Too many universities reject capable students because they are afraid those kids will not come and lower their yield, which impacts their ranking. Tufts knows that a black kid with 1290 is more likely to accept their offer than a student with much higher stats.
My friend with a 1290 got into Tufts, but I got rejected with my 1400 and 24 on the new SAT w/essay?
Tufts is pretty much a reach for anyone. It has 14.8% acceptance rate and 33 avg ACT this year (basically Cornell 2 years ago) and though the avg SAT this year is surprisingly low, only a 1445 on the new scale, last year on the old scale it was a 1465/1600 (about 2200/2400). Having only a 1400 would put Tufts at a high reach from the start and the avg accepted SAT at BU this year was around 1450 itself (so sorry, the rejection was probably not due to over qualification).
Also, I live in Boston and my school’s naviance record shows that almost everyone with a 1400 applying to Tufts was rejected. Even my friend with a 4.0 UW, 1540, lots of APs and ECs was rejected from Tufts and everywhere better than Tufts and only got into BU and BC as his “best” schools. It is known that Tufts even rejects people with full scores. For minority students, they have hooks and if they also have stories to tell, they will have huge advantages. I know a black kid with a 1300 who got into Penn (Yes, that’s UPenn) while the 36 ACT kid got rejected. Let’s just face it. Admissions are getting more selective everywhere. It’s 2017, but I’m sure at your level, you’ll still have somewhere great to go. 
Admissions continues to become less reliant on quantitative data and more holistic - there’s just too many kids out there with great scores, grades, EC’s from across the world and not enough schools to give them all a match spot. That said, given the number of schools in the country that are below the top-30 versus above, there success stories to be found everywhere - no one is defined by the next four years, so keep the flame burning.
The subject of standardized test scores and whether they have a cultural bias (or even if they measure anything usefull) is a pretty hot topic for debate.
Irrespective of one’s personal position in the debate, it is important to recognize that different colleges hold different positions on the issue and make their admissions decisions accordingly.
At the “standardized test scores have little to no value” end of the spectrum, Bates was the pioneer for the “test optional movement” and they have data to back up their position:
http://www.bates.edu/admission/optional-testing/
http://www.bates.edu/news/2005/10/01/sat-study/
At the “test scores are strong predictors of future success” end of the spectrum, Vanderbilt has produced a study to support their position:
https://news.vanderbilt.edu/2016/06/02/study-confirms-link-between-early-test-scores-and-adult-achievement/
Somewhere in the middle of this spectrum, Tufts has staked out a more nuanced position - that standardized tests have a cultural bias and they measure just one aspect of intelligence. In this world view measurements of the other aspects of intelligence into to factored into the overall intelligence equation. In some ways this can be viewed as just a means of formalizing the notion of “holistic admissions” with less of an emphasis on traditional standardized test scores.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/07/11/tufts
http://blog.rethinkingadmissions.wfu.edu/tag/kaleidoscope-project/
As stated earlier, this is a controversial area with roots in the academic debate around “what is intellligence” and “how does one measure it.” When Tufts published their philosophy/results to the academic community, Havard panned the idea and Stanford said it was interesting.
Everyone is free to draw their own conclusions on the validity of the various theories surrounding intelligence testing and admissions policies, but it is easy to see how a given individual might fare differently in a “Batesian”, “Tuftsian” or “Vanderbiltian” admissions process. It is also easy to see that applying these differing admissions policies would tend to result in differing sets of admissions statistics and differing degrees to which standardized test scores reflect the actual selectivity of the school.
As the white mother of a white child who attends Tufts, I think it’s really unfortunate that minds leap to blame “quotas,” “affirmative action,” or any other number of catchwords that could be seen as rather bigoted, to say the least. I never hear anyone complain that “the legacy with a 1290 got in,” or “the lacrosse player/golfer/swimmer with a 1290 got in.” For some reason these “hooks” are viewed as legitimate, and is it any surprise that for the most part, the beneficiaries of such hooks are generally white? I don’t want my daughter going to a school populated by people who look just like her, and have the same life experience as she, and neither does she. A 1290 is a perfectly legitimate score on the low side, and I bet that Questbridge scholar brings something to Tufts that it doesn’t yet have.
@bjklw2a -
The number of applications for Arts and Sciences and Engineering are up this year relative to last, but the overall acceptance rate and SAT scores this year are down - probably because they now include the numbers from the newly acquired School of the Museum of Fine Arts.
The applicant pool for the Museum School is highly self-selecting (which results in a higher acceptance rate) because applicants have to provide an extensive art portfolio.
The accepted pool is also highly creative and non-conformist (which is typically associated with lower standarized test scores) because they are judged primarily on the originality and artistic merit of their portfolio.
I don’t think anybody would go to an art museum to see an exhibit of perfectly filled in SAT and ACT forms…
Wow, I did not expect this many responses! I am deeply touched by all of your words of encouragement and generosity, as well as all of the various positions and views you have offered me in regards to the rejection and nature of being accepted/rejected by colleges in general. It has certainly broadened my perspective on the whole of the college admission process, and I am glad that I have learned the information that I have from you guys through this forum. I certainly look forward to attending the Honors College at UMass, and I recently got confirmation that I’ll be working for my local hospital in their surgery department as an operating room assistant, so I’m stoked about that. I’ll be sure to keep my head up and make the best of my opportunities at UMass.
In response to jym626, yes, I toured many of the colleges that I applied to and got rejected by, and all of my interviews had very positive responses (my MIT interviewer really admired my Eagle Scout project and the planning that went into it, and my Tufts interviewer was an alumnus of my high school). I knew that a great interview wouldn’t seal my chances of getting into a school, but I knew that it would certainly help.
admission is holistic. It is not only GPA and test score. The fact that you were rejected at multiple schools indicates that something was lacking in your application profile.
@Mastadon Lol Didn’t see the museum school getting added this year. Even though numbers are down, looks like Tufts is expanding and becoming more holistic though, which is a good thing.
I think it’s important to note that if a friend who is an URM gets into a college you didn’t, they didn’t get in instead of you. In all likelihood, they were in a different bucket. I think athletes compete against athletes, kids in the NE compete against other kids in the NE, students who apply for STEM programs compete against other STEM kids, and so on. If my daughter gets rejected from schools she applies to next year, I think that somewhere in our region there will be a kid similar to her in a lot of ways, but who had a little something extra that particular college wanted. And I’m confident my daughter will find her place too.