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<p>ha!..Tufts is at it again…</p>
<p>momof3sons…your son actually got into Swarthmore but was only waitlisted at Tufts? Thats crazy…Rice and Chicago I believe are also slightly harder to get into than Tufts, but Swat is much more competitive, that’s weird…</p>
<p>Some might say that it’s an issue of fit, but I disagree. Certain schools, like Swat, Chicago, Brown, Williams, etc. really do have to be the right fit and admissions officers look for that. I like this because these schools have specific personalities. But schools like Tufts I don’t think that issue is as prominent or relevant, there’s not really a specific right fit at Tufts and the admissions can be pretty weird.</p>
<p>I know someone who got into UChicago and waitlisted at Northeastern.</p>
<p>Not that Tufts isn’t as strong…Tufts is certainly up there with Chicago, Rice, Swarthmore, Amherst, Williams, etc. and only slightly below Johns Hopkins, Georgetown, WashU, Cornell, etc. but it’s still funny that the admissions decisions happen this way.</p>
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<p>Tufts has alumni interviews, meaning that you only get offered one if there are enough alumni volunteers in your area to interview you. They honestly mean nothing. </p>
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<p>I don’t understand why people apply to schools they aren’t even interested in. That just seems ignorant to me. Then again, perhaps it was just your last choice out of the schools you applied to. </p>
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<p>Actually, Tufts is NOT at it again. Apparently 1 or 2 anecdotes is enough evidence to support a (false) claim these days.</p>
<p>To be honest, there is a lot of self-righteous attitude regarding colleges (I know that’s nothing new). I’m tired of hearing “Oh, if I got into college X, I should surely get into college Y.” Admissions are unpredictable - especially at the schools listed a couple posts back (Cornell, Rice, Swarthmore, Chicago, JHU, Columbia, Tufts). If people spent less time worrying about “Tufts Syndrome” and more time writing their Tufts essays, maybe they’d be accepted.</p>
<p>Momof3sons you have to be joking or are really ignorant. If you look at the most recent USNWR, U of Chicago and Tufts have the SAME (repeat SAME) acceptance rates (they tied with Northwestern). Tufts has stats on par with ivies (SAT/ACT, top 10% in class, etc.) and is super selective. Plus, as ellopoppet said, the essays matter a lot. Also, Tufts SAT scores are better than JHU’s:</p>
<p>JHU’s:</p>
<p>Verbal: 670-770
Math: 670-770
Writing: 640-730</p>
<p>Composite: 1940-2230</p>
<p>Tufts:</p>
<p>Verbal: 680-750
Math: 680-790
Writing: 680-760</p>
<p>Composite: 2040-2300</p>
<p>Oh, and Tufts is also better than Northwestern’s (their composite is 2030-2280)</p>
<p>For Dartmouth: Composite: 2000-2320 (so Dartmouth wins by 20 points on the high end but loses by 40 points on the low end)</p>
<p>For Brown: Composite: 1990-2300 (Brown and Tufts tie on the high end but Brown loses on the low end by 50 points. Overall, Tufts is more competitive here).</p>
<p>For Cornell: Composite: 1930-2230 (Tufts beats Cornell on the high AND low end).</p>
<p>That’s just taking raw numbers from this year’s UNWR (I used college p-r-o-w-l-e-r which used the data that USNWR used. Look it up yourself if you don’t believe me).</p>
<p>So I repeat again, Tufts has stellar students and is really hard to get into. The reason it’s acceptance rate isn’t like these other schools is because less people apply to Tufts. Think about it: Tufts gets about 15K applicants (it actually shot up to 17K this year) while other schools get about 30K applicants. Acceptance rates are derived by the number who apply over the number accepted. Obviously if your denominator is higher (e.g. you have more applicants) then your acceptance rate is higher. DESPITE THIS, Tufts still is one of the most selective schools in the nation and whose SAT’s, as I have just shown, are on par with ivies.</p>
<p>I feel like people who use anecdotal evidence as proof of a generalized claim (E.g. that yield protection exists) really need to take a statistics course. It’s called statistical significance:</p>
<p>[Statistical</a> Significance](<a href=“http://www.statpac.com/surveys/statistical-significance.htm]Statistical”>http://www.statpac.com/surveys/statistical-significance.htm)</p>
