Emory vs Tufts

Guys, please help offer some opinions on these two schools.

My end goal is to get MBA.

After college, I want to work in New York, Boston, LA, or San Francisco

I haven’t settled on my undergrad major yet. For Emory, I am considering BBA, economics, and/or Dual Degree with GAtech for Industrial Engineering (5 years). For Tufts, it’s economics or some engineering.

Please help rate the schools in terms of their overall prestige (perceived by the MBA school admissions), the economics/business/engineering programs, job opportunities (starting salary), campus feel, campus food (love seafood), people’s friendliness, party scene and student body attractiveness (for guys lol), city life and accessibility/transportation to it.

Also, I went to Boston and love it, never been to Atlanta. I’m Asian, and dating preference is asian or white or hispanic. Also I love Broadway shows, so which city is better at that?

Personally wise, I like being with fun outgoing people, but not jocks or popular cool kids. What is the best fit for that?

If your goal is to get an MBA, do something different for undergrad and that would be engineering at Tufts. Boston has better seafood than Atlanta (by far) and it’s easier to get into the city from Tufts than it is from Emory. Why are you worried about prestige? Both are great schools that will get you where you want to be at the end of the day.

I do know that Emory is being incorporated into the city of Atlanta and that there is talk or building a MARTA station next to the campus, but that would be years away. Tufts is 15 minute walk from a Red LIne stop on the T at Davis Square in Somerville.

Tufts will also have a green line stop on campus by 2020. Both are great schools, but I would say Tufts probably edges out Emory in terms of prestige.

@Tufts2021 : I don’t think so…I believe they are very similar and Emory may have a stronger national and international reputation (mainly because of significant strength in healthcare and biomedical sciences) though neither is a giant brand in the US.

@ljberkow : What do you think about that? I never knew that Tufts was more prestigious. It is more selective, but I think Emory has a bigger reputation overall. You are from Boston so may know more than me, though I typically find that regional views of prestige may be very deceptive, especially in the NE where so many students want to go elsewhere in the NE and essentially view any school except for a select few as “non-ideal” or less prestigious. Either way, I’ve never heard such a thing.

As for this MBA thing…uhh I don’t see why it matters. Emory has traditionally had excellent elite MBA placement (P and Q did a ranking some years ago, and Emory was a top 10 feeder), HOWEVER, that is likely because of the abundance of people pursuing that from Emory. Also, it is hard to tell if the actually school is relevant because most folks work before pursuing it. If someone seriously wants to do engineering (or is strongly considering) and foresees an MBA in the future then absolutely choose the school with the engineering program, because I doubt prestige has much to do with MBA access. The top ones care about GMAT, GPA (lesser so than other prof. schools though), and experience. No need to choose a 5 year program when there is access to a regular engineering program at one option. Either way, engineering curricula are VERY rigorous and STEM courseload intensive, I suggest OP figure this out ASAP so that they know how many courses to take in each area of interest frosh year. You don’t wanna fall behind on an engineering major.

The BBA program has traditionally fed well into MBAs: https://poetsandquants.com/2014/06/27/the-top-undergrad-business-feeder-schools/3/

And I think Emory just generally (so even those not having a BBA) feeds well into top law and business schools and I doubt prestige has much to do with it. The track records of success and preparation is just generally good. Emory has a big reputation for most of the professions.

Yo I’m asian too! Two are very comparable schools, but Tufts is ranked slightly lower than it should be because it has not been a research university for too long (was a LAC 50 years ago) and does not have strong graduate programs. Still, it definitely has extremely strong undergraduate teaching and focus, some of the best in the country along with the NESCAC LACs in its athletic league. From personal experience, I was also really conflicted back then choosing between these two as I was a premed/Bio major, which has equal undergraduate programs at both (even though Emory does have a stronger bio grad program). However, I later chose Tufts over Emory due to the Boston location and financial aid.

