Lots of people I talk to say that they don’t let in truly high achieving kids in order to protect yield… Is that true? It seems like everyone going is amazing but why would this become a reputation if untrue?
Not just at Tufts. It may be hinted in your essay that you are not so much interested at that school. It is not just for students with overly qualified stat, but that is typically the case.
Should the phenomenon in fact be real at some colleges, Tufts may not currently represent a good example for “Tufts Syndrome” admission policies.
Yes, tufts syndrome is real at Tufts. If you look at Naviance for my DD2017’s school, then you will see that no one that has high standardized test scores and a high GPA has gotten accepted in the last five years. Students with lower GPAs and standardized test scores have been excepted.
No college (Tufts or otherwise) is going to explicitly come out and say: “oh sure, we routinely reject highly qualified applicants in order to protect our yield.” So it may not be possible to definitively answer the OP’s question.
However, a number of schools (including Tufts) do acknowledge that they consider “demonstrated interest” as a factor in admissions:
If “demonstrated interest” is a factor in admissions, then it could potentially provide a basis for rejecting a more qualified applicant who seems unlikely to attend, while accepting a less qualified applicant who seems very likely to attend.
The only school which I am 100% confident that uses Tufts syndrome regularly is Tulane.
@Testingearly, I know two kids who have gotten in with 99% SAT scores and decent grades: my two sons, one of whom chose tufts over top 15 schools (the other attended brown). I think tufts really pays attention to essays.
Only in the mindset of this little universe of CC would it make sense for a university to be motivated solely by so called “yield protection.” For one thing, even if one accepts that universities are motivated to a great extent by rankings (which very well might be true), yield makes up only a very small, insignificant component of rankings. The reality is that universities are motivated to keep their highly recruited students happy and engaged and saying wonderful things about them to the outside world and, significantly, to the next generation of recruits. Tulane, for instance, has as its selling points, among others, the distinction of having high rankings of “happiest students,” “most beautiful campus,” “best city,” “highest dedication to community service,” etc. Why would that school, or any other, want to mess that up by admitting people who would rather be elsewhere, when they could limit their admissions as much as possible to students who demonstrate interest and enthusiasm for it? It is worth it to take a small hit on test scores of admittees in order to have happier students who will stay. It would be a real bummer, and bad for rankings to boot, to admit a bunch of people who bring down morale for their fellow students by putting down the school and lamenting where they did not get admitted, and in many cases ultimately transferring out. This is what motivates the Tufts and and Tulanes of this world. “Yield Protection” is not a sufficient motivator and is an invention of the craziness of CC.
My D’s bf went to Tufts, as did the 2 guys who are their other roommates, and a good friend of S17 is currently there. My son’s friend is exceptionally bright and my D’s bf is a brilliant young man. One thing all 4 of these young men have in common is that they are all musically talented as well as bright. D’s bf’s cello playing puts hers to shame and she is good and the first time I heard him play in person, I cried. I only mention this because I have heard that Tufts is a good school for STEM kids who like music. All of these kids love the school as well.
So some think that it is based on essays and fit and others just flat out yield protection?
I think the term originally came into use many years ago, when Tufts was not necessarily considered the very selective and excellent school that it is now generally seen as, and may have been struggling in the shadow of its more highly regarded neighbors. At the time, people treated it as a real thing, but it’s really hard to say if it was any more real than similar trends at other schools. But the “syndrome” got stuck with the Tufts name. Not to be deliberately obtuse, but using the term “high achieving” as the standard is pretty unclear and subjective. The question presumes that such students will automatically find success at Tufts because they have are intelligent and have demonstrated an ability to get good grades and test scores. But it doesn’t mean that the student who is less quantitatively “high achieving” will not also succeed at Tufts, for both those and other reasons. All schools seek variety in their student body – Admissions directors at top schools like Cornell will openly say that fully 75% of their applicants are qualified to succeed at their school, but they won’t admit every leader, genius or squash player. I think every college tries to come up with a good mix of students and does admit legacies, athletes, children of large donors, children of celebrities and Presidents, or URMs and others who may not be as “high achieving,” but bring something else that’s important. Schools determine how they want the composition of their student body to look overall, and I do think Tufts looks closely at whether the student is a good fit for the school, with grades/scores as only part of the overall picture.