Tufts Syndrome? I don’t know when you wrote this, but for Fall 2016, Tufts only admitted 14% of applicants, and the mean SAT scores of accepted students were 727 in critical reading and 738 in math. Tufts is one of the hardest colleges to get in (even harder than a lot of colleges in CC’s best colleges list) in the United States. Tufts Syndrome doesn’t exist at Tufts any more. Stop creating posts cause a bias against a specific school. If you didn’t get into Tufts and got into X, Y, Z school, that shouldn’t be due to you’re “overqualified.” Accepted students at Tufts have one of the highest scores in the nation.
Well, both our Val and Sal had tippy top test scores and grades, along with lots of awards, etc… Both were denied. That anecdotal evidence gives credence to Tufts syndrome. Tufts accepted fewer students than usual from our school this year. Only one, as far as I know, as opposed to the usual three or four. Of course, it is very selective, and who knows why they denied our Val and Sal. But given that one is going to Amherst and the other to MIT, there is no question that both of those students were certainly at the very top of Tufts stats.
The Tufts syndrome can also be described as being ‘quirky’ in the selection process. Along with stats, they are looking for 'something ’ but that something is hard to define or predict. So some gcs say they are quirky as you never get a good read on what they want in their very holistic process
It is unfortunate that this got labeled “Tufts Syndrome” because many, many schools do this, and it doesn’t mean that they are not terrific and very competitive schools. All it means is that they will not offer admission to someone “overqualified” on paper because they suspect that the applicant is using them as a safety, and is likely to get (and is much more likely to accept) an offer of admission from a a higher ranked school. They want to protect their yield, because they know (fair or not) that yield matters in the rankings and in the public’s perception of the school’s desirability. They don’t want to be considered a safety school, and in many ways it makes perfect sense from their perspective.
Tufts apparently does it, but it doesn’t mean that Tufts is not a terrific college. And it just as easily could have been called WUSTL syndrome, because Wash U is even more notorious for doing it than Tufts is. Other schools that are suspected to do it are Johns Hopkins, Boston College, Emory, USC, Carnegie Mellon, Oberlin, Tulane, George Washington, and lots of others.
In fact, for all I know Tufts may no longer be doing it, but they are the school that got stuck with the name. if so, that would be unfortunate.
Clearly the colloquial name for yield protection has not decreased Tufts’ popularity.
I think it’s just common sense that a selective national private school doesn’t want to accept applicants unless they have a reasonable chance of attending.
It’s been called Tufts Syndrome here for years and years.
Well it’s common sense from the yield perspective to make the school look “more selective” on paper.
It’s not common sense if the goal is to get the best students possible.
This seems to be more about “demonstrated interest” than anything else. If a student shows a great deal of interet and really wants to be there, going above and beyond in essays and interviews, why wouldn’t they want to admit the student more than another student for who it is “just another school.” It only makes sense that they take students that really want to be there, vibe with campus culture, and will take advantage of all the opportunities Tufts offers. For some colleges, there might just be something more important than grades and test scores. Go figure
http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg02_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=155 indicates that “level of applicant’s interest” is “considered” at Tufts University.
Perhaps it should really be called “American University Syndrome”, since http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg02_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=475 indicates that “level of applicant’s interest” is “very important” at American University.
“demonstrated interest” is just a fancy catch all for yield protection, legacy, developmental, etc.
If “demonstrated interest” can accurately be judged by the adcoms, you would imagine the yield rate will be same on the accepted ones regardless scores. And you would imagine the yield rate will even be same across schools since each school will only be taking the students who will really come.
But for every school including HYPSM, the yield on the top stat students are always much lower than the yield on bottom scorers. So even if the top stat guy showed “demontrated interest”, the fact that s/he’s likely to have more or better choices will reduce the yield, and every school including HYPSM cares about yield.
Maybe @shawnspencer has something there. Maybe a school like Tufts wants to admit students that really want to go there. Maybe they’re not so interested in the one that really wants Harvard and if not that then Princeton and then if not that then Stanford, etc. Maybe this really high stat student has Tufts as number 10 on his or her list. If Tufts could figure that out some way (I’m not saying it can), then passing on that student for one whose stats aren’t quite that high but really wants Tufts makes sense.
To some that may look like yield protection, but maybe it’s just trying to admit students who will be really happy attending. I like looking at it that way.
High stats students usually have more choices, though they can certainly overshoot.
I don’t know enough about Tufts’ specific programs to say what would indicate to an admissions rep that a student is likely to come, but I can think of reasons for another school - Tulane. A high stats student may be interested specifically in tropical medicine (can’t get that undergrad anywhere else to my knowledge), and may be in the “donut hole” such that their merit aid makes the cost comparable to a state school, or better. If the student has a demonstrated interest in the former, I think Tulane is going to pay attention.
I’m sure Tufts has similar things that are unique to it that might make it a first choice for some high stats students.
I believe Tulane only offers the more general public health for undergrad. The same can be found at URochester, but that’s still pretty limited.
No. D wrote her why Tulane essay on it. http://www.sph.tulane.edu/publichealth/tropmed/programs_degrees_tropmed.cfm
@OHMomof2 But that’s talking about the 5.5 year Master’s program, not an undergrad degree in tropical medicine.
Edit: It probably does have a significantly stronger focus/course offerings on tropical medicine than other public health programs.
Also, the combined degree program itself is a unique Tulane offering.
I quoted the wrong section but yes, the combined degree was what I referred to, thanks. In a similar vein, Emory’s phone offers access to the cdc which is basically on campus.
In my experience, this is “American University syndrome.”
I think if one has stellar stats but didn’t show a clear and genuine interest in Tufts, or similar schools, there is a high chance that he/she may get rejected.
It certainly existed when I applied to Tufts almost fifty years ago. But I had relatives who’d gone there, so the admissions people probably didn’t notice (or care) that I was clinically depressed. They should have known from my high school starts (which were far and away superior to the average applicant’s) that I would have jumped at a chance to go to a better school if I hadn’t been too miserable even to try, and that my attending Tufts was an excuse to wallow in apathy without serious academic consequences. The funny thing is that when I later attended law school I met a snobby Yalie who was endlessly impressed that so many high achieving kids had been rejected by Tufts. Little did he know.
Anyway, this is really an endorsement of the “Tufts Syndrome.” If the admissions people hadn’t been so clueless (or maybe just pitying) they would have told me to get lost and apply to the top ten most prestigious schools I could think of, like all the other brats in my high school class. There’s nothing wrong with an institution preferring emotionally compatible inmates, even if by doing so it sacrifices cachet. People have to live there, after all.