<p>Essay for Harvard is entirely voluntary. People have gotten in without submitting one.</p>
<p>An admissions officer from my school, Bowdoin, (I used to be close to one that recently left to go to graduate school) told me that Bowdoin’s adcom will often waitlist kids that they think are Harvard-bound because students Harvard is the #1 school that accepted students reject Bowdoin for. I don’t understand why Tufts is targeted when other schools do it. And also, I think Tufts is individual enough to not care about practicing such frivolity.</p>
<p>Kids turn down schools for a variety of reasons, not necessarily financial. My son’s friend turned down Harvard and Princeton for Oberlin. My son turned down Cornell and Columbia for Tufts. My son did not apply to Harvard but would have certainly had a decent shot. My son simply fell in love with Tufts and is very happy there. It could happen to anybody.</p>
<p>Tufts syndrome doesn’t exist. At my high school they anonymously put up the stats of people who got accepted, waitlisted, or rejected to every school that people have applied to for the past four years. Students with exceptional stats still got into Tufts every single year. The same kids who got into the Ivies also got into Tufts. </p>
<p>Tufts is looking for people who truly fit the community and want to be a part of it. The kids who got accepted to the Ivies and not Tufts probably didn’t show any interest in being a part of the Tufts community and at Tufts, we value our community a lot. </p>
<p>I have friends who turned down Brown, Columbia, Cornell and MIT for Tufts. It’s really not that uncommon.</p>
<p>I’ve always wondered about “Tufts Syndrome” myself, since I’ve seen several highly qualified students waitlisted at Tufts but accepted to schools that were just as or more more prestigious. I just went and checked our high school’s scattergram for Tufts on naviance. The high school is a well-regarded public school which sends numerous students to Ivies and other highly selective colleges every year. It’s very clear on the scattergram that Tufts has waitlisted the most highly qualified students (those with the highest SAT scores/GPAs) while accepting many students with lesser academic qualifications. For comparison, I also checked scattergrams for schools that might be considered peers of Tufts (Wash. U., Georgetown, NYU) and did not see the same trend. In other words, those other schools accepted most or all of the most highly qualified students. </p>
<p>Based on the scattergrams, it makes me wonder if there is some validity to the Tufts Syndrome theory.</p>
<p>Or it means we practice what we preach. Knowing what I must do to fully evaluate an application, it wouldn’t surprise me if we placed a great deal more emphasis on the value of personality and intellect as evinced roughly rough essays and recommendations than other institutions.</p>
<p>I don’t dispute that we deny <em>highly</em> qualified applicants, who possess the necessary credentials to be competitive everywhere. But we do so because we give the qualitative aspects of the application, with the supplement often taking center stage, so much importance.</p>
<p>huh, that’s funny. the tufts scattergram on my naviance doesn’t look like that at all. my washington university in st. louis scattergram is actually the one that looks like they waitlist a lot of really qualified kids.</p>
<p>If the school was concentrating on “fit” you’d expect to see the acceptances, waitlists and rejections distributed pretty much evenly among students on the highly qualified side of the scattergram. For our high school, that’s what you see for Wash U decisions, but most decidedly not for Tufts, where the students at the tippy top of the SAT/GPA range are almost all waitlisted. This difference might say more about the particular college admissions officers responsible for the high school than about college policy in general.</p>
<p>My D’s hs naviance scattergram is exactly what bpd describes vis a vis WashU, whereas almost all the tippy top candidates are accepted to Tufts. Perhaps it’s a geographic difference?</p>
<p>Or a cultural thing at a particular school. I’ve read schools in the past where I start to wonder if one must give up the prospect of an interesting essay for straight As. I suspect that there are some places where getting that many As means following rules so rigid that those students no longer feel comfortable taking the sorts of risks we tend to appreciate in an application.</p>
<p>I think the better answer is that you can’t deduce an entire admissions process based on one high school, or even several. Students from all over the world apply. And even within the context of a high school, more often than not, the majority of students aren’t applying to a particular competitive school. Even if you track things overtime, that doesn’t say much either because admissions criteria may change, the bar could be set higher, or even the high school could have changed. </p>
