How good is Tufts, and what is its reputation?

Tufts has not reported the % of incoming freshmen who were in the top 10% of their high school graduating class on their common data set which is deducting almost 4 points from their US News score. If this was fixed, they would be ranked around 25.

On Forbes, Tufts was ranked #13 among research universities as well as #18 in overall colleges in 2016. However, when Tufts didn’t report the aforementioned top 10% data, they dropped to #21 among research universities and #32 overall only a year later in 2017.

On Niche, Tufts is ranked number 19 among all universities and 22 among all colleges, a ranking that seems more sensible to me (granted, Niche is a heavily flawed ranking as it is based on user feedback).

Is Tufts top 20 quality, in your opinion? Is its reputation comparable to Notre Dame, Georgetown, CMU, Emory, Rice?

I think its student body is comparable to those at nearly all the schools in the top 25. Both the kids who are accepted to tufts and those that enroll have very strong stats. My younger son chose to attend tufts ED2 over ucla, USC (California) nominated for a full tuition merit award, washu nominated for a writing merit award. He heard from these schools, and others with merit (URochester) before he heard back from tufts, and had considered changing his ED2 app to a RD app. Ultimately, he decided he wanted tufts more and let the other schools go, including brown which deferred him in ED & Penn that was recruiting him through the Kelly Writers House recruiting program. He has met a number of kids at tufts who chose it over some of the schools you’ve listed. None of them regrets their decision.

All that said above, I do think tufts admissions and administration should care about the damn US New & World Report ranking as much as its peers do, even though I wish it wasn’t the case. Let’s face it: the uchicago had done quite a lot in the last 6 years to improve its ranking, as have many other schools, especially those that offer merit to win over top kids, like washu, Emory, USC, Vanderbilt and duke. I think I once read that the ranking even influences the university’s ability to get financing. It’s just another reality in this marketplace that the rankings are considered by applicants and their parents, and affect a college’s perceived prestige, even if they don’t actually reflect the quality of education.

@RenaissanceMom That’s interesting. I was deferred ED at a top 10 and ended up applying ED2 to Tufts (and was accepted). I forgot to withdraw my top 10 school’s application and I was eventually accepted there as well. However, I applied to the top 10 school because I was legacy, so the deferral really let me look for a school that fit me and my interests (International Relations).

Now, I’m still not completely at peace of mind about my choices, but to be honest, Tufts is one of the best schools in the world for IR (better than that particular top 10 school) and I loved it when I visited. It’s good to hear that it’s so highly regarded in general.

I’m at Tufts and I chose it over Harvard, Berkeley and WashU for what it’s worth.

I do think Tufts not reporting top 10% isn’t smart of them to do. It will only lower ranking, which will lower applicant numbers, which will increase acceptance rate, which will lower ranking even further. I personally give no credence to rankings, but most applicants do; it’s a sad fact.

I think in the long-term, though, Tufts will definitely be able to push ahead of schools like Georgetown, USC, Berkeley, JHU, etc.

IMO, Tufts is a much better undergraduate environment than UCLA, Berkeley and USC. It’s a shame not everyone realizes that and applies to a different school instead because it’s ranked 3 places above Tufts. That’s nonsensical at best.

@Tufts2021 Wow. What exactly made you choose Tufts over Harvard, if you don’t mind me asking?

Whatever the rankings might say, I think Tufts is definitely comparable to top 18-25 schools.
Let’s compare Tufts to Georgetown for example:

Tufts University (#27-29 by USNWR) - Medford, MA
5,541 Undergrad + 5,908 postgrad = 11,449 Students
Endowment: $1.8 Billion
Fall 2018 Acceptance Rate: 14.6%
Fall 2017 SAT/ ACT Mid-50%: 1410-1540/ 31-34
Subject Test Requirement: Two for Arts/Sciences & Engineering
Supplement Essays Requirement: Yes
4-Year Graduation rate: 87%
Freshman Retention Rate: 97%
Student-faculty ratio: 8:1/ 67.8% of classes with fewer than 20 students
Academic Strengths: International Relations/ Economics/ Biology
International Relations Ranking by Foreign Policy: #13 (Undergrad)/ #6 (Grad)

Georgetown University (#20-21 by USNWR) - Washington D.C.
7,636 Undergrad + 10,213 postgrad = 17,849 Students
Endowment: $1.6 Billion
Fall 2018 Acceptance Rate: 14.5%
Fall 2017 SAT/ ACT Mid-50%: 1350-1520/ 30-34
Subject Test Requirement: Three
Supplemental Essays Requirement: Yes
4-Year Graduation rate: 90%
Freshman Retention Rate: 96%
Student-faculty ratio: 11:1/ 61.2% of classes with fewer than 20 students
Academic Strengths: International Relations/ Business/ Biology
International Relations Ranking by Foreign Policy: #4 (Undergrad)/ #1 (Grad)

As you can see, there’s virtually little to no difference between Tufts and Georgetown with regard to their endowment size, admissions selectivity, faculty resources, and academic strengths. Both have highly regarded medical school, fantastic IR programs, and strong social sciences/ biology departments. Unlike many other colleges, both still require SAT subject tests and supplemental essays, which makes the application pool relatively more competitive.