<p>And OP, you just prove my point. You are self-concious and upset about being rejected, so you are trying to use yield protection as a reason. Instead of looking at it like “oh I got rejected from my safety school” think of it like “I got into NYU and Tulane.” It’s not like those numbers are much better. But the point is that people like you focus so much on the negative and are so insecure. Instead of trying to find solace in your insecurity why not rejoice in the fact that you got into good schools. Just a piece of advice.</p>
<p>And one last thing, if you look at the Tufts threads, and ADCOM says they only give interviews to people who are in the area and they don’t give interviews to everyone. They say it doesn’t matter if you have an interview or not (which is true…it’s so you can find out more about the school).</p>
<p>Ha. I just found another interesting tidbit:</p>
<p>Tufts Composite for SAT: 2040-2300</p>
<p>Stanford’s Composite for SAT: 2010-2300</p>
<p>Tufts composite beats Stanford. That’s crazzzzzyyyy.</p>
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<p>I disagree with your disagreement. 
The Tufts application is not an easy one, as it requires several essays. The Tufts admissions people stress that they really look closely at how students respond to the prompts because that’s how they assess fit. It’s not an application that can be easily cranked out.</p>
<p>For the high stats students who are accepted to many top schools but not e.g. Tufts, I think it’s one of two things. One, there is still a lottery aspect to admissions. momof3sons’ son could have been rejected from one of the Swarthmore, UChicago, Rice, list and also accepted at Tufts, and people would have said well, that’s the breaks. </p>
<p>The other reason (and momof3sons, I don’t think this is the case for your kid!) is that students apply to a school as a safety or low match, assume their stats will get the job done, and don’t put much work into the application. I remember reading a parent on last year’s Tufts RD thread saying that his daughter decided to add another school to her list to round up to 10, or 12, or whatever number of apps. It was clear that she hadn’t put any effort into the Tufts application. She was admitted to some tippy-top schools, so the parent dismissed the daughter’s rejection as Tufts Syndrome. :rolleyes: Same thing on the GWU RD thread, with students outraged that their essays on how much they like DC didn’t win the hearts of the adcom. 10 minutes of research on writing a “why GWU?” essay would have revealed that GWU wants to know why THEM, not just why DC.</p>
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<p>buzzers, you understand that Tufts fudges its SAT figures don’t you?</p>
<p>Buzzers, I don’t disagree nor did I ever deny a single word of what you are saying. I just thought it was strange that her son was accepted at Swat but waitlisted at Tufts. The truth is we have no idea whether Tufts or any school does this “not accept the highest applicants to protect their yield” move. Tufts is an amazing school just like all the others. But I don’t think you should criticize the OP for being surprised by getting into NYU and Tulane yet getting waitlisted at Northeastern…that is flat out weird. NYU is a top school and Tulane is nearly there…Northeastern is pretty average from my experiences. I wouldn’t be surprised if this specific case was an example of Tufts Syndrome, even if it doesn’t typically happen at this school or any school for that matter.</p>
<p>I think it should be called “WUStL syndrome.” WUStL’s just as bad. (For example, there are a few people on the Stanford board who got likely letters–the top 100 or so applicants–and have been waitlisted by WUStL.)</p>
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<p>According to this</p>
<p>[Stanford</a> University: Common Data Set 2010-2011](<a href=“http://ucomm.stanford.edu/cds/2010.html]Stanford”>http://ucomm.stanford.edu/cds/2010.html)</p>
<p>Stanford’s scores are 2040 - 2330.</p>
<p>Tufts emphasizes high scores; Stanford emphasizes other things much more. That’s why, similarly, it makes no sense that US News’ selectivity ranking says Stanford=Penn, when we know that isn’t true. Apparently all a college has to do is pick out the students who have high scores and it’ll be considered the most selective. Why haven’t colleges discovered that secret?!?! :)</p>
