. While its probably normal for others to be cocky and self-inflated about their abilities, the first year or so of school has a way of equalizing and adjusting students’ perceptions about reality. It will be interesting to see whether skateboarder and lightbearer - if they do attend and stay at Tufts - look back at their posts from 2009 three years from now and wonder… what was I thinking!?</p>