Quick college comparison...

<p>I was just curious, but can any of you guys give me a quick comparison between Swarthmore, Wesleyan, Tufts, and Boston College? I'm posting this on other boards as well, but I want to hear the opinions of people from Tufts.</p>

<p>I think they're all comparable (except for Tufts' location beats them all IMO), except for BC. I think BC's academics are not as good as the other three schools. DOn't get me wrong it's not a bad school, but it, along with BU, is pretty much every Tufts student's safety.</p>

<p>Swarthmore- people say its the liberal arts version of Uchicago or MIT
Wesleyan is comparable to Brown, extremely liberal
Tufts's closest comparison is Harvard, Im guessing (yeah yeah reputation of Harvard rejects, but things have changed, and plus, Harvard rejects alotta very qualified people)
and Boston College, yeah it was my safety, but I liked it and its a great school with an equally good reputation, and publicity (Conde.Rice was last year's graduation speaker)
I've visited all these schools and thier bigger ivy-league comparisons, and they are all top schools. It just depends on your own personal pref, do you want a liberal school, a very academically challenging school, a school with lots of undergrad ressearch opportunities outstanding in IR and premed, or a more athletic but still academically rigorous school</p>

<p>Tufts is actually considered by many to be as liberal as Wesleyan or Brown, what with the constant student uprisings/protests/etc etc against violation of human rights, and every form of liberal cause. You might be surprised to see that once you get here in the fall, Greentea. ;-)</p>

<p>I think Tufts is easily comparable (socially, academically, but not geographically) to Dartmouth, Wesleyan, Brown, and Georgetown.</p>

<p>i really don't think tufts can be compared to harvard at all and i kind of get sick of people doing it: tufts has no college system, fewer grad/professional schools, and less money. The two campuses look very different. Also, Tufts students are at least in my experience a lot more relaxed and down-to-earth than their neighbors at Harvard. </p>

<p>The schools I think Tufts is most comparable to in terms of location, overall academics, and the types of students they attract are Northwestern, Rice, Brown, and maybe Johns Hopkins.</p>

<p>As far as location goes, Boston is way more accessible to Tufts than Philly is to Swarthmore. Swarthmore's definitely out of the way. So if you want to be close to a city...there you go.
I also found Swarthmore people a bit snobby when I was looking at the college, though that could have just been my limited sampling.</p>

<p>wrath is right - lots of people here turned down NW and JHU, and wanted to get into Brown. (There are people who turned down Brown though, too).</p>

<p>These are the reasons I didn't apply to the other schools you're asking about:
1. Swarthmore - I felt it was much too small (for me! other people like that size school) and when my mom and I asked where the library was, someone said "McCage? It's right over there." We thought it was called McCabe, and asked if we had it wrong, and the guy said, "Hahah...it's because you NEVER LEAVE." I'm all for challenging academics, but I wanted more than just classes out of my college experience, I wanted to meet people, sing in choirs, do environmental things, piano, voice, WHATEVER, the point is I wanted to have time to do things outside of classes and Swarthmore is famous for being a "their students never stop studying" school.
2. Wesleyan - during the info session, the guy leading it said something like, "everyone thinks that we're just a bunch of hippie liberals dancing in the woods, but we're not!" and then the tour basically gave me no reason to believe the previous statement isn't true. Pretty much everyone was wearing colored Chuck Taylors, and if they weren't, their hair was green or purple or something. I'm totally okay with alternative/punk scene kids, but diversity was important to me. Also, like Swarthmore, I felt it was too small. Plus, they don't serve breakfast. I don't eat breakfast, but imagine if I had to go somewhere early and wanted to eat in the morning! Not an option! Then again, a girl from my HS went to Wesleyan ten years ago and she's the coolest person I've ever met, works now as a producer at VH1.</p>

<p>And I'll tell you what I mean by 'too small'. On my Haverford tour, the tour guide said: "By your junior year at Haverford, things might start to get a little...claustrophobic. You see the same people, all the time, and you might have drama with them and it gets a little bad...which is why most juniors opt to study abroad!"
Me: (thinking) ....**** gets so bad here that you have to leave the COUNTRY? no, thank you.</p>

<p>I had a graduating class of 143, so I'm no stranger to a close community, but what I like about Tufts' size is that you can know a lot of people on campus and still be content with the knowledge that every day, theoretically, you can meet someone new and cool.</p>

<ol>
<li>BC - In contrast to Wesleyan and Swat, BC felt too big to me. I felt that its academics were a LITTLE bit lacking in the programs I was interested in. Also, homogeneous much? I didn't want to be the only Jewish girl on campus. And I happen to not really care about football, which would probably put me in the minority. The people from my school who went to BC tend to be pretty attractive and had a lot of school spirit in high school.</li>
</ol>

<p>Hope that helped, but again, these were MY feelings - you should def. get out and see them for yourself!</p>

<p>So what schools would you put in the same category as Tufts?</p>

<p>no offense to the tufts ppl, bc u all seem really nice, but i've heard that tufts can be a rich ppl/snobby school. is there any truth to this, or is it just the normal mix of college ppl, mostly good, a few bad?</p>

<p>I think it's a normal mix; and for being a top school, a lot more laidback and easy going than the other top schools. People are competitive with themselves; not necessarily with each other. Which makes for a nice environment.</p>

<p>And I mean, get real. There are snobs and rich kids at every school. Especially top schools. It sucks, but they're not necessarily a majority.</p>

<p>So what schools would you put in the same category as Tufts?</p>

<p>Socially, you mean?</p>

<p>Socially and academically.</p>

<p>I'd say Wash U in St Louis, but that's just from what I've researches, and I havent attended either Wash U or Tufts, but they were my top choices along with Dartmouth</p>

<p>I would say that in addition to WashU, Tufts is very similar academically (and in size) to schools like Northwestern, Emory, JHU, and Georgetown. However, we are by no means as similar to these schools socially. From my experiences with people who attend the other schools (and again- this is just MY opinion), NW has a huge football scene/more school spirit. Emory is an excellent school yet is still known for it's wealthy/materialistic students- I think that Tufts has the same students as far as the wealth yet we are much less ostentatious and the average students are more socially conscious/globally aware. JHU has more of a pre-med feel (one of my friends who went there transferred to Brown because when he said he wanted to be an art major during orientation everyone laughed at him and didn't take him seriously). Another friend who decided between Tufts and JHU said that during JHU's admitted students' open house, his overnight was filled with hiding from upperclassmen who were egging the pre-frosh. Am I the only one who sees how completely idiotic this is? "Let's chuck eggs at the prospective students...that will really convince them to come." </p>

<p>Finally, Georgetown does have the prep reputation...but on another note you should all read the parody about popped collars: <a href="http://www.georgetownheckler.com/collar.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.georgetownheckler.com/collar.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>It's pretty hysterical. So, once again those are just personal views based on several people I know at each school but as others have said everyone's experience is unique and you need to visit for yourself to get the true feel of a school.</p>