From an objective viewpoint, I would say Emory is stronger in business with its Goizueta business school while Tufts doesn’t even have a business school or major. Still, Tufts does have a econ major and I know that even though econ and business are separate, my roommate, a econ major who got in Dartmouth and has done a ton of econ in high school, says Tufts econ extremely rigorous. Also, though I don’t know how many students Tufts gets into top business schools, I know that Tufts does get quite a few students into Harvard Business school each year (Past JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Morgan was one himself who went to Harvard Business after Tufts). In addition, the top graduate school for the Tufts class of 2017 was Stanford, while the top graduate school for the class of 2016 was Harvard.

On the other hand, Emory doesn’t have a engineering school and Tufts should be stronger in engineering, as its engineering programs are quickly rising in name because administration is spending huge budgets on engineering facilities (take a walk around campus and you’ll see). Some seniors I know here have said that when they were freshman, they didn’t even think about doing engineering here because it was not that good then. Now, the engineering school is packed with students and Tufts has built numerous buildings dedicated to engineering and science, such as the enormous Science and Engineering Complex just last year.
Good luck. You can’t go wrong with either one, but hope to see you here in the fall!

@bernie12, New Englanders are pretty provincial, but local kids know Emory. I don’t believe for a minute that Tufts has the national reputation that Emory does and has a more regional student body.

@Mamapa2
" as its engineering programs are quickly rising in name because administration is spending huge budgets on engineering facilities (take a walk around campus and you’ll see)."

Oh dear…this same old trickery (most schools with an engineering program are adding or renovating facilities assuming they are relatively rich). Usually facilities has NOTHING to do with undergraduate education in engineering. That is all about research. Students “may” experience more research opportunities assuming that current labs aren’t merely moving to the new building and assuming that many more faculty are being recruited. Unless the facility is attached to curriculum changes or changes in pedagogy/new courses, they will just be nice new shiny places for undergraduates to hang out in and may give students a boost in spirit (and yes I recognize that some spaces may be for undergraduates to hang out or receive advising, but these could theoretically be hosted well…anywhere), but usually they do not lead to new courses or key courses being taught differently.

*The OP should go to Tufts simply because it HAS an engineering program, not because a new building (or several) was added. I hate when undergrads buy into or try to sell such kool-aid. Unless it is like Georgia Tech’s Klough Undergraduate Learning Commons, it is not truly designed with undergrads in mind. It may have a few new classrooms/lecture halls, but at the end of the day, the same thing will be taught in the same way. Even when Emory would try to show off new STEM buildings, I don’t buy into the marketing. The only exception was chemistry which was FORCED to implement a new curriculum structure if they were to have the new building funded. I am just tired of the marketing of undergraduate irrelevant construction to undergraduates. Maybe dorms, gyms, and student centers as petty as they are, but let us not with science facilities. The only exception is if equipment in old facilities was not working properly or if there was straight up no room for stuff, if the curriculum was shoddy/not as developed as today…those things in which case the bar for improvement is low.

For engineering, QUALITY and rigor really matters. That is how reputations of undergraduate programs are made. Unlike other areas, often quality of graduate programs or professional schools are not used as a proxy for the quality of the undergraduate program. This can be said for most STEM programs hosted by undergraduate institutions. The employer will not go: “You know, your school has great facilities, beautiful facilities” (Does Georgia Tech undergraduate BME ranking near MIT, JHU, and Duke have to do with the facilities? Georgia Tech is nice, but there are plenty of places with very nice facilities) as a highlight of an application. That is essentially taken for granted if the school is known for even moderate levels of wealth or prestige.

@Mamapa2
What are the things you do in Boston? What does your weekend look like? Are your friend groups diverse or divided by race/nationality? How’s the party scene?

