<p>Why does everyone assume that as legacy you instantly have a very good shot at the Ivy league? I know at least several legacies who were legitimate candidates, including myself, who were waitlisted or rejected (Off the top of my head, I don't know any legacy rejects, so I admit that as a legacy you have a much better shot for the waitlist). Do people mean legacies where there parents donate $$$? Unless there is A LOT of money involved, legacy doesn't make much more than a tiebreaker.</p>
<p>Isn't that a luxury few can boast of?</p>
<p>Nationally, yes. But i have to imagine that an Ivy graduate is statistically more likely to have offspring apply to an Ivy school. There are a lot of parents out there who could be legacies; just among HYP thats approx. 4000 graduates a year, times, lets say, 20 years, thats 80000 parents who could easily have 160000 children. I know thats a lot of very crude guessing, but legacies arent too rare.</p>
<p>my tourguide chose tufts over harvard</p>
<p>harvard sucks...i mean really WHAT is so great about it i've still yet to find out!?</p>
<p>Maybe so. But I myself don't know anyone with an Ivy League parent, realistically speaking, those with legacies are still at higher odds than those who aren't. Its just a privellage which some kids are born with which can supplement thier stats and give them a better chance than a kid with similar stats but no legacy.</p>
<p>No legacy means you got to prove to be exceptional in something or the other, not just excellent or superior.</p>
<p>hah. well i'm going to tufts... and i'm not an ivy league reject. I applied to only one Ivy League (cause I believe the concept of high-reputation Ivy Leagues is foolish anyway), Cornell, and I got in. But hell if I'll go there... my father tells me to go there because its well... Ivy League... but I believe Tufts is much better overall...</p>
<p>just here to argue the point that Tufts is NOT full of ivy league rejects. hah</p>
<p>Don_k, I think that often times it really depends on where you live, where you go to school, etc. Most of my friends' parents were ivy league or Stanford grads...I'd say I know over 25 ivy/stanford legacies just among my friends. And, perhaps naturally, perhaps not, many of my friends will be going to ivy leagues or Stanford next year (though they certainly worked incredibly hard in high school). I did go to a private prep school though...</p>
<p>I think that it's more likely that a kids will CHOOSE an ivy league school (once the acceptances are in) if their parent(s) was an ivy league grad.</p>
<p>I would just have to say all schools other then HYPMS (including the lower Ivys) have a certain degree of HYPMS rejects. Tufts is not that different from any other non-HYPMS school. I think the phrase Ivy League reject is a phrase thats time has passed. HYPMS rejects perhaps (and there will always be exceptions), but no different from any other non-HYPMS school.</p>
<p>ivy league just refers to the athletic conference the schools are in. wouldnt you say that just because a school is not 'ivy league' does not mean it is at the same standards as HYPMS?</p>
<p>mish<em>the</em>fish: "just because a school is not 'ivy league' does not mean it is at the same standards as HYPMS?"</p>
<p>I think HYPMS are in an academic league of their own because they have the combination of the best faculty (rough measure-USnews 4.9 peer assessment) and best students (best SATs). One without the other doesn't quite measure up. For instance, Berkeley has a 4.8 peer assessment but one third of their students have verbal SAT scores under 600. Cal Tech may have the best SATs but their peer assessment is just a notch below (4.7) and limited to tech.</p>
<p>Why aren't Pomona and Middlebury with only 25% of their students scoring below 1390 and 1370, respectively, better than Amherst and Williams where 25% score below 1320-1310? Because Amherst/Williams faculty/teaching peer assessments are 4.7 compared to 4.3/4.2 for Pomona/Middlebury. Also, Amherst/Williams have as good or better SATs at the high end, and their top 10% students are slightly more numerous (personally I believe there are many athletes who make up the sub 1400 scores at Amherst/Williams).</p>
<p>HYPMS are in a league of their own.</p>
<p>Don-K... I'm right there with you. Tufts was my #1 so no Ivy League reject here... Maybe people are starting to recognize Tufts as that type of school itself. Honestly, I wouldnt even want to go to those schools...</p>
