<p>when i started learning more about this univiersty, the more i discovered about tufts, the more i fell in love with the school. ive been hanging around the forums for a while and i just wanted to ask a few questions if any students currently at tufts would like to answer. any help will be appreciated =]</p>
<li><p>How common do students actually visit Boston? Like is it common for students to casually go to Boston during the weekends?</p></li>
<li><p>How much do the professors and counselors care about the students? </p></li>
<li><p>What is the stress rate at Tufts? I saw the PR’s happiest students rankings with Tufts on it, which is pretty comforting. </p></li>
<li><p>Anyone know how generous Tufts’ financial aid is in terms of grants and loans? My family does not earn very much per year so I won’t be able to go to a private school if I don’t get sufficient aid.</p></li>
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<p>btw i’ll be applying as an IR major. thanks again for all the help!</p>
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<li><p>Kids go into Boston quite frequently, mostly on the weekends. However that's not to say its uncommon to go during a weekday if there's a concert/play or something going on. Tonight for example, I'm gonna go downtown on Newbury St and do some shopping with my girlfriend. There is plenty to do on campus in the way of parties/movies but if you're really looking to get beyond that and explore new things there are endless opportunities in Cambridge and greater Boston. One of the main reasons I came to Tufts was its proximity to the city and I haven't been disappointed thus far with my exposure to it.</p></li>
<li><p>I've been surprised how eager my professors have been to meet with their students. I've even had them beg for kids to come to office hours! Even in Intro to IR, which is about 160 kids, the professor makes an effort to memorize everyones name and give them individual feedback about their work. If I see my professors around campus I don't hesitate to say hi and start a brief conversation with them. Very accessible.</p></li>
<li><p>I'm a freshman and the first couple weeks here were absolutely crazy. I'm only taking four classes (and three of them are intro/level one classes) and I felt like I was overwhelmed with the workload. Everyone here is very smart so if you come in with the perception that you're competing with your classmates you're liable to go crazy. You just have to focus on your own work and manage your time, and generally things become a lot easier.</p></li>
<li><p>Tufts doesn't have a particularly large endowment, and only broke a billion within the last couple years. Generally loans are more common than grants. Merit aid is non existant except in the form of a few scholarships funded by alumni. I think they do guarantee to fulfill 100% of your demonstrated need, but they do recalculate "need" using their own criteria. Don't worry about money yet, just get past the application stage and if your accepted deal with your financial package then.</p></li>
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<p>If you are poor, they will give you lots of grants (my friend pays $3k a year for Tufts), but if you are middle class, they'll pile on the loans.</p>
<p>Re: "Tufts doesn't have a particularly large endowment" -- it's still one of the few universities in the billion-dollar club. Less than 30, I believe. So it's doing pretty well for itself ;-)</p>
<p>true, but relative to the universities we like to compete with, our endowment is pretty small, and it only crossed the 1 billion threshold last year.</p>
<p>w/regard to the OP's questions, Tufts professors care quite a bit about the students, and you'll have lots of opportunities to interact with faculty. As for financial aid, Tufts admissions is not need-blind, though the most qualified applicants are considered on a need-blind basis. However, if you get in and are low-income, Tufts is usually pretty good about financial aid.</p>
<p>Your experience with professors will vary. Some make themselves available for office hours but many, especially in the Economics and Philosophy departments won't go out of their way to accomodate you, answer your emails, etc. Often you'll be dealing with TA's in those departments. (I'm an Econ/Philosophy double major by the way)</p>
<p>Political Science might be alright though which is what like 50% of the people here major in. I've had some good experiences with that department.</p>
<p>I'm telling you though most classes are sink or swim and professors might make some effort to help but truthfully whether you do well, fail, or withdraw is of no consequence to them. I can't tell you how many times since I've been at Tufts I've received 10 page essays back with 2, 3, 4 word responses like "Good points" or "Organize More"...Psh, gee thanks for the help. It's really hard to develope as a writer, thinker, economist, etc. when you have to crawl through 6 miles of broken class on the side of a mountain to get feedback from professors about your work.</p>
<p>Professors aren't going to give you many pointers.</p>
<p>I've had excellent experiences with professors. I have about 6 who could write me very personal recommendations for jobs. You definitely have to work to build relationships because they're busy people and sometimes you're just one of many, many students. But professors are usually very open to having you come in to office hours and sometimes just chatting, unrelated to the subject of the course. You just have to lay the foundation for the relationship and they'll appreciate it and return it to you.</p>
<p>My experinence has been almost the opposite. Professors' comments on my essays have, I've felt, been very helpful and helped me to become a better thinker and writer. Also, if you go to office hours and ask them to explain the strengths and weaknesses of your essays and tests, most will gladly do so. This has been true with professors in Political Science, Histrory, Languages, and English. I haven't had a chance to take any philosophy classes, but I seriously doubt I'll be applying to law school, so i don't feel I need to.</p>
<p>I'm sorry if you've had bad luck with professors though.</p>
<p>You must remember that professors are experts in their field, PhDs and recipients of major research fellowships, etc. They are not taught to be teachers (most, anyway). So some have a natural knack for it, some aren't. Most improve with years of experience teaching.</p>
<p>thanks for the response everyone. the first aspect of tufts that attracted my attention was the suburban setting (where i have been living all my life) and the proximity to boston. as alanstewart pointed out to me, students do actually visit the city often which is great because i don't want to be confined to just the suburbs.</p>
<p>it's also nice to hear that there are professors who care about their students because the UC universities (schools i am also applying too since i live in california) possess a reputation of having distant professors. i supposed the campus can't be perfect and completely filled with attentive professors.</p>
<p>btw, how's the school spirit around the campus and how good is tufts' football team? =D</p>
<p>Haha, Tufts isn't an athletic school. I think someone else on this forum said it best: athletics at Tufts is more about being a member of a tight-knit group as an athlete, and as a sideline thing at Tufts for the viewer. I, myself, only go to the Homecoming game and don't really watch because the party on the sidelines is more interesting for me. That being said, I don't think Tufts' athletics are too bad for NESCAC anyway. And this year, so far, the Tufts Daily indicates the Jumbos are on a winning streak. But if athletics is an important aspect of what you want in your college experience, Tufts probably isn't the place. We're all nerds who do intramural sports. ;-)</p>
<p>However, in terms of school spirit, people are pretty much proud to be here (unless you're depressed or want to transfer). Everyone wears their Tufts sweatshirts all over the place. When I was abroad in Paris last year I ran into about five alums in the streets wearing Tufts shirts. Small world!</p>
<p>Hey everyone, I don't really know how to start my own thread (correct terminology?) so I thought I'd just post a question right on here. I am applying to Tufts ED, and my SAT Verbal and Math combined is a 1330. I hold three offices in clubs at school, have played piano for 13 years, and do lots of community service. My college essay (if I do say so myself) is amazing. Is it possible that my essay alone, if proven to be as amazing as I think it is, can improve my chances drastically?</p>
<p>i'm like a registration Nazi so I really research all my professors before I take a class to get the best possible one. I realize that for upper level courses you prob. have less choice because the classes are more specialized, but for me I know that if the teacher is good I'll do well and be captivated, and if not, I'll do poorly. So as a result almost all my professors have been phenomenal.</p>
<p>I've HEARD of dickish/ineffectual professors and done my best to avoid them.</p>