Harvard vs. Tufts vs. Wellesley?

College Search & Selection
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<p>I'm a rising high school senior living in eastern Massachusetts and interested in staying near Boston (I just love this area). Due to my academic strength, test scores, ECs, volunteer work, etc, I'm fairly confident in applying to Harvard SCEA (it's also important to note that 6-7 people in my class get accepted to Harvard every year). That being said, it's a reach for everyone, no matter how impressive and "well-rounded" you are, so if I don't get accepted, I'll apply regular decision to Wellesley, Tufts, BC, and Brown. BC is a definite safety for me, and Brown is a little far from Boston, so I'm really gunning for Wellesley and Tufts.</p>

<p>Can anyone who knows a fair amount about Harvard, Tufts, and/or Wellesley please compare and contrast the following aspects of those three colleges?
-academic rigor (and by that I mean both workload and intellectual stimulation)
-sense of camaraderie / school spirit
-location: the campus itself AND ease of transport to Boston and other places
-school culture/atmosphere (specific views and ideas politically, socially, religiously, aesthetically, etc.)
-importance of sports, music, theatre, drama, art
-friendliness and general attitude (teachers and students)
-life after college (ease of getting into a good grad program and finding a decent-paying job)</p>

<p>Also, as I'm extremely interested in becoming a trial lawyer (don't try to dissuade me from that right now; that's not what this post is about!), so besides Harvard, what Boston-area colleges prepare students well for reputable law schools? (Good LSAT prep? Pre-law advising? Strong philosophy, English, and/or psychology programs?)</p>

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<p>Ignore the unnecessary “as” in the third paragraph :)</p>

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<p>Help purdy please!</p>

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<p>Wait till you get in, and compare,then, with bird in hand. Meanwhile read the individual college forums and you will get some insights on each school. All those schools will be strong for prelaw and post college placements.</p>

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<p>I’ll offer only what I can as a parent whose recently-graduated daughter considered Tufts, BC and Wellesley. (Harvard a little too… well, need I say?)</p>

<p>What struck her about Wellesley was the gorgeous campus, new science facilities, academic rigor, and caliber of student (the info session featured an impressive panel of young women). What discouraged her was the sense of it being too remote, not only in terms of distance from Boston but from any sort of lively area college scene. One student nearly admitted outright that weekends could be lonely in Wellesley—a lovely town but nevertheless a bedroom community. D was also on the fence about attending an all-woman’s college, as most of her best friends during her senior year in high school were boys and she was concerned about a potential “hotbed” atmosphere, not only here but at other schools she considered (Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Smith).</p>

<p>What struck her about Tufts… Everything, and this was after she’d compiled a list of about 10 schools, including UPenn, Haverford, BC, Colgate, W&M, and Cornell. Standing out the most was the sense of an engaging, friendly and exceedingly smart community (she was predisposed, as a number of the brightest and most “out-of-the-box” kids from her high school have attended Tufts). She cannot speak for post-grad opportunities/ acceptance chances (she’s studying Biology), but from her research, they are great, and the Tufts “brand” is highly regarded (even if it isn’t always the case on this site). We were happy with the ease of transportation in and out of Boston (Davis Square was not nearly as far from campus as we were led to believe). The “ethos” of the school seems to be about being very open-minded, accepting and down-to-earth. School spirit seems strong (I know alum retain love and loyalty). There seems to be a healthy balance of opportunities running the gamut: sports and arts and such. Attractive, easily navigable campus. The faculty who were kind enough to let my D sit in on classes and ask questions were top-notch. A wonderful freshman girl hosted D for a day and was the best representative for her school one could imagine (she chose Tufts over Brown, I believe). And have to applaud the admissions staff, particularly Dan Grayson, who, as a Tufts alum, made a great case for the school. If you visit, be sure to introduce yourself to him and/or attend one of his info sessions. You won’t be disappointed.</p>

<p>Ultimately, it was the “just right”, balanced quality of Tufts that won D over. No single culture—sports, political bent, frats—dominates and defines the school. Look at the stats for admitted students to get an idea of the caliber of student who applies to/ attends Tufts. </p>

<p>Needless to say, D is attending Tufts this fall. But you can’t really go wrong with either Tufts or Wellesley.</p>

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<p>Have you visited the campuses? Since you live in the area, you should make it a priority to visit them all, preferable when they are in session. Tours and info sessions are good, but Open Houses are generally even better because they provide more in-depth information.
All three are excellent choices for your goals. Don’t agonize about the pros/cons of each one now since they are hard to get into! A more constructive use of your time is researching other colleges to apply to where your odds of getting in are a little better.
Do you consider BC a “safety” because of legacy status? Your list seems top-heavy so far…</p>

