<p>My uncle is one of a handful of top guys at Deutsche Bank. Himself he studied abroad at a place you've never heard of unless you're from there, and we were talking one day about the schools Wall Street recruits most heavily at. He said exactly what Ari said: "It's purely out of habit and tradition." He also said that these "traditional recruit" schools don't always produce the most impressive candidates. He was saying that of the best kids he's had work for him in the past three decades, a majority came from little schools you've never heard of or state schools (and not necessarily Berkeley or UMich). </p>
<p>Of course, this again is purely anecdotal but I thought it was worth sharing.</p>
<p>Your education is what you make of it. And someone who wants to work on Wall St. doesn't have to work for one of the big five firms to have "made it".</p>
<p>Anyway, Tufts -- for those of you not yet familiar with it -- has long emphasized public service and internationalism across its curricula. As a result, Tufts students are heavily represented in the United Nations, diplomacy, foreign service, Peace Corps, NGOs, and other forms of public service. That's where Tufts beats out most other schools. The Tufts graduates who go onto Wall St. type jobs are numerous, for sure, but they're not the majority -- and that's a testament to the Tufts 'active citizenship' mantra and experience.</p>
<p>My experience with banking and investments is that a lot of people are avoiding the big firms to go to boutiques. And why not? More autonomy and probably better conditions. Besides, money is money no matter where you make it.</p>
<p>From above post-
"Anyway, Tufts -- for those of you not yet familiar with it -- has long emphasized public service and internationalism across its curricula. As a result, Tufts students are heavily represented in the United Nations, diplomacy, foreign service, Peace Corps, NGOs, and other forms of public service."</p>
<p>This is definitely what appealed to our S. I recently asked what other schools his friends had considered, and he said most had applied to Tufts early decision. Most high school seniors have a very good idea of what they want in a college. I don't get the impression that jobs at Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan are necessarily what most of them are looking for. Tufts appeals to a wide range of students, but the points touched on by lolabelle are key.</p>
<p>Hungryman, both those Observer articles were pretty interesting, and I'm totally with you on the value of perusing campus publications as a way to get a different (and valuable) sense of a school community. </p>
<p>I'll chime in on what Margot discusses in her Ivy-Envy article and provide a slightly different perspective. I made a post in another thread describing some of the major cultural changes that have taken place at Tufts since I matriculated and graduated from the school. I encourage you to read my post (located</a> here). Remember that Margot and I matriculated at the same time and it sounds like we had fairly similar experiences in some respects during our first two years. But Margot and I were the last class of the previous generation, and today's first-year students aren't having the conversation that our peers did. </p>
<p>Much has changed concerning school pride since Margot and I were first-year students, and one needs to do no more than come to campus and see the number of students sporting school colors, "Tufts", or images of our mascot to understand the differences. I'm tremendously grateful for my experience as an RA in the dorms, since the day to day interactions with first-year students (students like bluirinka, for example) that my job necessitated during my senior year is what provided me with such a clear sense of those changes.</p>
<p>well, if you read tufts literature, the student body has drastically increased in quality in the last 3-4 years. Just three years, the average sat was only a mere 1330! I mean, that means that students that attended just a few years ago remember a completely different Tufts. In addition, the reputation doesn't always change as fast as its selectivity (i.e. Wash U). In the coming years, it shall be interesting what happens. Increasing student selectivity is a major thing to do b/c the prestige of a school largely is derived from its perceived quality. And what better to look at the student body to measure the quality....</p>
<p>Honestly, I wish I could grab some of the people on here and shake them into reality.</p>
<p>There are maybe 2600-3000 universities and colleges in the US, depending on how you count them. On this site, we usually talk about maybe 50 out of that number. Assume for now the lower number of 2600 universities. That means that the lowest ranked, at 50, is in about the top 2% of universities. My alma mater (UCLA) gets bashed on this site for its "low" rank. At 25, it is in the top .05% of universities. </p>
<p>yeah i agree completely. this site is out of control. you could go to pretty much any of the top 200 universities, maybe even more and be fine if you work hard and get a 4.0 or something close to that. its more about how hard you work regardless of where you are. just because the majority of students at a school don't go on to work on wall street or where ever doesn't mean you can't possibly do so from that school. it just means that not as many students want to do that from that school. its about what you put into it in the end.</p>
<p>One of the most financially successful people I've ever met graduated from Cal State Northridge. One of the least successful people I've ever met graduated from Penn. </p>
