My parents are Indian immigrants and don’t think Tufts is prestigious enough to ED to even though it is my favorite school and it is an excellent school, especially for premed. I think my parents would be convinced if i could convince them of its prestige because they don’t seem to care about fit. Any advice?
Can your college/guidance counselor talk to them. Tufts had a 14% acceptance rate last year and is very well known school.
There are many more very good schools than a handful that are known in other countries.
Tufts medical is one of the schools where the top docs go that treat the international elite.
Show them USNWR on small colleges and other guides. It’s very prestigious
Can your parents pay the full costs of Tufts without borrowing any money? Start with that. Sit down with your parents, and run the Net Price Calculators at the websites of Tufts, your home-state public U, and a couple of p,aces that they think ar prestigious enough. Talk about where the money to pay for your education can come from. Talk about how you can expect to pay for Med School if you do end up applying.
You can get the pre-med coursework just about anywhere. Med School admissions is numbers-based. The name of the place you graduate from doesn’t matter. Your GPA does. Your MCAT does. Your letters of recommendation do. Your medical volunteering and job-shadowing do. For your longer-range goals, lots of places will serve you just as well as Tufts.
Tufts is a fabulous school with a great reputation, especially for premed. Their med school acceptance rate is amazing!!! Maybe focus on that with your parents?
Where do your parents think you should go?
Also, is Tufts a school that applying ED gives a bump in acceptance rate? Not all schools do.
Lastly, can your family afford Tufts if you were accepted ED? You don’t want to be in a position where you have a binding commitment without the resources to attend.
When we went on the college tour 2 years ago, Tufts was very clear that it gives a huge boost in admissions chances for ED. They want kids who want them.
@MA2012 I think your strongest argument to convince your parents to allow you to apply to Tufts ED is that as someone with Indian heritage, you are an Over Represented Minority, and as such your chances of getting into Harvard etc are even slimmer than the ridiculously slim overall chances. Tell them about the lawsuit by the Asian group suing Harvard and some other Ivy league schools for discrimination, and that the US Department of Justice is looking into this. Then show them the ridiculously small chances of admissions for those schools. Then show them some statistics about your chance of getting into Tufts ED verses RD, and show them the statistics for some other schools too. Then show them some statistics about what % of Tufts pre-med kids get into med school, and some other statistics from Tufts that will show your parents what a great school this actually is. Then finish it up by showing your parents some threads on here about kids with fantastic stats being shut out of the tippy top schools because of holistic admissions, and then also being shut out of the next tier down schools because those schools think you have a good shot of getting into the tippy top because of your grades/SAT scores, and those schools want to protect their yield. There are a lot of kids with top grades and SAT scores who are going to their state flagship this year because they got shut out of the first and second tier private schools. Good luck.
ETA…I believe your parents have to sign the ED agreement…so if they really say NO…it’s NO.
- Can you parents pay what it costs to attend Tufts?
- Remember, going to Tufts is NOT a guarantee that you will get accepted to any medical school. It’s not even a guarantee that you will even continue on a premed track.
You can get accepted to medical school from any college in this country. Get the highest GPA and MCAT score possible…have excellent LOR and interview well.
- Are you trying to convince your parents that going to Tufts will give you a leg up in med school admissions?
- Have you seriously looked at any other colleges? Maybe that is what your parents want you to do.
- If you DO go to medical school...and you go to a less costly school than Tufts, would your parents be willing to help you with medical school costs?
Now…having said all that…if your parents can afford without loans…their net costs to send you to Tufts for four years, and it really is your only top choice…then discuss with them the admit rate ED vs RD.
If your parents have any financial concerns with Tufts…then…I would say ED should be off the table.
@MedHopeful0213 What schools do they consider to be “prestigious”?
That’s ridiculous. Tell them my 4.0, 2300 SAT (old test - out of 2400) son got waitlisted there. On our naviance, it showed him to be above some of the stats of the other students that were admitted. I just checked naviance again for our younger son (6 years later), and it shows TONS of denials for the kids that applied. Apparently, it’s gotten even harder to get in.
Is your parents’ primary concern COA or just prestige ?
What @megan12 said. A girl from my daughter’s class got waitlisted at Tufts. She graduated from Stanford last year.
Basically - if they haven’t heard of Tufts, or none of their Indian friends have sent their kids to Tufts…it isn’t prestigious enough. I know.
They need to be willing to look at the data and expand their mind. Are they willing to do that? Show them the website, the statistics. Do you best to find SOMEONE in your community who knows something about Tufts. There must be an Indian doctor that you know who can speak to them about the reputation of Tufts?
There is definitely no financial issue when it comes to tufts. My parents biggest problem is that they dont think its good enough for me, which is ridiculous. I really want to thank all of you for your advice! I will definitely try this out.
FYI: Sophomores at Tufts University are eligible to apply to the Early Assurance Program of Tufts School of Medicine.
http://medicine.tufts.edu/Admissions/Special-Admissions-Options/Early-Assurance-Program/Eligibility