Definitely don’t see Tufts “pushing ahead” of a school like Hopkins. JHU has too much money and too much prestige for that to ever happen (IMHO).

@aegis400 FYI, starting with the class of 2023 kids are no longer required to submit SAT subject tests.

Tufts is a nice place. Lots of good students. For the poster that asked why Tufts over Harvard, my son looked at both schools recently and said Tufts was more about the future, while Harvard was more about history and traditions.
His impression was Tuft’s vibe was a little more hip, whatever that means, just his opinion.

In a lot of positive ways, Hopkins is in a league of its own, as it is a premier undergraduate and graduate institution modeled along the European/German format of academic/research/industry collaboration. I think many top students choose Hopkins over Ivies (a best friend went there instead of Yale and now works at Hopkins). My D was torn between applying ED1 to Hopkins and Tufts and went with Tufts (now a junior there, and happy) primarily due to fit factors. Tufts has more of an undergraduate campus feel to it and is more politically active and progressive – Hopkins is definitely dominated by its highly talented science/engineering cohort (basically 2/3 of the student body), which tends to attract a different type of student – less activist, highly diligent and scholarly, with less of an active social scene.

@Naspy58, my son now a senior at tufts was also seriously considering applying to Hopkins ED because of its creative writing major, called Writing Seminars.

He did an organized overnight visit there the week before the application was due. It went really badly. Kids on the hall where he was hosted told him that it’s a tough school to fit in as a humanities major. He sat in on 2 creative writing workshops that were utterly quiet. One was dismissed by a professor frustrated with ppl who didn’t do the reading. He asked if they could at least say which sentences in the assigned fiction reading touched them in some way. Silence. After dismissing the class 10 mins early, he told my son not to judge the university over that one class, so he sat in on another. Same thing happened. This is a kid who had gone to selective summer creative writing programs at Columbia, Iowa and Kenyon, had sat in on his brother’s lit classes at brown, and the kids in all these classes couldn’t shut up. Their excitement and engagement was infectious and that’s what my son wanted in college. Huge difference that made him decide that weekend that he couldn’t apply to Hopkins ED.

And you are right: the STEM kids at Hopkins cast a long shadow.

He ended up applying to tufts ED2 and has been happy with his peers both in the classroom and socially. It’s been a good fit for him.

Undergrad did not exist in the German model. It was provided by a separate institution call the Gymnasium.

The shift toward America’s interpretation of the German model started after the Civil War and Hopkins was the first “start from scratch” implementation. It was sort of an English/German hybrid that shifted the emphasis away from teaching toward research. There are conflicting opinions on whether this increased or decreased the quality of undergrad education. The opinions align with the “pro-LAC” camp and the “pro Research U” camp. Many professors are in the “pro-LAC” camp, including a friend of mine who is a research professor at Harvard. They send their kids to NESCAC schools over Ivies and Hopkins.

Tufts essentially combines the two models. The US News methodology was optimized for the Research U camp (HYP). If the LACs were were not split out separately they would not fare well. The fact that Tufts does not fit the pure research U model hurts it in the ranking. The way that Tufts has structured its largest research programs (i.e. such that they cannot include research expenses in the US News numbers) also hurts them.

I actually like the Tufts model the best for undergrad. I prefer it over HYP. and AW. That is why I am cautious about Tufts chasing rankings. If it is not done carefully I think it will compromise what I believe are Tufts strengths, both culturally and academically.

@naspy58 - Here is an interesting document describing the German Model and the US adaptation.
https://www.aicgs.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/muller.pdf

Questions about Tufts reputation have been hashed over for years.

http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/tufts-university/390170-tufts-reputation.html

http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/tufts-university/77697-how-prestigous-is-tufts-compared-to-elite-schools-p1.html

My D’s bf is a Tufts grad. He now works at Google. He is a very talented musician but didn’t want to perform professionally or be a music educator. He did want performance opportunities in college and he got them in spades at Tufts. His best friends are guys he met there.

S17 has a friend at Tufts currently, who is very happy with the school (except that he hated sharing a room and had to fight to get a single) and his program.

Another friend’s D graduated and is very gainfully employed in a medical research field. She opted not to go to medical school but was accepted.

I wish any of my kids had been interested in Tufts. When I hear D’s bf talk about it, I fantasize about someday having a grand who will go there.