@ZenjuChan

Some job and grad school placement stats for Emory College grads:
http://www.career.emory.edu/recruiters/placement%20and%20salary%20info/index.html

Some job placement stats for Emory Goizueta School grads:
https://goizueta.emory.edu/degree/undergraduate/career_management/placement_statistics/index.html

@bernie12
I’m not sure about other buildings that are being built, but Tufts is very undergraduate focused and professors here would rather help undergrads than do research here than most other universities because it was a LAC that focused on undergrad education to start with. The large Science and Engineering complex that was just built last year there is dedicated largely to undergraduate teaching. All my STEM classes and lab classes except for one have been taught there and in just two semesters, I have had classes on almost every floor of the building, which is at least 5 or 6 floors.On the contrary, research is mainly done in older buildings slightly off campus. As an undergraduate student, I already have a professor who has hooked up me with some BME research with a postdoc who is actually guiding me on the projects and who teaches valuable skills such as reading research papers and using lab equipment, which I would not be exposed to in an intro class such as Gen Chem. In addition, the professor who offered me the position isn’t even paid to teach undergraduates and is supposed to dedicate his time mainly to research, but he still accepts almost every undergraduate who asks him for research as long as the student commits his/her time. Not saying Emory is a bad place at all and I may have been a little naive in saying that its engineering program (if there is one) is not as strong as Tufts just because Tufts has an Engineering school. But overall, Emory is a great school that I may happily have attended if costs were not an issue and I bet Emory, like Tufts, is also more undergraduate focused than many other research universities also due to its smaller size.

@ZenjuChan
Personally, I have friends who are White, Asian, Black, and Hispanic. Although I would say there is some ethnic group division, especially among international students who need time adjusting to school in the U.S., largely everyone just hangs around with people they like and you should have no trouble finding social life as long as you can hold conversation or participate in extracurricular activities. I mainly hang out with my friends over the weekend and go into Boston for concerts, food (plenty of fish and Chinatown is great if you’re looking for Asian food!), and meeting people from other local universities. Party scene is said to be not that good, but I found it to be still pretty wild at one of the Greek houses by the tennis courts (not too different at all from a Penn State party that I went too).

@ZenjuChan : You really misunderstand MBA admissions if you think that going to Emory or Tufts will affect your chances at MBA schools.

@Mamapa2 : Many places claim to be undergraduate focused (Georgia Tech is a giant research STEM institute. It’s BME undergraduate program is WAY better than a lot of places who claim to be undergraduate focused primarily because that specific program was one of the first to seriously implement problem based learning), and perhaps they are. The point is, when you describe the caliber of an undergraduate engineering program and whether or not anyone should decide to be a part of it, or whether or not it is “rising”, facilities should not be the first thing to come to mind. It is really only worthwhile discussing the quality and the nature of the engineering education and anythings that may be occurring to even further improve that. “Primarily focused on undergraduates”…well Emory can even get away with claiming that as its undergraduate population is higher than the graduate population, but that doesn’t make a facility the marker of improvement in an undergraduate program. I am just asking people (especially undergraduates) to be very careful when they look at these shiny facilities and think “oooh, this is good for me”…hardly. It usually isn’t for them at research universities, even those claiming to be undergraduate focused.

You clearly missed the point (this professor you speak of: does he only do this because he teaches in a new building? I doubt it. He was probably doing that for a long time…like many more caring professors elsewhere). If I was still at Emory, I could likely say that: “All of my chemistry courses are in the chemistry building”…does not mean the building renovation was for undergraduates. A student there just won a Goldwater as a sophomore…so clearly she was “hooked up with research as a freshman”…but she is also a very strong student and the BUILDING, new or not (plenty of chemistry majors did research as freshmen, won GWs, w/e…and other STEM courses are spread across campus outside of chemistry. I am just extremely confused about this concept…it doesn’t matter), has nothing to do with her success. Arguably the different teaching that took place did:

The girl was planning on neuroscience before and moved to chemistry citing the nature of her introductory course (would it really matter if it was held in an old building if the content and curricula were the same. No, but if it were different or if it was taught as a traditional lecture, that may matter. It doesn’t matter if she, as a freshman, was sitting in a shiny new seat in a shiny new building):

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/10/23/emory-revamps-chemistry-curriculum

Even here, I do not attribute the building to the girl (the girl who just got the GW is mentioned in this article) or anyone’s success. There was already innovative teaching happening before it.

