<p>C'mon, you read the title now give your opinion. What do you think is the best thing about Tufts? ;)</p>
<p>The prestige.</p>
<p>Sorry, I don't really know much about Tufts except that it's a great school, which is why I applied.</p>
<p>The fact that they got their mascot from a Barnum & Bailey elephant that dropped dead on campus. Maybe thats why their sports are not so hot. Oh well. Goooo jumbos!</p>
<p>Jumbo didn't drop dead on campus (and barnum hadn't merged with bailey yet, but i'll let that one slide)! Barnum was a very wealthy proponent of the unitarian church, so he endowed the university with a great deal of money and a natural history building that held Jumbo's taxadermied body after the world famous elephant was hit by a crossing train in the act of saving Tom Thumb, a younger circus elephant. In the seventies, Barnum Hall nearly burned down, and Jumbo was left for ashes. A faculty member scooped up the remains in a peanut butter jar, which still holds jumbo to this day. Is that why there isn't very much sports spirit? I'd disagree...passing around the peanut butter jar before playoff games and putting pennies in Jumbo's trunk are probably the only things keeping us from being entirely spiritless. But you are right about one thing. The Jumbo Saga is absolutely one of the most appealing things about tufts. I'd hate to be at a school without tradition, so i'll take Jumbo any day.</p>
<p>i think of tufts is a tweener school. somewhere between an ivy and an NYU or BC type. Call it a "second tear" school if you want but i think tweener is more complimentary. its not like full fledged academia, kids know how to have fun. but at the same time it has a fantastic record for graduate school admissions and their degrees are highly valued. so it tries to be the best of everything and is somewhat of a compromise between two college worlds....or something like that</p>
<p>I've never thrown pennies in the trunk. I'm paranoid that the weight from those coins one day will snap the clay.</p>
<p>Hey I never said the spirit wasn't great, I said the sports themselves werent so great, and that is absolutely true. As for the jumbo story, I'm just relying on what the student helper person told me when i visited...</p>