Hi! I am currently a junior. I visited both NU and Tufts, and I fell in love with both schools. I would like to apply, but I am not sure if it’s worth doing given that my GPA is low and my SAT score is pretty good.
WEIGHTED GPA: 3.78
SAT score: 1390 (690 English, 700 Math)
Extracurriculars: Sailing (for 9 years) & Viola/Violin (for 11 years). I also have 65 hours of volunteering as a Youth Choir Assistant at my church.
I am in all honors classes (except one class is ACP - English) - I am also taking a second science class this year - AP Environmental Science
I have my common app essay already written - I showed my English teacher and he absolutely loved it (I wrote about how I fell in love with working out and how this passion changed my perspective on life).
Should I apply ED to Tufts and EA to Northeastern? Thank you!
Go right in ahead. Look for other schools as well. Some likely schools fo EA or with rolling admissions would make good choices.
My son had his first choices ED and EA along with a handful of other early schools. It was nice to be done by year with the process
Make sure you are covering financial constraints in your picks too. You can back out of ED if the finances do not work out. Tufts gives good aid packages but not much if any for merit.
Worth applying–you never know what will happen. You stand a better chance at northeastern than at Tufts. I am also not sure it is wise to write an essay on working out.
I agree with the above. It may be a good essay, but I question whether working out is a topic that’s going to impress ad com at Tufts, a school known for its academic vibe. If you can tie working out to your academic/intellectual growth, that’s different, but make sure you focus on the latter and not the former. Just my opinion of course. But I hang out with academics and know how they think 
Of bigger concern than the common app essay is the 3.78 WGPA. That’s very low for Tufts, and without a hook, probably fatal to OP’s chances, even with an ED boost. The 1390 SAT is also on the low side for Tufts. Honestly OP, unless you have a hook that you haven’t told us about, I think you would be wasting your ED bullet applying to Tufts. Sorry if this comes across as mean, that’s not my intent. Just trying to provide an honest answer to your question.
I will be doing the Pre-Med track
Northeastern has gotten competitive as well-4.0 UW GPA kids with way higher SAT scores are being deferred.
1 more SAT would be advisable but 3.78 weighted without a hook, as mentioned in previous posts will make both schools reaches. And a pre-med track depending on the school in question could be a weeder without adequate preparation.
Apply, but be realistic. Tufts provides middle 50 by component for SAT; Your English SAT is at the 25th percentile for and math is below 25th.
https://admissions.tufts.edu/apply/enrolled-student-profile/
Northeastern provides the composite; your score is (noticeably) below the 25th percentile (middle 50 is 1470-1550]
https://www.northeastern.edu/admissions/
What is your unweighted GPA?
It’s not impossible for an unhooked applicant to be accepted at or even below the 25th percentile, but it’s not very likely either. Make sure you have matches and safeties. I would apply EA to a few other schools too if I were you. I tend to agree with @TheBigChef about wasting your ED bullet - there are some colleges that are much more easier to get in ED than RD. Many people this year seem to have used an ED unsuccessfully on a high reach and then got rejected or waitlisted RD for schools they would likely have had a good chance ED at (judging by threads on CC and some anecdotal evidence from my daughter and her friends). So - assuming you find a lower reach you fall in love with- you should maybe consider more carefully how to use ED.
I think that while applying ED at Tufts would give you the best odds there, you will probably be wasting your ED chances at Tufts.
SAT is a little to low for NU and Tufts. Hopefully your killer essays can compensate.
Falling in love with a campus is not a good way to plan your college path. What about stepping back and re-thinking what sort of college is going to help you achieve your goals?
A significant number of students apply to college thinking pre-med, and only a small percentage of them end up going that route. For you to be one of them you have to get through college with a really high GPA, especially in courses that are (in part) designed to ‘weed out’ students who aren’t going to make it for the long haul.
So let’s say that you are truly, deeply serious about going to med school. Are you ready to do what it will take to be at the top of your Organic Chemistry class at Tufts- where a meaningful number of other OChem students are going for the guaranteed admission path? You have to shine next to these super motivated students.
Because you have all summer to do this, spend some time researching schools where your stats put you in the top 25% of admitted students- places where you can be a star. If they are also places with merit scholarships so much the better- the less debt you incur for undergrad, the better shape you will be in for med school debt. You can fall in love with a lot of campuses.