Also, you are preaching to a choir member. The person is interested in engineering which means that Tufts is a match because it has engineering. I am just saying leave this concept of facilities out of it unless you can cite where simply having that building led to or facilitated noticeable changes in the curriculum (or how instructors choose to teach their courses. Maybe they went from a lecture to a flipped model because the new building only has rooms fitted for the flipped model. That is a significant change) of the engineering program or allowed creation of different courses or activities (things that will contribute to quality in the longrun). I find it as naive and almost deceptive, and you are not the only on guilty of doing it. It is super common in university marketing in general. To say: “look at this shiny building, we’re on the come up”…is really naive and tricky almost.

*note that I can cite many with the same experiences as you had at Emory…or other “elite” private universities. Doesn’t matter what building their courses were taught in.

I’m sorry for being standoffish…I just think we as undergraduates or former undergraduates need to be careful when evaluating qualityand we also need not conflate “name” with quality or “newness” with it and generally careful when we try to sell our schools. I would be disappointed if seeing a new science facility with the same things going on as before swayed someone to come. It is the biggest trick in the book. I have seen this in other threads, especially with engineering. At one school (a top 20 university), someone was asking why the undergraduate engineering program ranked in the 30s and the responses were: “That is okay, we just opened an impressive new building, so that should help”…I just slapped my forehand and then realized it was coming from undergraduates who likely knew no better or were just only dead-set on yielding someone to their school no matter what. It isn’t about the building itself, and how it looks, or even the classes held in it, so much as how those classes are taught in new vs. old, and other programs that may come about as a result of the building. When someone says, “program is moving up because of a new building” I can’t help but be cynical and ask others to be cynical as well. It, like disciplinary concentrations in some STEM subjects are often just gimmicks.

@bernie12
This is from my other account but while I may have assumed that the “rising facilities” were an indicator of a better program, by no means did I say that they lead to a better program. Correlation does not equal causation.

Sure, I understand your point. It is the teaching method, not the building, that matters. But as a biology major, I admit I do not completely understand quality of the engineering program here, other than hearing that it is on the rise, top notch, and lots of graduates have found jobs (as I do not have many engineering friends xD). Therefore, from my limited first year bio major experience, my explanation for Tufts engineering’s “on the rise” quality is based upon the “rising facilities” I have seen, as I have not personally experienced a engineering class here. However, I would assume the teaching methods here at Tufts are not too much different from those at Emory, Georgia Tech, or a local state school, as at least the content taught is similar (I sat down in Intro to Psych at both UMass and Cornell during my college visits, much of the content covered at those schools were also covered in Tufts’ Intro to Psych class that I took last semester).

However, based on my bio major experience here, even though I have been sitting in large intro classes, professors here do actually give to undergraduates as much attention as “advertised.” My professor who I indicated that I was doing research with was just an individual case. For example, my English professor has sat down with me for hours outside his office hour times to help just me on one essay. My Bio professor has held exam study sessions on weekends outside of his work schedule. My math professor has held individualized tutoring sessions at the academic resource center for students who really need help when instead, he could be doing research. I can think of more instances. Because my general experience in these liberal arts courses with Tufts professors has been well, I believe it is similar in engineering courses and thus recommend the OP Tufts Engineering. I believe you probably have had many similar instances during your experience at Emory, perhaps as much as or more than Tufts, but I am saying that individualized undergraduate education is a main focus at Tufts, more so than some other schools, which may or may not include Emory.

Ok. I may have misspoke when I said “its engineering programs are quickly rising in name “because” administration is spending huge budgets on engineering facilities” but in no means do I think that. My original intent was only assuming that better buildings are correlated with better engineering programs.

The original poster seems just as interested in campus fit as the relative merits of each university and that may make sense for her. She is not sure what she wants to do and both universities are known as strong liberal arts universities. Emory may have a better national reputation, but neither school will tip the scales too much in either direction for someone seeking an MBA later on. As an Emory grad living in greater Boston, I don’t see the motivation for her to attend Emory or even what piques her interest in Emory other than its national reputation and also the reputation of Goizueta Business School. Quite honestly, even in Atlanta, a candidate who is interested in both engineering and business might want to look at Georgia Tech before Emory. Georgia Tech is already downtown, has a much better engineering program than Tufts, and an outstanding business school.

