Ivy, schmivy...

<p>Why do people insist on comparing Tufts to every Ivy League school they can think of?</p>

<p>It's a matter of exceptionally tasty apples and overhyped, overrated oranges. There's no reason to make this comparison! Think about it... Tufts has, from everything I've read, a better IR program, a better Study Abroad program, and hey, maybe even better food than any of the Ivies. And the simple fact that Cornell and Dartmouth are in the same football conference (yes, that's right... it's a football conference!) with Harvard does not make them top-notch schools. They both have their strengths, but to place them in an automatic state of elitism simply because of the Ivies' name recognition is ridiculous. Tufts is one of several (MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, UVA, Georgetown, and Northwestern off the top of my head) schools that are considered better than several Ivies.</p>

<p>Rather than discuss Ivy rejecthood for the next four months, why don't we just look forward to attending one of the nation's best universities?</p>

<p>Thank you, eclinchy. I wholeheartedly support your proposition.</p>

<p>Prestige is worthless.</p>

<p>That being said, I like Brown better than Tufts, so I'm turning Tufts down.</p>

<p>right with you eclinchy!</p>

<p>I think it is because of its location in Boston. Families go to visit Harvard, and then Tufts. So the two become intertwined. They then usually go on to look at Yale and Brown. And there is a pecking order by yield here.</p>

<p>I thought Tufts was a prep school and Swarthmore was a girls school and still think Wellesley and Wesleyan are the same place. But then I grew up in America not the northeast. I reckon if you polled folks west of the Appalachians most of them would tell you the same thing.</p>

<p>Just drop your Ivy envy. Tufts is a good school if you can't get into Illinois or have some serious personality disorder that makes you indifferent to football and basketball :-)</p>

<p>Good luck at Brown, Pete :)</p>

<p>well said eclinchy!
i totally agree, not just in the case of tufts but ALL those amazing schools (which i'd MUCH rather attend than damn harvard) that get blasted for being "ivy reject" schools, or "wannabes"... this makes me so mad!! i don't WANT to go to harvard (sorry i know this isnt the only ivy league but its just a good example)... i would absolutely pick tufts (and other similar schools) over harvard (and other similiar schools). i'm so sick of people still acting like the best of the best go to ivies, and the leftovers go to the other schools... its just obnoxious and shallow.</p>

<p>ok done venting. :)</p>

<p>umm, how do you assess if Tufts is on equal academic standards as cornell, dartmouth, and upenn. I do not think that one stat, ranking, newspaper places Tufts ahead of these schools. I mean on the US News rankings, probably one of the most valuable tools they use to gauge a school's academic strengths is through the peer assessment score. Tufts has a 3.6 out of 5.0 while Cornell and Upenn has a 4.6. However, the other schools you mentioned MIT and Stanford obviously are on equal footing with H, Y, and P. However, Tufts is not in this ball park. BTW, I turned down Tufts for Cornell.</p>

<p>congratulations.</p>

<p>YAY! Well said.</p>

<p>Collegekid: try Princeton Review's "Top Professional Boot Camp Schools," which places Tufts behind only MIT and JHU. In other words, ahead of Penn, Dartmouth, and Cornell.</p>

<p>Cornell engineering is fantastic - but Tufts is significantly better than Cornell hotel, agriculture, or whatever else they have. I know a lot of people who got into Penn and rejected or waitlisted at Tufts. </p>

<p>FYI: There is a rumour that Tufts was asked to join the Ivy League in the 50s but turned it down for money reasons. </p>

<p>CollegeKid- please - enough of the US News worshipping. You throw their stats out there like they are handed down from God. The methodology is just insane. Deans all over the country are polled, and most of them really can't accurately give answers for more than a handful of schools, but answer for schools they know nothing about. Those "peer assessment scores" are most proportional to: strength of grad programme (NOT undergrad, mind you!), size, and athletics (as schools with good athletic teams are more well known - think Duke before and after it's basketball team became great). Schools with better grad programmes tend to be thought of as more prestigous - think of how most people know Harvard but few outside of academia know of Williams. Larger schools have more visibility, which helps the peer assessment, although smaller schools are theoretically better. Finally, the athletics are a minor factor. I had an English teacher in high school who went to Duke. She said that people would say, "Oh, I've heard of that... it's in Texas, right?" That was if they knew of the school! Then the basketball team got great, and all of a sudden, everyone knew of Duke and people were duly impressed. </p>

<p>What the heck does any of that have to do with quality of education?</p>

<p>I am sorry but I do not know anyone who turned down an ivy league school for Tufts. I could be wrong, but no one that I know and I come from an extremely competitive place.</p>

<p>I would turn down Cornell for Tufts.</p>

<p>Cornell doesn't deserve to be an Ivy...</p>

<p>I know plenty of people who decided not to go to ivy league schools, it's highly individualistic in viewpoints. Some people believe that they are the highest levels that one can achieve, and that may be true, but it doesn't necessarily mean that they are the best institutions above all. Again, it relies on the perspective that one comes from.</p>

<p>
[quote]
I know plenty of people who decided not to go to ivy league schools, it's highly individualistic in viewpoints. Some people believe that they are the highest levels that one can achieve, and that may be true, but it doesn't necessarily mean that they are the best institutions above all. Again, it relies on the perspective that one comes from.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>The only Ivy I wanted to attend was Brown. Had I not gotten in there, schools like Tufts, Vassar, and Wesleyan looked a lot more appealing than any other Ivy (at least to me). The college search process is very subjective -- the perfect school is different for every person. Attempts to objectify the process (U.S. News tries futily) will fail for this reason; you cannot objectify something that is inherently subjective.</p>

<p>well, it seems someone is a bitter ivy reject, jk of course, but that is a pretty stupid comment. Tell me why Cornell does't belong as an ivy league and why Tufts should be an ivy league. For any department at Tufts that is top 10, I can name 5 at Cornell that are top 10.</p>

<p>Having gone to Tufts, I met people who turned down Ivys (usually Cornell and Penn) for Tufts.</p>

<p>Of the mutual Brown-Tufts acceptances, Tufts will get about 1/2 and Brown will get about 1/2. It fluctuates from year to year (sometimes 60/40, sometimes 40/60). Tufts gets 1 in 10 mutual Harvard acceptees and 2 in 10 mutual MIT acceptees.</p>

<p>Hmmm...I somehow doubt that. Everyone I know who's at Tufts was denied at all the Ivies they applied to (including a couple who applied early to Brown), and I know quite a few kids there (and who were accepted and chose to go elsewhere). You can't deny that there's an "Ivy League Reject" facebook group at Tufts that has over 25 members...When I visited Tufts people were definitely bitterly joking about how everyone had been rejected by the Ivies, but maybe I just got a weird perspective.</p>

<p>To quote incollege88: "Everyone I know who's at Tufts was denied at all the Ivies they applied to (including a couple who applied early to Brown)"</p>

<p>Watch out for absolute statements...
And now you know me, I turned down Cornell Engineering for Tufts Engineering.</p>

<p>And it seems really strange that you, a superior "Ivy League" student would be even posting in a Tufts forum and putting down another university... it seems like someone in this forum is a weee bit bitter themselves. I'm not naming names though =-)</p>

<p>Well, just to quote some saying I heard somewhere...</p>

<p>"Tufts is everyone's second choice school."</p>

<p>Referring to Ivy applicants</p>