<p>As the parent of a student choosing between Tufts and a LAC, I’m more than a little freaked reading this thread. I am certain that there are students at all schools that don’t feel comfortable where they are, but reading the OP and dteamer is quite sobering. Of course there are many students who are quite happy at Tufts. Can any students/parents weigh in on how prevalent this “out-of-place” feeling is, and whether certain personality types are more prone to this feeling at Tufts? Also, is the academic advising as slipshod as the poster suggests? In short, is it easy to get lost at Tufts?</p>
<p>I’m currently a freshman (actually, I suppose rising sophomore is more accurate now - where does the time go?!) at Tufts, so I can weigh in and give you/your HS senior some advice.</p>
<p>From what I’ve seen, Tufts is exactly what it represents itself to be: a school for quirky intellectuals who work hard to learn/achieve, but at the same time, stop to have some fun along the way. Most kids at Tufts love to have intellectual conversations as well - kids here don’t just learn to get good grades. Most learn because they love to learn.</p>
<p>It’s hard to get lost in the mix. Tufts admissions is very selective in who they choose to accept, especially because a lot of how they accept has to do with “fit”. I can safely say that if your child was accepted, from what the adcom was able to gather based on his/her application, they believe that your child is a good fit - and he probably is! The adcom is rarely wrong :)</p>
<p>That being said, Tufts is easier to get adjusted to if you kid is proactive in engaging with others and into the idea of getting involved with many things. Tufts is full of overachievers 
Even the ones with a full courseload, a range of activities and a resume stuffed with leadership examples wonder if they aren’t doing enough. But like I said, if your kid was accepted… I’m pretty positive he/she’ll fit in just fine.</p>
<p>PS. I’m an RA next year for Miller hall - if your kid enrolls (which I hope he/she does!!) and ends up being placed in Miller, lemme know :D</p>
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<p>I can’t speak to what the OP and dteamer are feeling, but I can tell you that a visit to Tufts should impart something about happiness at/with Tufts. My daughter, upon visiting, described it as having “palpable joy”, so much so that she applied ED. As well, Tufts’ freshmen retention rate is well over 95%, which somehow bespeaks freshmen happiness.</p>
<p>Part of my daughter’s (too exhaustive) investigation of Tufts revealed that students were really happy at Tufts, so happy to have attended, and, to quote 4 seniors, whom she spoke with on campus “we’re gonna be so sad to graduate.” As well, we know a bunch of Tufts graduates who were thrilled with their college experience.</p>
<p>Recently, Tufts hosted an admitted students gathering in a home, in our area, and I can tell you that my sense of the (recent) alums who spoke, all of whom were doing wonderful things (international work, an MBA at Stanford, a medical student at Stanford, etc.), after having spent a few years, pre-graduate school, doing other wonderful things was that the group of alums were out-of-the-box thinkers, very bright, and personable. As well, the admissions people we met in person (after having met other admissions committee members on the Tufts campus) were so cool and thoughtful and funny and insightful. Thus, it told us that such a group would pick a really wonderful group of peers for my daughter.</p>
<p>I know students who transferred from Stanford, CAL, Cornell, MIT, Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr, and Haverford to other schools after Freshmen year–while the schools are excellent, academically, they merely weren’t a fit. </p>
<p>But, overwhelmingly, we hear first-hand tales of how happy students are at Tufts. We hear how nice students are and how collaborative students are regarding working together and helping each other. </p>
<p>And, remember, you are talking about 2 unhappy students out of multiple postings from happy Tufts students,</p>
<p>Good luck with your child’s decision. And, as an aside, I don’t think most LACs are interchangeable with Tufts (save for Wesleyan–politically and demographically). Most of the LACs I know of, and I may really be thinking of the schools in NESCAC (Bowdoin, Williams, Amherst, etc.), are very different than Tufts.</p>
<p>Maybe, encourage your child to arrange an overnight at Tufts before final decisions have to be made?</p>
<p>First, to dteamer—it makes me sad to hear that you are still homesick in the spring of your first year. I doubt, though, that transferring is the solution. I suspect that what has happened is that you fell in with a particular group with whom you’re friendly enough but not really completely in sync with. Perhaps next year, in a new dorm, new classes and perhaps by pursuing new activities (the ones you really care about, where you can find people who share your interests) you will find a group with whom you feel you can be yourself. One of the things that I like most about Tufts is that so many colors and stripes of people are represented there (very different from some of the smaller LACs which can be a little too homogeneous, imo), so unless you’re feeling that Tufts is not the right place for a more specific reason (too big, too small, too far from home, not rah rah enough, etc) I would think the best course of action is to give it another year. I remember from my own college days that many kids weren’t lucky enough to find their perfect niche the first year. I think also that one of the many negative effects of all the pressure of college admissions is that kids think “OK, I got into dream school X so now everything’s going to be perfect” whereas, in fact, college is a HUGE adjustment and very demanding in many ways. Hang in there.</p>
<p>To bkaner—I don’t think that you should be freaked out about some kids expressing unhappiness in college. It is a huge adjustment and I suspect many kids at most schools are unhappy for some period of time—no guarantee against that anywhere. I stand by my assertion, though, that I do think Tufts is, generally, a very happy place. From what I’ve preserved, the kids are very smart but also very easy-going and noncompetitive with one another, and the place is pretty much devoid of ostentation and pretension.</p>
<p>As to your second issue, however (“is it easy to get lost at Tufts?”), I think you may have more valid reason for concern. Tufts is a LAC but I assume you are comparing it to a smaller LAC (for instance, Tufts is at least twice the size of the other NESCAC LACs). I think the degree of personal attention at the smaller LAC (@2000) will definitely be greater than at a school the size of Tufts and I doubt that many people will fall through the cracks at those smaller schools. At the larger schools (and in addition to Tufts, this would include the Ivies and other great school larger universities—e.g., NW, GT, WashU, etc) I think it is somewhat more incumbent upon the student to figure things out on his/her own. On the other hand, the larger school has more to offer in terms of courses and diversity of the student population. Also, in a way, having to figure things out on one’s own is good training for the “real world”, which is looming large at this point. But, it’s a definite trade-off and good arguments can be made on both sides—I think it’s important for you and your S/D to figure our what’s best for him/her.</p>