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<p>No, I consider BC a safety because of the calibre of students from my school that apply and get accepted. Roughly 1/3 of students at my school who apply to BC get accepted every year, and every single person (literally) who has applied to BC from my school in the last 7 years with a GPA higher than 3.5 and an SAT score higher than 2200 have gotten accepted.</p>

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<p>And my GPA is 3.97 and my SAT score is 2360.</p>

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<p>My d is attending Wellesley this fall, and I got a Masters at Tufts. My dad went to BC way back in the day, and I’ve had lots of friends in the Boston area from all 4 schools.</p>

<p>As the poster above noted, W can be a little bit removed from the action, but that is personality-dependent. If you have friends in the area, out are willing to make new friends, it really isn’t. There is, to my understanding, significant grade deflation. The education and level of discourse is top notch.</p>

<p>Tufts and BC tend to be IMHO pretty conservative. BC is great fun, with good, solid academics overall and very strong school spirit.</p>

<p>Tufts IMHO suffers a bit from over half of its students living off campus. I think it hurts the undergraduate vibe. It has a bit of an inferiority complex as an Ivy reject school. (It always seemed that way, and I heard it about six times on the tour I took last year.)</p>

<p>W has a very strong network of alums that are pretty amazing in certain fields. There are many opportunities to really build a resume that stands apart for law school. </p>

<p>Harvard is Harvard. :slight_smile: Not every class or every professor is great, but the students are all pretty smart. :slight_smile: You can’t beat the campus or the location or the prestige factor.</p>

<p>Go visit Brown, though. It’s awesome! (Note: My d applied to 4 Ivies, got accepted at 2, WL at 1, rejected at 1 - still picked W. She felt that the experience at W was unique and accessible, and that she’d rather aim for Ivy law
school.) Visit them all - even of you think you’re familiar with them.</p>

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<p>The chances that you’ll be sitting here a year from now truly deciding between Harvard, Tufts and Wellesley aren’t all that high. IOW, the decision may be made for you if you only get into one of those three. So until you’re in that position, there isn’t a lot of point – it’s rather like deciding if, when I win both an Academy Award and the Nobel Peace Prize and they’re on the same day, which one I’ll attend.</p>

<p>Your time is better spent, IMO, thinking through schools “lower” on your list. </p>

<p>If you’re from eastern MA, why not just spend a day at each campus and see what you think of the vibe of each? But making a whole project about “which of these should I choose” seems to be premature.</p>

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<p>I agree that BC is not a safety for you and is by-and large more selective than Tufts. </p>

<p>You should wait until you see where you get in and then start reviewing your options. I would visit each school as well to get a feel of where they are located and how their campus feels.</p>

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<p>PG, it’s true that it may be premature to be actually “selecting” a college from among the 3/4 the poster hasn’t even applied to, but as she seems well-matched for any one of them, what’s wrong with asking about the particularities of each? It goes without saying she should seek out some “lower” schools, as she’s likely to. Why not suggest some? </p>

<p>And I beg to differ that BC is more selective than Tufts. BC accepts a larger number of lower-scoring/ grading students from our area than Tufts, which this year denied (Tufts’ loss) at least two of our top academic and national award winning students, for whom Tufts was a first choice, not a back-up. Last year, over a dozen students applied to Tufts. Only 2 were accepted. Each year, multiple students apply to BC. Roughly half, sometimes more, are accepted. Only a few attend.</p>

<p>And re: Tufts being “conservative”. In my conservative community, Tufts is often shunted aside for being too “liberal”.</p>

<p>None of the schools on the OP’s list are safeties. None are out of reach, either.</p>

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<p>I’m very conservative, in that I would consider all of those schools (H, T, W) reaches for ANYBODY. Bar none. They aren’t matches.</p>

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<p>Matches, choices, whatever are made on the basis of available stats on accepted students, accessed via college websites, guides, etc. The OP isn’t being unreasonable in putting these schools on her list, regardless of whether or not any of them, in this climate, can be considered a match or not. OP wasn’t clear that she wouldn’t have “lower” schools on her list. No need to have used the somewhat snarky analogies, is all.</p>

<p>The note on conservative versus liberal was in response to sakacar.</p>

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<p>Oh, I’m liberal politically. I just mean I’m conservative --as in risk-averse – when it comes to considering top schools as matches for anybody. Tufts was high on my son’s list (he’s now at Northwestern) and my daughter attends Wellesley. But they were never match schools. They were reaches. As they are for anybody.</p>

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<p>Agreed.</p>

<p>Maybe other Boston area schools for the OP to consider are Northeastern, Holy Cross, BU, and Brandeis, though of course the degree of “matchy-ness” of even these is debatable. Given the embarrassment of riches that is Boston area colleges (would even Bowdoin be in the “area”?), it would be foolish not to put others on her list.</p>

