<p>I'm almost 100 percent positive I'm applying to Tufts, but I was wondering how is there engineering program. It's ranked below rutgers (im in nj) on US NEWS which kind of surprised me and i began to question the qualtiy of the program. Also how is Tufts for giving merit and aid. It's really tough for me to choose a school over rutgers cause its a good school and I could go for free, so I would need a decent amount of money to go to Tufts. If stats have something to do with how much money you get at Tufts:
GPA: 3.77U, 5.67/6 W
Rank: 13/474
SAT 800M 720V 740W
SATII: 800 Math I, 790 Math II, 800 Physics
All the hardest classes, tons of AP's
Varsity Tennis (10-12), Varsity Swimming (11-12), Math Team, some more ECs, bout 240 hours volunteering, some work, etc.</p>
<p>It's need-based only. No merit, as far as I can tell.</p>
<p>No merit money. The reason why the ranking is so low because the graduate department is not famous nor big (thus not getting much grant money). Instead, the education is very focused on undergraduates - my friend who transferred from Johns Hopkins engineering was very happy with the Tufts environment as he felt that the teachers actually try to teach instead of being consumed in their graduate work (exactly! what graduate work?).</p>
<p>
Interesting comment, snuffles. Is your friend still satisfied w/ the Tufts engineering education?</p>
<p>Very. Johns Hopkins produces excellent engineers because they let only the greatest survive. Everyone else either gets a low GPA or switches out of the school.</p>
<p>I loved my engineering education at Tufts. I found that the school has a fantastic reputation in the Boston area (can't say how it stacks up elsewhere, not having worked elsewhere). All of my classmates either went on to have good jobs or to very reputable masters/Ph.D. programmes. I was one of the few/only people who did not research with a prof (I interned with a company); all of those who did research had meaningful, cutting-edge work. </p>
<p>Classes are small. Most of ours were 24, because it was all of us in the major. Electives were about half that size. The professors really, really cared about us. Tufts also has you into engineering right away, so it's not two years of gut courses before you start to do the fun stuff.</p>
<p>Now, I'm not sure what you want out of an engineering education, but I personally don't think you can get much better than Tufts. The rankings, as Snuffles correctly pointed out, are problematic because we have such a small grad school. (In many ways, the schools with high rankings are going to be very, very bad for undergrads, because there simply isn't enough focus on them. We don't compete with grad students for the plum research positions with professors. We get them ourselves, starting pretty early on in our education.) </p>
<p>I loved it, and, if I could go back, would do it all over again.</p>