<p>...then why did I get into Duke, WashU, Notre Dame, Emory, UNC OOS, UMich OOS, and BC Honors, but NOT Tufts?</p>
<p>Tufts definintely has Tufts Syndrome, and the only way you can defeat it (in order to get accepted) is to do one their quirkly I LOVE TUFTS letters or videos – it’s just a little macabre dance they want you to do. Washington & Lee is the same, only there you need to visit and groan on about the speaking tradition. </p>
<p>I think UPenn is actually the worst with Tufts Syndrome. The Admissions Office there is so badly crippled by past memories of UPenn just being the Ivy backup for HYP, that they now select almost 50% of their class via ED. UPenn is the ultimate “show me the love” school: if you are a borderline Ivy candidate and want the Ivy League, put in the ED to UPenn – you can game those folks into an ED acceptance fairly easily (even if you have no clue about UPenn). Of course, you have to go there if accepted, but how bad can it be (versus some random non-Ivy you might otherwise get stuck with?!)</p>
<p>Are we collecting school admissions letter like stamp collecting here?</p>
<p>bitter much?
most of those schools are close peers of tufts, and it’s not surprising at all if u got in some and not others.</p>
<p>come back if you got into harvard, yale, princeton, and stanford but not tufts, and i’ll think about it.</p>
<p>Those “letters or videos” are OPTIONAL, and certainly show who you are as a person but don’t mandate that you get accepted by any means. Tufts is a school that doesn’t just look at numbers. The school looks at each person’s character, contributions, and personality. Tufts Syndrome is a sad excuse to cover up rejection.</p>
<p>LOL. It’s a bitter person who tries to use absurd reasons to help their self-esteem.</p>
<p>But really, Tufts acceptance rate this year was lower than Notre Dame, Emory, UNC, UMich, and BC.</p>
<p>As for Duke and Wash U, that’s also silly considering that Tufts actually accepted LESS students than BOTH of these schools. Those schools have higher acceptance rates only because more individuals applied (and for the record, the above schools I just mentioned also accepted more students than Tufts).</p>
<p>Granted, for Duke they accepted 5 more people than Tufts. But for WashU it was about 700 more students (Indeed, Tufts even accepted less students than Upenn!).</p>
<p>Still, these are all competitive schools. And Tufts is an especially competitive school. The idea that you think you deserved to get in is probably a reason why you were rejected. There was a mom earlier saying her son got into Tufts, Upenn, and Brown. Her son is choosing Tufts. Don’t be so bitter. You got into great schools, so move on and be happy. And don’t be upset that you got rejected from one of the most competitive schools in the nation.</p>
<p>And for the reference on acceptance rates and number of students admitted:</p>
<p>[Admissions</a> Figures on Elon, Harvey Mudd, Brandeis and Nearly 100 Other Colleges - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/04/admissions-figures-04-04/]Admissions”>Admissions Figures on Elon, Harvey Mudd, Brandeis and Nearly 100 Other Colleges - The New York Times)</p>
<p>Because different schools make different decisions.</p>
<p>That’s it. It’s very simple.</p>
<p>You’ll be hard pressed to find any time on these boards that I’ll express anger, but posts like these get me to that place. Whether you intend to or not, posting like that makes you sound entitled and spoiled. An admit letter from one school does not - should not - guarantee an admit letter from another school, and that includes HYPS. Our supplement let’s us pull out different information than what others schools see, and what you experienced is the result of that fact. I’ve said it clearly in other places, and I’ll say it again here: we DO NOT waitlist students because they are “too strong.” </p>
<p>Congratulations on your admittance to some wonderful places; what you’ve posted above seems a queer way of celebrating that.</p>
<p>As Dan said, it is absurd for a school to say x applicant is too strong, let’s waitlist him. Each school tries to build a class and their visions are all different.</p>
<p>Different schools want different people. I was waitlisted at Boston College, but accepted at Notre Dame. That makes less sense than yours.</p>
<p>Some schools want X, others want Y, and applicants can never be sure of which school will favor them more.</p>
<p>I got into Vanderbilt and WashU, but got waitlisted at Case Western, who received an identical application to the other two. Not sure how to explain that one</p>
<p>My older son was waitlisted at Harvey Mudd but accepted to Harvard. And then he turned down Harvard to go to Carnegie Mellon. </p>
<p>I’ve looked at the admissions statistics for Tufts and other colleges, I’ve only seen one which really looks like it regularly turns down top students in favor of ones with slightly lower stats and even there, the numbers are not so great that it couldn’t be explained as a statistical anomaly.</p>
<p>My daughter was admitted to Tufts and UPenn (hasn’t made a decision yet). I think the application process in both cases allowed her personality to shine through, and that set her apart from the thousands of other kids with similar stats (great GPA, SATs, ECs, etc.). She had a fantastic interview with Penn, really hit it off with the interviewer, who said she was going to advocate for her with Penn’s admissions office. She did not have an interview with Tufts, but her supplemental essays were (IMO) very amusing and charming and really showed her personality. Tufts’ essay prompts encouraged her to express herself in a way that other colleges’ essay questions did not. </p>
<p>Based on my daughter’s experience, I would say that GWU is the school with “Tufts Syndrome.” :)</p>
<p>^A high stat student from our school was told by her GC that GWU didn’t accept her because she hadn’t visited and they thought she wasn’t really interested.</p>
<p>Schools looking for students with enthusiasm for the school and who seem like a good fit are bound to make decisions which occasionally accept students with lower stats while rejecting others with higher ones. That doesn’t mean they are practicing yield management at least not in the pejorative sense.</p>
<p>sometimes it really isn’t about an individual, its about the class they are trying to form. College X needed more boys that year, College Y needed musicians. It really is that simple and the reason why our kids apply to multiple schools.</p>
<p>I’m kidding about GWU, sort of. She did visit (from NY, so we had to make an effort to get there) and she interviewed. She actually liked it a lot, more than Georgetown, but got wait-listed by both.</p>
<p>I’ve noticed that whenever a student or parent complains about Tufts Syndrome, it’s never from someone who seems really upset about not being admitted. It’s more that they seem insulted that they were turned down. Which just goes to show that the Tufts adcoms made the right call for those individuals. 
</p>
<p>simpkin, that’s odd about your D and GWU, especially after she showed all that love. Admissions is a strange game.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I got into Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Princeton, Penn M&T and Tufts…</p>
<p>See what anecdotal evidence proves… Nothing.</p>
<p>And my son got into good colleges–without even applying to Tufts. What does that prove? Exactly.</p>
<p>On a serious note, it is too bad that Tufts has gotten this label (libel?) for what is clearly a self-serving causal attribution (“I got rejected because I was too good.”)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>What mathmom said. What my kid lacked in stellar GPA he made up for in test scores and wickedly tough academic program. But it was mainly the essays. Of that, I’m certain. :)</p>
<p>Sounds like Tufts made the right call on this one.</p>