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<p>Hi! I’m currently a sophomore at Tufts. Just as a disclaimer, this post is going to be heavily biased towards my school. With that said, I have absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVED my first year at Tufts. It has been a truly incredible experience. I would say that by far the largest factor contributing to my happiness here has been the truly incredible kids I’ve been surrounded by. They have been some of the smartest, friendliest and most thoughtful kids I know. Admissions likes to thrown the word “quirky” around to describe our student body, and I would have to agree that it generally fits. Some people are put off by this characterization, but I swear to you this is the coolest bunch of quirky kids I’ve had the chance to meet. Student groups like the Tufflepuffs (our awesome quidditch team), our many a capella groups, and the Free Compliments Club really are a testament to the atmosphere you’ll find here. I find the campus to be really pretty, and IMO the location cannot be beat. We’re right outside of Boston–so we have a more residential campus feel, but you can hop on the T and be at Cambridge in 10 minutes and in Boston in under 20. I’ve gone into Boston at least a few times every month. I believe that someone before me commented that Tufts was conservative. I find that pretty laughable. I can assure you that had they ever visited Tufts they would know that to be false. Tufts is predominately liberal. That being said, I know a handful of conservative students and believe that they are just as happy at Tufts. Our students tend to be pretty open-minded (except on the subject of LGBT issues) and willing to have a friendly debate with their peers. People here tend to be very engaged in politics–and also very PC. We have a pretty large international population (9%?) so I think that contributes to a more diverse array of beliefs–politically and religiously. This past presidential election, we crammed into huge lecture halls to watch the debates together–I think that it’s Tufts version of big sports. On that topic–if you’re looking for a large sports culture, you won’t really find that at Tufts. We’re more academic than athletic. That hasn’t been a problem for me, as I’m not into sports much myself–but if you’re looking for a school that heads to the football stadium every week and fills up the student section in body paint–you’ll be disappointed here. It’s still easy to enjoy sports here. I think both our field hockey and softball teams won their D3 championships this year. Sports will never be a main event–but can still be very fun to get involved with. Drama is very big here. We have an umbrella group called the 3P’s, which runs a bunch of student and faculty shows every year. There are so many shows I really didn’t have time to attend them all, but there is A LOT of support among students for their friends who participate in these shows–and a lot of opportunities for freshman to get involved. We also have a lot of dance groups whose shows are super popular among the student body–the best of which is SOC (spirit of color). They are so good. We also have a few stomp groups, and the TDC (tufts dance collective) in which it feels like half the student body is involved. So, while sports aren’t big here–performance groups and politics are really huge. I know my friends are involved in choir and orchestra too and they really enjoy it. There’s a really cool class called Gospel Choir which is open to anyone and gets around 300 people every semester–I’ve heard that it’s a lot of fun. Academics are great here. In my freshman year I’ve had a good mix of lecture classes, and classes under 15 people and I’ve really enjoyed them. They have been really stimulating. The profs are really invested in teaching and I have not been taught by a TA (I don’t think we do that at all?). I had one really excellent English pro. this year who was so sweet. I got coffee with her after the class ended–which is free, in order to encourage student interact with profs outside of class.</p>

<p>As for the other schools, they are obviously both good options. I think Wellesley is a good school, pretty campus too. The downsides, as I see them, are that it’s all female, and that there really isn’t as much access to Boston–at least as easily.
I have mixed feelings about Boston College. While I know it is a decent school, I’ve heard that it does have a more conservative student body–it being a Catholic university. I also don’t believe that its students are academically on par with those at Tufts–based on the stats of incoming students and because of the tour I went on when visiting campus.
Overall, acceptance rate at BC and Wellesley hover around 30%, while Tufts admitted 20% this past year–so it is a little bit harder to gain admission.</p>

<p>As for Harvard, oh boy what can I say about Harvard. It’s obviously a great school. Cambridge is lovely–and you can’t beat the intellectual caliber of the students and faculty which will surround you. Prestige is high. But does the school have the same warmth, sense of community, and the same individualized attention that you get at Tufts? I couldn’t say.</p>

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<p>Wow, I’m sorry this is so long haha. I may have gotten a bit carried away.</p>

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<p>Thanks, valerieplame! Very helpful and detailed! I’m glad you love your school so much :)</p>

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<p>Tufts class of 2016 21% acceptance rate (just admitted class was 18%)
BC 29%
Percent in top 10% of class - Tufts 91%, BC 82%
Midrange SAT Tufts 2030-2280, BC 1930-2150</p>

<p>And no one ever calls Tufts conservative. It’s liberal, but the students enjoy diversity of thought.</p>