<p>There must be a pattern here, and I'm going to find it! :rolleyes:</p>
<p>UCLAri: you are so right. A friend of ours is a Princeton grad and runs a small locksmith shop...........Across the street is a Cal State Long Beach grad with a business earning him in the 7-figure range. CC has a very skewed view of the world.</p>
<p>I do think that there is some reasonable expectation that grads of the best schools will be more likely to have great jobs. But the problem with the top schools and their grads is that you always have to wonder, "is it the school, or is it the person?"</p>
<p>You'll have good and bad examples everywhere.</p>
<p>I certainly chose my undergrad in part because of its resources and reputation, but I gave up a few other "higher ranked" schools because they didn't offer me the right environment etc. etc. I can always sit back and ask if I'd have been more successful if I had gone elsewhere, but what's the point? I need to work with what I've got.</p>
<p>I sincerely doubt that the guys on the Forbes list with less-known alma maters give a hoot about their colleagues' degrees. They're too busy kicking butt to care.</p>
<p>I had looked closely at Tufts before deciding on my final list of schools. </p>
<p>Here are my impressions based on campus visits, reading various posts and speaking with current Tufts students (many friends) and recent alums:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Tufts is a much better school academically than it gets credit for in the foolish rankings;</p></li>
<li><p>Students who go there love it for its great academics and the super quality of life (not dissimilar in their feelings to Brown students);</p></li>
<li><p>Tufts still has more of a regional (New England) reputation than a national one, (not dissimilar in this way to Boston College);</p></li>
<li><p>It suffers from its proxmity to Harvard in the Boston/Cambridge area, whose shadow is so large that it nearly blocks out all light;</p></li>
<li><p>It has a self-admitted identity crisis. Tufts is more like a liberal arts college (for undergraduates) and should actually be compared more to some of the larger LACs like Wesleyan, Oberlin, Pomona/Claremont and Williams (though it is conflicted about this). It fails when compared to large multi-versties (e.g. Harvard, Yale, Duke, Chicago and Stanford) with whom it would like to be more positively viewed. And it doesn't have the money or resources yet to compete as effectively as it would like with a range of true peer-like institutions (Brown, Dartmouth, JHU and Rice). It is thus stuck as a kind of 'tweener school", not unlike the excellent University of Rochester. They are neither sufficiently "fish nor fowl.";</p></li>
<li><p>Recent alums, though happy with their Tufts experience, express some real concerns that the school doesn't have the name recognition or cache of either the Ivys or the top LACs and are sometimes frustrated in starting out in professional fields like consulting and investment banking.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>My sense is that Tufts is really at the beginning of a big wave in which they wil be seen increasingly in a more favorable light and grow in popularity.</p>
<p>Though we might have differences on a couple points, I'll comment briefly on number 3 (the second number 3). </p>
<p>I don't think we're conflicted at all or in crisis about that. I like that we're in between, and the majority of my fellow Jumbos will agree with that. My perspective differs from the comment that our faculty and research don't offer the opportunities that schools like those listed offer. Those opportunities exist at Tufts in a huge way for undergraduate students precisely because of the size of the school. I agree that we aren't "fish nor fowl," in that we offer something different culturally and academically because - in large part - of our size, but I'm glad we're "stuck" where we are and would be disappointed if there were to change.</p>
<p>A question for Dan or others-
A variation on balletgirl's point #4:
I know IR is a popular (the most popular?) major. How would you say Tufts fares with job prospects for those not interested in the investment world, but more in government or policy-related fields?</p>
<p>Because Tufts is known for IR at both the grad and undergrad levels, job placement in policy-related fields is quite good. Both due to alumni network and the "name" of the excellent program.</p>
<p>And I agree with Dan, I think most people at Tufts love that the school is neither "fish nor fowl" -- it's right in between a LAC and a research university so you literally get the best of both worlds.</p>
<p>The comparison to University of Rochester is a valid one. Daughter ultimately chose UR, but we tried to interest her in Tufts due to the similarities:</p>
<ol>
<li> Undergraduate colleges about same size.</li>
<li> Both have HUGE medical complexes</li>
<li> Tufts has offsite vet school, UR has Eastman school of music offsite.</li>
<li> SAT range of accepted students, similar.</li>
<li> Both are very highly regarded regionally; less so nationally</li>
</ol>
<p>Wow MADad, I am surprised to read that perspective.
I loved Rochester, and think it's a great school, but where I come from (Westchester County, suburb of NYC), Tufts is MUCH harder to get into. The kids who are very strong applicants at Tufts regard Rochester as almost a safety (or, as the deans at our high school now call them, "likelies," because nothing is safe anymore).</p>