@Dawala282 : I am just making the point that referring to the “facilities” is often trickery and that it is indeed tempting for us to fall for it as “momentum”(however sometimes facilities improvements were needed for years, but a good department just has made less than ideal accommodations work really well. Emory psychology is like this, however, undergraduate education there was always strong and more rigorous than normal and certainly did not change once psychology consolidated into the one single building). Like, take for example the thing you said about jobs. Were they not getting jobs before? If they were not, then it is actually much more worth investigating what the program is doing differently at a deeper level to find out what its career center is doing. Departments don’t move into new digs and then suddenly students are more employable. Often folks are naive and do make these associations. It is very common to do, especially if all you know about the past of a department is: “It was not located in the shiny new building” What if Tufts engineering was performing as well as it was today (no I don’t count “lots of majors” as performance…biology departments, for example, should know that high enrollment is a double edged sword as a performance and quality indicator)? People just tend to attribute better attributes (including those that already existed) to newness and new facilities. Again, I think they impact morale and people’s satisfaction with the space their education takes place in, but often beyond that…not much more for undergraduates.

I will actually give an Emory example: Physics, Math, CS, and environmental science moved into a brand spanking new building in 2004 or so. The reputation for those departments, except for maybe math and environmental sciences has increased so marginally. However, even before the building, the students who select those majors are top notch so got top graduate school bids, Goldwaters, and tons of other oppurtunities, as they do today. It is producing more Goldwaters and pulling more extremely gifted math students, but that is because of the recruitment of a mentor oriented faculty member far after the new building opened. Ken Ono hosts summer REU’s for high schools, and is sort of like an “Abstract Algebra rock star” and has been able to attract a lot of interest on his own to that field. In addition, the math department at Emory has been actively recruiting high level talent (so those who went significantly beyond calculus BC in HS) through the Scholars programs or otherwise. They also have implemented an honors course for those types of students and make access to math graduate courses easy (the two most recent GWs from math were taking grad. level courses in sophomore year, and the younger one was the first to go through the honors sequence).

Humanities majors at Emory are becoming highly employable simply because of the existence of this fairly new program called QTM. Guess what, QTM is hosted in the very old (but nice) building that hosts political science. QTM has rigorous statistics/programming oriented courses, as well as a robust fellowship and internship program. That is the secret to success of those who enhance their majors with QTM. I’m sure a separate facility would be nice, but it would make no difference in overall quality even if the programs remained as they are.

@Dawala282 *And no, your comparison will not include Emory (or lots of private research universities): I and many others have had the EXACT same experience and it is partially because introductory and intermediate STEM course sections at Emory are substantially (most may have 200+ in a general chemistry course for example, but Emory has about 100 in the largest sections, and half of the sections cap between 70-85. General biology’s ceiling is 96. Physics is the big one coming in at 170, but this was done to free up physics faculty to teach electives and before that change was made, it had a cap of about 90) smaller than most research universities (I believe including Tufts, but may need to look it up). In addition, the lecture track at Emory is ultra strong and heavily employed at those key “weedout” courses. You are more likely to end up with an instructor whose only job is to teach and mentor undergraduates. Biology and NBB is actually a particularly special case, because even beyond the general course, they break many of the intermediate courses into smaller sections that focus on primary literature reading (discussion sections) which allow close contact with professors and TAs. Also, Emory heavily employs undergraduates as the principal TAs for many STEM courses. They facilitate classroom activities and run problem solving sessions as opposed to graduate students. I would imagine Tufts may have a similar set-up but am not sure.

Also, in general, one must be careful with anecdotes, because if I say: “Emory is undergraduate focused because this was MY experience”…others exactly like me can come out and cite similar experiences from similar sized schools. I’ll bite: My freshman organic instructor taught in a lecture hall but makes lots of group activities and problem solving exercises. He also plays sports (there is a sporting event each semester with the current cohort of students versus a team composed of former cohorts. He also does this when teaching his sophomore courses) with the whole class as well as individual students. He will also take students out for lunch and mentor them as groups and individuals. There is another very popular ochem instructor with a similar reputation for high rigor as well as mentoring (but lesser so intentional team based learning). Some of the general chemistry instructors are this way as well as several general biology instructors.

