<p>Hi everyone!
Just visited Tufts, and absolutely fell in love. It really has absolutely everything I'm looking for, and it even gave me goosebumps! I was wondering if anyone could comment on the people/social life of Tufts? Academically, I'm not worried about it. Socially is always the hard part. Thanks very much!</p>
<p>I can tell; you wouldn’t make it socially at Tufts. We don’t take kindly to “your kind” 'round these parts. ;)</p>
<p>But for real, I’ve answered this question at length lotsa times previously, like in [this</a> thread here](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/tufts-university/858085-tufts-sentence.html]this”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/tufts-university/858085-tufts-sentence.html) so perusing that might be a decent starting point for such a general question. If that’s not very helpful or you’ve got more questions, and you don’t mind me rattling on for five pages, just post again and I’ll be happy to answer to the best of my ability.</p>
<p>what do you mean “my kind”? hope that was a joke…thanks for the response I guess haha</p>
<p>Yes, it was a joke.</p>
<p>Hi, ccabott,</p>
<p>I can tell you about the kids (including my daughter–accepted ED but deferring enrollment for one year to do a Gap year) I know, with some intimacy, who are currently undergrads and/or who will join the class of 2014 and 15.</p>
<p>Of the two I know of (well) who are currently at Tufts–they are both dedicated students who are very competent athletes (soccer). They are politically liberal, and they work and play hard. They are pretty extroverted kids and are the kind who would get along with most room-mates. They know how to have a good time but are, again, committed students. They have loved Tufts with all that they are and found the student body, majorily, welcoming and helpful.</p>
<p>Of the three, including my daughter, who were accepted to the class of 2014, all made the choice to attend Tufts over acceptances at Stanford and other very fine institutions, citing that they take their politics, seriously (they are liberal, two of them did election protection), and wanted a progressive and politically-engaged campus, with access to a major city. All three already have 2 foreign languages under their belt, and two of them are artistic (paint/draw). All three plan to study abroad during their junior year. The three students are definitely eccletic in their tastes–2 painters who love math/chem, for example, and a beautiful photographer who has won national competitions for poetry. All three students are social–happy to party but also disciplined about their academics. The three eschew substance but don’t judge others for their involvement, from what I have heard and seen. They are tolerant, in other words. All three are what I would describe as Renaissance-minded. My daughter lettered in two sports as well as having been a serious student and devoted artist and pianist. All three of them felt a warmth and intellectualism that they did not find at some of the other top-notch schools to which they were accepted.</p>
<p>The two friends of my daughter’s, in the class behind her, who will be applying ED to the class of 2015 are wonderful. Excellent students–one is an athlete, the other is a gorgeous writer with math-science giftedness–and really nice, friendly. The writer has amazing powers of abstraction and is philosophical and insightful, and the athlete-scholar is smart, not intellectual but very bright, and a doll. Kind and gracious to everyone.</p>
<p>If I were to characterize the seven Tufts students (hopeful and/or accepted), I would say that they are congenial, fun-loving, warm, well-rounded, liberal, smart to very smart, intellectual, actively political, and disciplined. Is this representative of the whole Tufts student body? I cannot tell you that, but I can tell you that all of them felt that in visiting and assessing Tufts, they found like-minded people.</p>
<p>I hope this is helpful. And if it is any further endorsement of Tufts’ undergraduates’ happiness, Tufts has a 95%+ freshmen retention rate.</p>
<p>Good luck. It’s a great school with really interesting, engaged, and warm students, from what I have seen and heard redundantly.</p>
<p>What appealed to me socially about Tufts is that students tended to attend class very frequently and did so because they liked going. </p>
<p>What separated Tufts from my other top choice (UChicago) was that it felt like I wouldn’t have a hard time finding a bunch of guys to go watch a game or talk about sports (something which I really enjoy), and it seemed at UChicago that I would have to go into Greek life in order to do that, which was not appealing to me.</p>