<p>I have been to Tufts and absolutely loved the location, people, and academic rigor. I have not yet been to Case, but from my research I would choose Tufts over Case. My only concern is that Tufts may not be as focused on the sciences (I'm interested in biology/community health). What is your opinion on the popularity and prestige of Tufts sciences compared to Case? Also, I have a 97.4 GPA unweighted with 12 honors and 3 aps, can I get in? (academic wise, am I on track?)</p>
<p>Case Western is a great school. We visited there when our son was looking at colleges.
But…
Tufts has a much better balance between engineering/sciences and other areas of studies, whereas Case is dominated by hardcore engineering/sciences.
Tufts has a more intellectual study body, while Case is little more “nerdy”.
Case seemed to have a more cut-throat student atmosphere, and this impression was reinforced at an Accepted Students reception we attended in Boston. (DS was really turned off by this)
Tufts has a prettier and more cohesive campus. Case is actually the result of merger between two colleges (the Case Institute of Technology and Western Reserve), so the campus has an long stretched out shape, cut in two by a major intersection. It does have a great Italian neighborhood within walking distance on one side, but some areas around the school are pretty sketchy looking. Tufts is in a safer neighborhood, that is much less urban. Case does have some great museums and the symphony right next door though and an arboretum too I think. So it does have some things going for it.
Case - gives merit aid, though Tufts does not. Matters less if you qualify for financial aid.
Tufts - 20 minutes from Boston, which is an awesome college “town”, Case - is in Cleveland. I will say that everyone we met at Case was very nice and welcoming. We couldn’t stop to look at a campus map without a student or professor coming over to offer assistance! And we went into an engineering building hoping to talk to a professor or two and a really nice grad student gave us a long tour of the engineering building and gave me son lots of great advice about college. </p>
<p>My son preferred Tufts over Case in spite of a $20,000 scholarship at Case, partly because of Case’s city environment, but also because Case students seemed more competitive/cut-throat. Even the pre-med applicants in the admission session had an attitiude 
I’m sure you will get a different perspective over on the Case forum. They are both great schools and some students might pick Case because of the merit aid or a broader set of engineering majors. Or a Midwestern student might prefer the location. </p>
<p>I would choose Tufts over Case unless I wanted to major in something like Aerospace Engineering that Tufts doesn’t have. Tufts is excellent for biology and you probably already learned about their community health program [Community</a> Health:Home](<a href=“Homepage | Department of Community Health”>Homepage | Department of Community Health)
and various graduate programs: [Home</a> | Tufts University School of Medicine Public Health and Professional Degree Programs](<a href=“http://publichealth.tufts.edu/]Home”>http://publichealth.tufts.edu/)</p>
<p>Also, consider applying to Case as a safety/match school in case you don’t get into Tufts.
Their acceptance rates are quite a bit higher than Tufts, mostly because they don’t get as many applicants as Tufts. An admissions officer told us Case has trouble recruiting students from the East and West coasts in particular because those students don’t think of Cleveland as a great college location.</p>
<p>I am an upperclassman at Tufts majoring in a liberal arts discipline. I know most of you are going to Tufts either on a pre-med track or an IR-track. Let me be upfront about Tufts. </p>
<p>The Tufts Career Services resources are not great. All the internships that I and others have found and applied to successfully, have all been to our own volition (from personal connections or just applied on our own), Tufts doesn’t really care about your post-BA career and nor does its professors care about your non-academic careers. The point here is that Tufts automatically assumes that your parents own a Fortune 500 company and can hook you up with a job right after you get out. Tufts doesn’t really have a professional school other than the Medical and Dental School in Chinatown and even for these schools, they mainly pride themselves on research, not practice (as far as my Biomed friends have told me). If you want to build up work experience and go to a school with great employment connections—do not go to Tufts! Tufts is a very overpriced school with bad housing and a student body that is fictitiously and mislabeled as liberal (anti-gay free speech incidents, always getting their asses beat by the townies because they look at townies the wrong way at night—believe me, I can truly attest to the latter) because the majority of their student body consists of a silent Republican majority who come from extremely arrogantly wealthy “Old Money” families. These posh limousine liberals are not active in campus community life, but they still exist nonetheless and they are very influential on campus. I know this rich Republican (probably also a trustee) who met Clinton face to face after just “talking to the President of Tufts”. It doesn’t hurt to have a friend like him though haha, he can truly help you get a lot of financial aid money from the Student Services ;).</p>
