So Much Love, So Few Spots

<p>BobR-
As it happens, sowmit's SAT scores are almost identical to those you listed for your brother on the thread where you asked which would be the "easiest" Tufts school to get into. Now you are suggesting that sowmit stay off the Tufts threads because his time would be better spent on the threads pertaining to schools for which he has a better chance of admission. The irony is quite amusing.</p>

<p>^ Thank you WCASParent. As you see BobR, the joke is on you. So, I am gonna say I will visit Tufts University's threads as much as I want, whenever I want because no matter </p>

<p>what I loved Tufts, I love Tufts and I will always love Tufts.</p>

<p>Here here, sowmit.
This thread has become somewhat distasteful... I hoping people that actually go to Tufts have more respect for others.</p>

<p>the.pfenix-- I did, do and will always have respect for people. But when you are in a position that people are constantly telling you are nothing but piece of crap, why did you even bothered applying to a school like Tufts, it's obvious that you can't keep it anymore. </p>

<p>But I wasn't the one who started it. BobR made me look little intentionally and I didn't even say anything that bad. But if I hurt someone else's feelings I am sorry. :( I always had, have and will have respect for my fellow CC members as long as they have respect for me.</p>

<p>No, when I said, "here here", I meant "good job".... my fault for getting Shakespearean (I'm a dork.) I should've typed "Here here!" But I've read the thread, I know that you weren't ever rude; in fact, you weren't even rude when you thought I was speaking against you just now. I would much rather go to a school with someone like you than someone who shall remain unnamed... Good luck. And perk up!</p>

<p>Yeah, I just realized that when I started to read Macbeth for my English class. the.pfenix-- I didn't say you were rude. It's just that I am just tired of hearing and thinking that I am gonna get rejected. My dream is gonna be history in just a matter of a click.... click and gone... I can't even think about it anymore.</p>

<p>I would love to go to school with you but the thing as you see I am not gonna get in :( Maybe we will go to Grad school...... haha</p>

<p>
[quote]
I would say about 800 (I doubt that) of them will accept perfect 1, you probably have like 2000 with 2 and 3s. But most will be with 4 or 5s. But keep in mind, Tufts is not looking for students who get perfect 1s. They will probably take 300 (Probably. Hope you DON'T mix it up too) students from those 800 perfect applicants.

[/quote]
I have no idea where you got those completely arbitrary numbers, but I don't understand why they would reject 5/8s of "perfect" applicants in favor of those with lower credentials.

[quote]
They are also looking for students who struggled their way through high school and succeeded. A lot of those students don’t have 700s. They accept students with 2+3+4 and 5s but 2-4s (guessing that they have almost the same quality of essays, good recs, good ecs) have almost the same chance...

[/quote]
I'm honestly not really sure where these 1/2/3/4/5s came from, but my impression is that they mean that these students DO have different chances and DO have different quality essays, recs, etc.

[quote]
In fact I know couple of students who were accepted to Tufts RD with 650, 670, 640 and 680s. Remember the mean is 700. That means 50%. So, there must be +50 and -50 on both side of the acceptance scale.... ...but this year a student from my school with got accepted 3.89 UW gpa and 1810 SAT (NO he is not athlete/URM)

[/quote]
As you state, it's obvious that kids get accepted with scores in the mid to high-600's as the mean (supposedly) is a 700. However, as you also mention, kids with 1800s are the EXCEPTION, not the rule. So while they can obviously get in, they need to show a lot more in other areas of the application to overcome their weak SATs.
Also, as far as your reasoning that it should be just as easy to get in with a score above 700 as below, let me try to use statistics to explain. Simply by statistics, there are more students with scores below 700 than there are with those above. That means, then, that there are probably more students applying to Tufts with scores below 700 than those above. That means that if Tufts is going to accept a certain number of students with scores above 700 and a certain number below (which is obviously not how admissions works, this is just a gross generalization), then those with scores above 700 are more likely to get in as they have less competition.</p>

<p>
[quote]
FYI- Both of my dad’s friends kids are doctors and they both scored less than 1800, were accepted to Harvard Med School and now successful as doctors.

[/quote]
They got less than 1800 because no one who has taken the new SAT is old enough to have graduated med school. The highest they could possibly have scored was 1600.</p>

<p>
[quote]
...most of the people from my district has relatively lower SAT but still my school sends it’s top 15 students to Top schools like Harvard, Brown, Columbia, Tufts, BC, BU, Wpi, Neu, TCU, Williams college every year.

[/quote]
While those are all good schools it is a very wide range. No offense, but I'd be surprised if an even semi-decent high school (that's not incredibly small) was unable to send 15 students to schools within that range.</p>

<p>This thread has descended into an ugly discussion that is unrelated to the OP. For those of you who wish to have what is essentially a discouraging "Chance Me" discussion about a single person's testing, I strongly encourage you to post a new thread. </p>

<p>For those of you who are interested in asking substantive questions about the Tufts admissions process, I welcome your queries.</p>

<p>^ I agree, Dan. This whole thread is freaking me out and depressing me. It's making the process sound like they just throw darts at a wall full of applications. And making it sound like some apps don't even make the wall. Which is in complete opposition to Dan's (OP) original intent. Here's hoping this thread dies...</p>

<p>
[quote]
FYI- Both of my dad’s friends kids are doctors and they both scored less than 1800, were accepted to Harvard Med School and now successful as doctors. Yes it is true that most of the doctors have high SATs but there are also exceptions where doctors have lower SATs and still successful. My cousin who graduated from Tufts last year told me that after you get into college, no one cares what your SAT was. All that matters at that point is you work hard and get good grades in college. I know plenty of people who got lower SATs, FAILED AP classes but still managed to get A-/B in their college courses (even at Harvard) because most of the people from my district has relatively lower SAT but still my school sends it’s top 15 students to Top schools like Harvard, Brown, Columbia, Tufts, BC, BU, Wpi, Neu, TCU, Williams college every year.