<p>Yeah, the Ivy league is a damn sports conference, and not even one which is fun to watch because of thier teams, its coincidence that these top schools are all part of the same league, but that doesn'tmean that not being in the same sports conference makes you a lesser school. Those schools aren't even verygood sport wise, Duke is got in basketball but the others? </p>
<p>So quit with this ivy league junk as they are good school without a doubt but by no way are they to be considered superior to "every" other university which isn'tin the league.</p>
<p>and duke isn't even an Ivy!</p>
<p>stanford is awesome at sports and a superior institution... yet it is also not part of the Ivy League. As said before the Ivy League is just a sports conference... there are many amazing schools outside it...</p>
<p>Whoops, I stand corrected, so I rephrase, the damn ivy league sports conference isn't even fun to watch!</p>
<p>ariesathena
Yay Julia!</p>
<p>Can't resist my usual mantra... there are 16,000+ Harvard rejects every year - and only 1,200 Tufts students... do the math people, you can fill up a Tufts class 13 or 14 times over with Harvard rejects. Those people go somewhere - like Rice and Northwestern and Georgetown and Duke and JHU and gosh, even the small LACs like Amherst or Wellesley or Smith. Gee, we haven't even gotten into the Yale rejects either.</p>
<h2>A fair amount of people also choose Tufts over Ivies, and some people rejected at Tufts and into lower tiers of the Ivies, like Penn and Cornell.</h2>
<p>Um...THey are not necessarily lower ivies..cornell maybe..but penn is technincally (i kno u shundt just go by these) ranked 4th (after harvard princeton and yale) which is higher than columbia, dartmouth, and cornell....so i wouldnt exactly call it a lower ivy... (especially for business <em>wharton</em>)...but tufts hmm...i went there for their weekend thing..and so many people told me they regreted ever coming...</p>
<p>and as sad as it is...many people who were prospective students when I went to visit...admitted to only considering it if their ivy league choices fell through...but Im sure there are many students , as ther are with any campus, that ginuinely love the school, and wouldnt trade it for anything.</p>
<p>When you take out Wharton, it's easier to get into Penn than Tufts.</p>
<p>well then you’re hanging out with a weirdass bunch because I’ve met multiple people who chose Tufts over Cornell, UPenn, and Dartmouth. and nobody talks about being bitter, it’s been 2.5 months and I’ve had 2 short conversations about bitterness, that were dominated by my own ranting. The VAST majority of kids don’t give a **** or did not apply to ivies or chose Tufts over non-HYP ivies.</p>
<p>Perhaps the explanation is that Tufts has changed quite a bit (for the better) in the 5 years since the original post.</p>
<p>Interesting how this thread has been revived recently. I posted/followed this thread five years ago when I was making my college decision. After my undergraduate career and two years working (I graduated in 3 years), I’m positioned better to answer the question. The answer is, No, Tufts is not “full” of Ivy league rejects. Don’t really care what rankings say, admissions rates, rejection rates, or what colleges students at Tufts applied to/rejected from; from my perspective, when I was at Tufts and examining the student body, I did not get the impression that it’s a school for Ivy rejects. </p>
<p>After being in the Boston area for about 5 years, the glamor and prestige of say Harvard (or even MIT, although its not an Ivy) really does dissipate and the schools become more “commonplace.” People in the Boston area do not glorify Harvard students as much as everywhere else in the world; therefore, when you’re at Tufts (or any Boston area college), you rarely ever get the feeling that Harvard (or other Ivies, in this case) is any better than or superior to your undergraduate college of choice.</p>
<p>In making a college selection, you have to examine your own needs and what the college’s "product’ is. As overly emphasized as it is already, all universities are different and dynamic, changing all the time, primarily by the student body that is accepted into it, as well as other factors. Over the past five years, I’d say the Tufts student body has become increasingly stronger in terms of quality of candidates, although I speak from interaction, not numbers.</p>
<p>This being said, I was also accepted into Carnegie Mellon and Cornell; I did not apply to any other Ivies. Therefore, I’m one of many Ivy league rejectors who choose Tufts over an Ivy League.</p>
<p>Hope that’s helpful to the discussion.</p>