<p>Happy Tufts student here.
Not sure about class sizes? Check out [this</a> post](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1062471414-post2.html]this”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1062471414-post2.html) that lists US News rankings for small class sizes. Tufts is ranked high up in the Outstanding category for largest number of classes with under 20 students, and fewest classes with over 50 students.
Generally speaking, class size will depend somewhat on your major, and a WHOLE LOT on what kind of courses you take. Introductory or foundational courses will typically be quite large, anywhere between 50 and 200 students. However, this is ameliorated somewhat by the fact that any class this size will break down once a week into conversation groups of about 20. These are typically led by TAs, but often are led by professors. Once you move past lower-numbered courses and get into the meat of your major, classes will generally be from 10-20 students.</p>
<p>Access to professors varies from professor to professor, as it would anywhere, but on average I would confidently say Tufts students have significantly better access to their profs than students of other schools. The emphasis here is on undergraduate education, and professors that would prefer to be left to their research and let TAs take care of classes and office hours generally aren’t hired. Every professor has mandatory office hours at least once a week (most professors do a few hours twice a week), and all but a small handful will be happy to meet with you outside of office hours by appointment. While I’ve been here, I’ve forged really great relationships, friendships even, with several different professors. Professor Art, my advisor, got me a summer job and helped me to get my research presented at a symposium, Professor Greenhill still shoots me conversational e-mails every time a conflict erupts internationally even though it’s been over a year since I was in her Civil Wars class, Professor Halthom once offered to take two hours out of her Saturday and drive me to a funeral I had no way of getting to, Professor Russinoff has spent literally hours counseling me and chatting with me about my academic career, personal life, and mental health even though she’s not my advisor. . . I could go on. Professors are passionate about their subject and they love students. Best advice is to just show up at the office hours of a professor you like, start a chat, and see where things go. </p>
<p>Depends on the graduate school in question, but I would say that Tufts has a better reputation across the board than Oberlin (with the notable exception of music, in which Oberlin excels). Between UVA and Tufts, it really depends on what you want to do. In terms of fine art, UVA has a great architecture school whereas we don’t have one at all, but our partnership with the School of the Museum of Fine Arts gives us a decisive advantage in most other forms of art. Just from what I’ve observed, UVA is better regarded in business, the physical sciences and engineering, while Tufts has the edge in political science (including international relations), economics, philosophy, and the biological sciences. This is totally subjective, and they’re both highly regarded enough across the board that I doubt that either one would give you a significant head start over the other</p>
<p>As far as segregation? Eh, there’s some truth to that. Minority students are underrepresented here in the first place (with the exception of Jewish students, who are overrepresented by a factor of 30), and the existence and efficacy of organizations catering specifically to certain minority groups (the Latino House, the Africana House, etc.) means that minority students often congregate together (read: self-segregate). Tufts is getting better at offering financial aid packages, though, which is doing a lot to diversify the student body.</p>
<p>Finally, Tufts is very supportive of a double major. About a third of non-engineers double major, with many more taking on a minor. You need to declare your first major by the end of your sophomore year, and your second major really at any time. You are required to ask a professor from each department you want to major in to serve as your advisor. Core requirements are extremely lax here, and most students test out of at least some of them. Two semesters each of humanities, art, mathematics, natural science, and social science, as well as six semesters of a language (but if you’ve taken any language in high school you can test out of much or all of this) and two world civilization classes. Good scores on AP tests or IB tests will get you out of a lot of these.</p>