[/quote]

The 3 subject SATs(which you need to get an 1800) were introduced only 4 years ago. You're telling me your dad's friend's kids finished high school, finished college, finished Harvard Medical School, finished residency, and are now successful doctors all in 4 years?</p>

<p>Also the MCATs require so much more time and effort study than the SATs. I find it hard to believe that someone with 600 SAT scores could score well enough on the MCATs to get into Harvard Medical School. If you look at Harvard Med's test distribution it's a lot more concentrated at the top than Harvard undergrad - aka there's no more recruited athletes and being URM is a much smaller boost.</p>

<p>^ No, they were actually international. Their dad lived in the US for couple of years under labor visa/ work permit visa. Then brought them here.They both finished their med school somewhere in China and took the SAT when they applied to Harvard in 2005. They had to take only 3 years of med school since they took some of their courses over the summer and I think they graduated the summer of 2007 (I think) and still doing residency at Mass General. But as I heard that doing residency is basically becoming a doctor and they received some medical or research awards (not sure which one it is), I am like 80% sure that they gonna be successful doctor. <strong>Sorry that I wasn't clear enough</strong> I apologize for that.</p>

<p>I even know one of my high school teachers who is going to Harvard Grad school right now, graduated from Umass Amherst and had like 1650 SAT when he applied to college. He never bothered taking that SAT. He had like 3.42 gpa at Amherst.</p>

<p>^ Harvard "Grad" School =/= Harvard Med or Harvard Law. Most "Grad" schools at top universities aren't competitive at all. At the competitive ones, Med, Law, and to a lesser degree business, standardized testing is extremely important.</p>

<p>And if your friends were from China they probably didn't speak English very well, and therefore didn't do very well on 2/3 sections on the SATs. Ask them what their MCAT scores were. (Or whatever equivalent test they had to take to partially transfer their MD) Why were they taking the SATs anyways? I know if you apply to med schools in the US your SATs are meaningless.</p>

<p>Again I digress: Just because you know someone who was was accepted into a top program without great scores doesn't mean that its the norm. I know someone who won the lottery. Does it mean that I will have a "good chance" at winning it tomorrow?</p>

<p>Detail-- I didn't know that actually. That's something new I learned today and I don't know why they even bothered taking the SAT. </p>

<p>But this year I saw a number of students got into BC with low scores. BC and Tufts- both schools are almost the same (academics, number of applicants/ acceptances etc) Just go to BC threads, you will see huge number of them. I know my friend got in with 1640 to BC. He is not minority/URM/athlete. </p>

<p>Lottery- You have millions of people who are playing lottery everyday and only one can win it. But for college admission-only couple thousands people are applying (let's say 20000) and at least 2000 will be accepted. So a students chance is not like 1 out of million, it's 1 out of 20000. So that student might have better chance than the person who won the lottery.</p>

<p>It is not like it doesn't happen at all. It happens, but maybe get unnoticed because the number of those incidents are really really small and most of the people don't bother bragging about it.</p>

<p>BC and Tufts are not the same.</p>

<p>Tufts 75th %: 1500 (CR: 750, M: 750)
BC 75th %: 1430 (CR: 700, M: 730)</p>

<p>Even just by test scores, clearly Tufts is way more competitive.</p>

<p>Anyway, as Dan said, this thread has gotten to be really messy. I don't want to get involved, so I'll just step out now...</p>

<p>Would anybody know when Tufts will be announcing their decisions?</p>

<p>^^ iskander: Tue 3/31 @ 3pm. On-line.</p>

<p>OK.. Dan, You're on. Asked this earlier, but it was in the midst of all the other nastiness. This isn't asking a minimum number, but concerns how admissions looks at ACT vs SAT testing.</p>

<p>How does Tufts convert ACT to SAT? Although the application says they accept either with no preference, do they honestly mean it? Therefore, a good factoid to know would be:What approximate percentage of **accepted[/B}applicants submitted ONLY the ACT? (since until now, submitted even SAT II's would reveal all SAT scores taken to date).</p>

<p>According to Tuft's CDS a 2106 SAT (the average) is equiv to a 31 ACT. But some online (while dated) charts say a 31=2070, while others say a 31=2040... nether of which is 2100+. Granted it's a negligible difference, but the question of whether Tufts has comprised their own conversion and if submitted ACT's without any SAT's (I or II) would be considered not enough testing submitted?</p>

<p>Thank you~</p>

<p>If people who take the ACT tend to come from less represented states, they might be given a bit more leeway with the scores.</p>

<p>Were I a student taking testing today, I would take the ACT over the SAT. Not because of any bias or problem or philosophy of the test, but because I hate waking up early on Saturdays. </p>

<p>So many schools, Tufts included, requires SAT2s with the SATs. Assuming all your SAT2s were taken on the same day, and you only sit once for the SAT, that means TWO lost Saturday mornings. The ACT covers everything, and will only raise you from one Saturday slumber. Now, as an institution Tufts has no preference. As an admissions officer, I have no preference. But as a human being, the attraction of ruining one less Saturday is potent. This is one of those questions that I will continue to need to answer until I leave admissions work because no matter how many times we say it does not matter which test you take, people will still be skeptical. </p>

<p>As for the conversion, we report median scores for the ACT. The mean composite is a smidgen higher that an 31, which likely washes out the difference you described. I don't actually know the answer to some of the more nitty gritty questions you pose. I suppose the answer could reveal some subconsciously hidden bias, but I seriously doubt it.</p>

<p>Dan: That was one of the funniest posts I've read, albeit a serious one. Thanks for always being here during this stressful time.</p>