<p>If you want a school that costs around the same price as Tufts, pick Northeastern University. I did not apply to Northeastern but I wish I had. I visited some friends there over the years and the dorms there are so nice and clean, and the co-opt program seriously makes NU the best non-Ivy school in the eastern seaboard. The co-opt program at NU will give you a leg up above your peers when you apply to jobs and internships after getting your BA degree. </p>
<p>And for those of you hoping to join the Feds doing some type of IR-related work, I have few words of kind advice for you…
- The Fed Govt will almost exclusively favor veterans over 100% academic-types, unless, of course, your parents own a Fortune 500 company and use their money to wield political influence… So unless you plan on getting adopted by rich parents or joining the military and achieving above an officer rank above the O-4 pay grade, the Defense Dept., the State Dept., National Security Agency, CIA, or the Dept of Homeland Security won’t even bat an eyelash at you. I know this before I have applied.
- Languages are important if you want to pursue this line of work. But, again, without veteran status, the national security apparatus just won’t trust you.
- You might have a better time joining the CIA (if you’re not planning on joining the military) if you are a mathematics major.
- The Fed Govt is only so big (and yes it is big), but this is a political arena here. Foreign Policy is one of the most politicized arena of the Fed Govt, not like the CDC or the National Institutes of Health. As a friend of mine on campus always says, unlike state and local governments, foreign policy is only on the federal level, hence the amount of federal FP-esque job openings don’t fluctuate much.
- If you want to join any of the agencies I’ve mentioned in #1 without joining the military first, you should really get a PhD. And you should get one from a school with the “Old Money” name recognition like Harvard or Princeton, just to name two (not limited to only schools in the Ivy League… Stanford, NYU, and UMich will also do). A BA and an MA will not cut it anymore… federal govt. jobs are scarce when it comes to foreign policy.</p>
<p>Tufts, of course!!!</p>
<p>I don’t think I know how to respond to this but I’ll try…
While I do agree it can be tough to get an internship (I didn’t get much help from Tufts, although the one I got last summer I had interviewed for on campus), I’m not sure how much they could do. And all of my friends who graduated last year in engineering (and almost all of them in other fields) are now either employed or in graduate/professional school.
That doesn’t make sense and it’s not true.
Tufts Medical, Dental, and Veterinary schools all perform research but their focus is on producing top-notch doctors, dentists, and veterinarians. I don’t know what you think professional school is - we don’t have a law school or a business school… maybe Fletcher counts? Regardless, this has little impact on the undergraduate experience either way, unless you want to do research at one of these schools (and one of my roommates did get to).
This sentence is absurd. Yes, Tufts is expensive, honestly probably overpriced, but not any more so than any other private school in the Northeast.
As far as housing goes, some of the dorms are lacking but there’s much better housing for upperclassmen than at most schools and even the bad dorms now are mostly all renovated.
Such “free speech incidents” are few and far between, but get a lot of attention because of how liberal the majority of the student body is. I’m not sure how you could possibly get the impression that there’s a Republican majority. Who the hell do you hang out with?
Also, I’m not sure about “getting their asses beat by townies” but it sounds like you did something stupid.
Huh?
The Northeastern co-op program is pretty cool, but I know a few people who chose to take a semester off from Tufts (and other liberal arts schools) to pursue a co-op. And while the co-op program is definitely useful, and does a better job than Tufts at placing students in internships (it probably helps that they’re not all competing for the summer), I don’t think anyone really thinks the school itself is academically more rigorous.</p>
<p>Sorry that you regret going to Tufts, but it sounds like your experiences were vastly different from mine.</p>
<p>hebrewhammer, you beat me to it on posting. I write as someone with 35 years of experience with Tufts. I turned them down for undergrad but many of my high school classmates went there ( none had parents who owned companies) and they are now captains of industry, nationally known surgeons and an ambassador. I went there (Tufts) for grad school, one of the professional schools and got a top notch practical education that has served me and my classmates well…
As for the political climate, I have a few very left of center friends whose children attend Tufts and find the political climate to their liking.