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<p>Loudphantom, it was not surprising that the OP got waitlisted at Northeastern. The university has been considered an up and coming university, particularly with its extremely popular Co-op program during that last few years and the OP was not over the 75% SAT range.</p>
<p>That’s because the data I provided is actually used by USNWR and that is a year behind. Your metrics are more current and will appear in the NEXT issue of USNWR. So who knows what Tufts scores will be then. And circuit, I hope you were being sarcastic in fudging the scores. Tufts obviously doesn’t and no school does (though I question schools that are SAT optional. Seriously, only people will good scores would submit them. Thus, the school only reports…the good scores! Ha!).</p>
<p>Actually, I put those numbers there to show that Tufts is still good in the numbers, despite that it doesn’t focus on them. Phantmagnetic, it’s well known that Tufts doesn’t put as much weight on metrics and looks for the character of a person/overall person. That’s why they have those essays. They aren’t a numbers school. BUT DESPITE THAT, they still have numbers that are competitive with schools like Stanford.</p>
<p>So you get quirky smart kids. I am sure Stanford does the same thing. But this is why Tufts is known for its weird essays. Like one of them was “Kermit the Frog said it’s hard being green. Discuss.” Or something to that effect. And they have allowed students to submit youtube videos. So I am pretty sure, no, positive, that they aren’t just numbers.</p>
<p>But I do agree that Stanford isn’t just numbers just like Tufts. Stanford, like Tufts, is one of those rare breed of schools that looks at the character/overall thing of a student.</p>
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<p>phantas, that has to do more with the heavy weight that the top 10% high school ranking and class size, as well as Faculty Resource is put on the rankings, three areas that Penn was ahead compared to Stanford this USNWR year.</p>
<p>The class size is due to the higher STEM concentration at Stanford (witness MIT and Caltech). The top 10% is due to the more holistic approach to acceptance at Stanford.</p>
<p><20 students – >=50 students – university*
68.1% - 12.0% - Stanford
72.0% - 7.0% – Penn</p>
<p>top 10% of high school**
91% - Stanford
96% - Penn</p>
<p>Faculty Resources Rank*
14 - Stanford
3 – Penn</p>
<p><em>the class size rankings are part of the Faculty Resources Rank (40%), which is 20% of the total score. So net net is 8%.
*</em>the top 10% is part of the Selectivity Rank (40%), which is 15% of the total score. So net net is 6%.</p>
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<p>buzzers, I was not kidding</p>
<p>let me know if you want me to show you part of the proof that Tufts has been fudging on the SAT scores. It was uncovered by a poster by the name of JohnAdams…</p>
<p>That’s hilarious that you think that. Well, mainly sad, or really sad, your pick.</p>
<p>Two simple responses:</p>
<ol>
<li>Non-falsifiable</li>
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<p>And,</p>
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<li>I would think that Tufts would be under heavy scrutiny of that was the case. Considering that federal law requires they report that data to the department of education (hence IPEDS). You know, because again, it’s the law.</li>
</ol>
<p>so buzzers, I take it that you don’t want to see the proof that Tufts was fudging its SAT scores?</p>
<p>It would be amusing to see the obvious lie. But please, if you really believe in this proof, contact the department of education and tell them. If you have such conviction, you would do that, right?</p>
<p>so buzzers, why are you saying that the solid proof that Tufts fudges its SAT scores is an “obvious lie”?</p>
<p>are you attempting to defend Tufts?</p>
<p>are you an employee or paid consultant to Tufts?</p>
<p>Nope. None of that. I am curious because if any school did that, it would be against federal law. If you said JHU or BC, or Stanford, or whatever did that, I wouldn’t believe you either. And i would be curious to see it.</p>
<p>Oh, and fyi, non-profits aren’t my gig. It’s wall street. ;)</p>