<p>Considering that grades/class rank are less than 1/3 of what they look for, I wouldn't use anecodotal evidence of your experience. My year, engineering students had higher SATs (much higher math, slightly lower verbal, so composite was higher) and better class rank (average top 6% v. top 9%). </p>
<p>Tufts also looks at SATs and SAT IIs for academics. Then they look at extracurriculars (category 2) and personal qualities (category 3). So part of Category 1 is but a small part of the picture.</p>
<p>There's also the theory that your classmates could have been unlucky. It could have been the year for wanna-be French majors and trombone players, and, if they are both wanna-be French majors who want to play trombone, tough luck for them. Tufts could have been short a French horn, and your (hypothetical) French horn abilities got you in.</p>
<p>Gender is also a big thing - Tufts aims for parity, but a lot more women than men apply (something like 60/40 overall).</p>
<p>Yes, I was just going to say that. Girls may have a slightly easier time getting into engineering, simply because they want to keep gender ratios close.</p>
<p>If you're into engineering, you may also want to check out this new school in Mass called Olin. It's supposed to be amazing. It's very small, and essentially you are always grouped with your classmates in order to do real engineering projects and solve various problems. I think it's only like 5 or so years old, though.</p>
<p>That said, I'm not an engineer but SO many of my friends are, and they are very happy with the program here. Also, I would like to point out that the quality of people was an extremely important factor for me, and the majority of engineers I know are really awesome people, not those stereotypical math and science nerds that don't know how to function socially that many seem to imagine. They're really great, funny, interesting kids and are always helping each other out on the particularly tough Calc III problems or Physics labs. And everyone loves the dean of engineering. Another guy I know just switched from premed to engineering because he liked it better.</p>
<p>Hope that helps!</p>