Mine also…</p>
<p>I have no idea why a student like Oasis would not have transferred out to a more hands-on pre-professional, co-op oriented school like Northeastern. Seems like he was very unhappy at Tufts and there is no good reason to spend those important 4 years and all that tuition money on a school that is not the right fit.
I disagreed with his entire assessment of Tufts. Thanks to other posters who took the time to address this more completely…
I hope the OP got his question answered :-)</p>
<p>@Hebrewwhammer, I probably went too far with my generalizations of the Tufts student body (though incoming students should know that my points are still true), lol though I am only making this statement out of benevolence because, well, you did actually agree with many of my points… :)</p>
<p>Either way, from my standpoint as a Tufts upperclassman in the IR field, I think if you want to work in foreign policy or do anything IR-related, Boston is not the place for you. DC is. Fletcher is probably the lowest ranked of all the IR schools and I would say the most successful Fletcher alums don’t even pursue FP jobs, but rather Investment Banking or non-profit jobs.</p>
<p>You would likely know more about the IR field than I would, but my understanding is that Fletcher is still highly respected and is in somewhat high demand. I don’t personally know anyone who went to Fletcher, though, so I can’t comment on what field they go into once they’ve obtained a degree.</p>
<p>I think the only point I agree with you on is that it would be nice if Tufts had an internship placement program the way that Northeastern does, but the reason Northeastern can do that is because they have a co-op program and are placing their students in internships at off-peak times. I think if you are willing to put in a little effort it’s not difficult to find a co-op on your own as companies are much more willing to take interns for longer periods of time, especially if it’s not during the summer when the intern market is totally flooded.</p>
<p>Case is hands down better than Tufts for the sciences. You degree will be much more valuable and you will be much more attractive to grad/medical schools. The university has excellent placements for its graduates!</p>
<p>-123
You appear to be an aspiring engineer at Case, so I am curious about the data source behind your strong opinions. If one does some research into grad programs (which tend to drive a schools reputation within a discipline) one finds the following:</p>
<p>According to Thomson Reuters’ Science Watch, Tufts University School of Medicine’s research impact rates sixth among U.S medical schools for its overall medical research and within the top 5 for specialized research areas such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, urology, cholera, public health & health care science, and pediatrics.[3][4][5][6] </p>
<p>If one is into data-driven international rankings, then there is the Times Higher Education rankings for clinical medicine/health. Tufts is in the top 50, CWR is not listed.</p>
<p>[Top</a> 50 clinical, pre-clinical and health universities](<a href=“http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2010-11/subject-ranking/subject/clinical-pre-clinical-health]Top”>Subject Ranking 2010-11: Clinical, Pre-clinical & Health | Times Higher Education (THE))</p>
<p>If one is into data-driven rankings of Phd programs, then there is an interactive engine available to produce rankings from the latest National Research Council (these are the top engineers and scientists in the country) study. This tool tends to be appealing to those with a technical bent.</p>
<p>If one plays with the microbiology ranking, one finds that the two schools are within statistical error of each other when you manipulate program size. If you rank factoring in women, there is a considerable difference, with Tufts ranked much higher.