So I think if we cited these as “undergraduate focused” we are conflating personalities with infrastructure that leads to the empowerment and activation of undergraduates. In terms of an “undergraduate focus” the paragraph I wrote above is much more important than this one and I can tell you that not many near peers of Emory or Tufts have the things I mention in that paragraph. Most research private schools do not employ undergraduates beyond 1 on 1 tutoring or grading. They only let graduate TAs run problem solving sessions. They damned sure do not have primary literature discussion sections attached to several classes (in fact, there are a couple of top 20s where hardly any primary lit. reading takes place before upper level seminars). Students at other schools are not as empowered or treated with the best possible education because of the infrastructure.

If Tufts has that infrastructure, it should be the focus and basis of claiming to be more “undergraduate focused” not “my professors are really nice and really like to get to know undergraduates”…okay, but how do they do to teach, empower, and influence the values and development of undergraduates? How do today deliver there course beyond just “average” (lecturing with minimal active learning, a focus on memorization, etc). For example, Dr. Spell, a biology teacher at Emory and several others use case studies and student centered activities/problem solving exercises beyond clickers/learning catalytics in their introductory courses as opposed to just lecturing and flipping through slides to be memorized by students. That is more undergraduate centered and more beneficial for learning the material than just a slide show with some clicker questions and then meeting them for tea. A primary literature based discussion section is better than a recitation (whose goal is often that, you just have some material re-lectured, have a quiz, or have some problems that should have been done at home worked on in a setting where attendance is mandatory…helping undergrads. read primary lit is helping them do deeper learning and get a true exposure to a field…the stuff done in recitations is primarily hand-holding and spoon-feeding to ensure folks achieve the basics. Which model is serious about talented and ambitious undergrads? Does it matter if my TA takes me out to lunch if they “stick to the basics”…maybe as a friend, but not an educator).

BTW, Psyche is an anomaly at Emory because it is a 2 semester sequence like bio, chem, physics, and ochem. There is one more similar to AP that you can AP out of and then the other which is “bio-psychology” . Both professors are excellent, but one only teaches from an experimental perspective (as in writes up data tables and then uses Socratic Method to ask students about their meaning in the context of the material he taught) and will look significantly different from other schools. The other is younger guy who uses the textbook more, and incorporates a significant amount of active learning. You sat in classes at very large schools that were probably lecture based and went slide by slide. Just by happenstance, for 1/2 of the psychology sequence at Emory, this isn’t the case, so you can’t assume. For example, I used to assume HYP had the same STEM curricula as other elites at the introductory level…they really don’t, especially Harvard.

Either way, this has gone off the rails. The OP should go to Tufts simply because it has an engineering school (though Tech or BU would have been viable options).

*I am just trying to get folks, when they market their school or make certain gimmicky claims, to understand what type of evidence supports that claim and what does not. Like: “facilities are nicer” does not support claim that: “undergraduate program in area is better” and “professors are nice and really care about contacting and supporting students” does not necessarily indicate an “undergraduate focus”. Usually there is infrastructural evidence of quality and “undergraduate focus”. I can be at one of the biggest and most insane research universities that would admit they do not necessarily focus on undergraduates, and I bet tons will end up with the “this professor really cares for students” anecdotes.

@ZenjuChan

Physical attractiveness is in the eye of the beholder. Something like that probably requires you to visit Tufts and Emory in person.

Tufts is in a part of Boston that’s not that close to Cambridge where Harvard and MIT are located. Unless you’re willing to put up with a decent commute on the intracity train there (which includes waiting for said train to arrive at your stop), your social life won’t revolve around Cambridge (Harvard/MIT) if you’re a Tufts student. At least that’s what my friends tell me.

On the other hand, Georgia Tech is relatively close to Emory and connected by a free, convenient campus shuttle that runs a lot especially on the weekends. Students who want it can frequent Georgia Tech’s social scene as well as Emory’s.

@BiffBrown You might be mistaking Tufts for Brandeis. Tufts is very close to Cambridge and Harvard, about a couple of miles away.