<p>The biggest issue boils down to a belief that if you have the highest SAT and GPA, you should be accepted over other piers with similar, but lower stats, not wait listed. Unfortunately, that’s not how colleges work, and if they did, you would have entire classes filled with perfect SAT and GPA’s. That’s because once you get into a general range, what matters more is how you stand out: extra-curriculars, background you came from, essays, recommendations, etc. Because honestly, there isn’t much of a difference between a 2300 and a 2250 SAT or even a 2300 and 2200 (or 2150, etc.) SAT. And the same goes for a person with a 4.0 versus 3.8. Both are “good” and an admissions panel would be incredibly naive to just stop there. After all, there is more to an applicant than just a number. </p>
<p>Furthermore, most people apply to Tufts if they believe they have any shot (whether slim or not). What I have gathered is that applicants aren’t compared to other applicants in their school (like, if two people go to the same high school, an admissions panel isn’t comparing between them; rather, they are only looking at the individual). So any pattern in a high school, whether one exists or doesn’t exist, wouldn’t say much.</p>
<p>This is why people’s experiences, naviance, etc. are silly. They ignore these confounding factors and instead, take little evidence and generalize an entire system. This develops into illogical claims which quite frankly, are non-falsifiable.</p>
<p>For example, the students from 4 years ago are very different from the students today. But by comparing them you also assume that applicants and criteria remain constant throughout time. This is clearly not the case as essay prompts, the quality of other applicants, the backgrounds of applicants, etc. are always changing.</p>
<p>So when people try to claim evidence based on trends they see as fact (on both sides), it becomes a fruitless exercise. Worse, people’s assertions are non-falsifiable. That is, because of the generalization, no matter what an individual says, they will not deny it, even in the face of conflicting evidence. That’s because this logic is deductive (going from a small sample and generalizing an entire process). It’s like saying all swans are white because you saw a group of white swans. But if you have one black swan, that whole claim falls apart. The idea of falsifiability is best demonstrated by Karl Popper.</p>
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<p>Or maybe just a difference depending on the high school’s past record in who ends up matriculating. Speculating here, but if the highest GPA/SAT students from a particular high school end up not going to a certain college year after year, I’d expect the adcoms to pick up on that. lacey, your comment about “This difference might say more about the particular college admissions officers responsible for the high school than about college policy in general.” might apply here.</p>
<p>If it makes you feel better Dan: I just read the application of someone from my old high school with a ridiculously high GPA and the most insanely awesome application I have seen in quite some time. But I wonder if your theory might be correct…sounds like a project for a professor who studies education and a summer scholar :)</p>
<p>Here’s a question - how would any school, Tufts or any other, even know what other school an applicant was looking at? How could they assume that the applicant was applying to Ivies, and that they would go there? I’m hoping that what Dan says is true because my S applied to some ivies and to other top tier schools, including Tufts, and I would hate for him to be rejected just because they think he’ll go somewhere else.</p>
<p>Hi ya Megan! :)</p>
<p>My S1 was one of those kids with an over-the-top GPA and could have gone to any top tier college, and chose top tier Tufts, applied ED and is now a happy freshman there!</p>
<p>He looked at many schools, but felt the most fit and comfort at Tufts. Applied and never looked back. Very happy with his decision. For him it was very black & white…Tufts professors, classes, campus, all around feeling he got was way above any other top school, so for him it was an easy decision.</p>
<p>He knew he was going to apply ED, so he put his heart & soul into those essays and made it easier for Tufts to pick him too. I’m not sure what would have happened if we were faced with several choices! Glad this one stood out from the crowd.</p>
<p>I am fascinated by this thread. I don’t know if I buy this syndrome theory. My son loves Tufts and has a long shot at getting admitted with his stats but we hope it helps that he has clear passion for the school. He spent many hours on the essays and enjoyed expressing who he is, what he thinks. The regional rep (Matt A.) has visited his school and was also the presenter at the Tufts campus info session (by coincidence) and provided great perspective on what Tufts looks at/for/in students. If one applicant shows enormous interest and effort, shouldn’t that count towards the evaluation? It can’t be all numbers, otherwise some interesting and diverse minds would not add flavor to the class, and students who really fit into the Tufts culture (and want to be a part) would not be considered. I liked Dan’s response and have hope/faith that my son’s application will be reviewed with the same interest and care that he put into it. I’m keeping my fingers crossed…</p>
<p>Tufts syndrome no longer exists at Tufts. Top students applied from my school early and the ones that didn’t get in regular either showed no real interest or weren’t strong students. My SATs were extremely high, grades solid at a really top private and I was accepted ED1. People with high stats overestimate their uniqueness.</p>