[Ranking</a> of Microbiology Graduate Schools — PhDs.org Graduate School Guide](<a href=“http://graduate-school.phds.org/rankings/microbiology/rank/women]Ranking”>http://graduate-school.phds.org/rankings/microbiology/rank/women)</p>
<p>If one plays with the nutrition ranking, the relative rank of the schools does not change based on size or women- and Tufts ranked slightly higher
[Ranking</a> of Microbiology Graduate Schools — PhDs.org Graduate School Guide](<a href=“http://graduate-school.phds.org/rankings/microbiology/rank/women]Ranking”>http://graduate-school.phds.org/rankings/microbiology/rank/women)</p>
<p>Since you made an unbelievably broad statement about the sciences I figured that I would include the rank for the particular narrow branch of science that I am most familiar with computer science (where there are lots of jobs). Here, Tufts is in the top 25 for smaller programs and #1 for women. Not sure where CWR is ranked.</p>
<p>[Ranking</a> of Computer Sciences Graduate Schools — PhDs.org Graduate School Guide](<a href=“http://graduate-school.phds.org/rankings/computer-science/rank/women]Ranking”>http://graduate-school.phds.org/rankings/computer-science/rank/women)</p>
<p>So, in summary, the data I found is inconsistent with your unsubstantiated opinion. </p>
<p>My opinion is that, in the area the OP is interested in, the schools are of equal caliber, but Tufts offers a non-traditional (less cutthroat and competitive, with more women) learning environment that appeals to many people.</p>
<p>If you include the fact that Tufts has an undergrad major in community health (CWR does not) that includes a supervised internship (during the school year) and that Boston is the #1 life sciences cluster in the country: </p>
<p>[Community</a> Health:About Community Health](<a href=“http://ase.tufts.edu/commhealth/about/]Community”>About | Department of Community Health)</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.joneslanglasalle.com/ResearchLevel1/Global_Life%20Sciences%20Cluster%20Report_2011_gb.pdf[/url]”>http://www.joneslanglasalle.com/ResearchLevel1/Global_Life%20Sciences%20Cluster%20Report_2011_gb.pdf</a></p>
<p>Add to this the fact that Boston has all the benefits of being the number one college town in the country, and I think that Tufts would be a better fit for the OP hands down.</p>
<p>OP, the easy answer is to see how your admissions results (and financial aid, if it applies) turn out. If you’re admitted to both Case and Tufts and both are affordable, visit Case before making a final choice. </p>
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<p>Anecdotally, I agree with Mastadon. D1 is a comp sci student at Tufts and yep, it’s exactly that kind of learning environment. She has a strong interest in IR, so Tufts has been a marvelous fit for her, though yes the career services office hasn’t been the most useful resource for internships. On the other hand, there’ve been plenty of other resources for advice (advisors, older students, outside mentors), though nothing like Northeastern’s justly renowned co-op program. </p>
<p>That said, I could understand that some science students would prefer a school which has more of a science vibe to it. That’s your call, OP.</p>
<p>Sorry, I did not proof read my last post. Here is the link for Nutrition. This is probably Tufts’ leading graduate school. It is #1 with the large preference applied (and drops a little with the small preference applied) It is relatively new (by university standards) in that it was created in the '80’s. </p>
<p>[Ranking</a> of Nutrition Graduate Schools — PhDs.org Graduate School Guide](<a href=“http://graduate-school.phds.org/rankings/nutrition/rank/women]Ranking”>http://graduate-school.phds.org/rankings/nutrition/rank/women)</p>
<p>[Ranking</a> of Nutrition Graduate Schools — PhDs.org Graduate School Guide](<a href=“http://graduate-school.phds.org/rankings/nutrition/rank/larger]Ranking”>http://graduate-school.phds.org/rankings/nutrition/rank/larger)</p>
<p>thanks for the insight all. D has been accepted by Case, hope to hear from Tufts soon. She is definitely a non-science type (for now) and wonder about the sci/eng emphasis at Case. Literature says Case has significant arts and sciences… will need to do more digging if, as we hope, she has some big decisions to make soon …</p>
<p>I think for a non-science/engineering student Tufts is by far a better place to go. I think Engineering and sciences are a larger percentage of the student body at Case. However if she didn’t get into Tufts, Case is a good second choice. It is an excellent school that I think is a bit underrated.</p>
<p>one more day…</p>
<p>Has she visited both? If so, and she is non-science, Tufts would be the obvious choice. Good luck! Rumor has it that Tufts acceptance rate for this years has dropped significantly to about 18.7%…</p>