<p>I keep hearing this, and I have seen it a few times, what does it mean?</p>
<p>bump.......</p>
<p>Getting rejected at a school you're overqualified for. It started when Tufts began rejecting "perfect" applicants because Tufts was their safety. </p>
<p>* Dude, I got Tufsted *</p>
<p>or </p>
<p>*I heard the valedectorian of my school got Tufts Syndromed *</p>
<p>thanks alot, do they still do that?</p>
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thanks alot, do they still do that?
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<p>I think they still do. Some other schools have started doing it as well (Brown comes to mind)</p>
<p>Wow! Thats crazy, I am thinking about transfering to Tufts....glad Iam not a perfect applicant!</p>
<p>Is it usually only the extremely selective schools/ivies that do this?</p>
<p>no, not the absolute top tier schools- they have no illusions that they are a safety</p>
<p>it's usually selective schools that are just below the ivies/ivy equivalents (MIT, Stanford, Caltech, etc)...think around the level of Tufts or Emory (another notorious Ivy backup)...it can also happen with less selective Ivies like Brown or UPenn...basically, the theory applies to any school that fears being a safety to the top tier</p>
<p>I haven't seen it, but Pomona College is said to reject high-end kids too. They got real tired of being everybody's back-up in case Stanford didn't come through.</p>
<p>Another school thats associated with Tufts Syndrome: WashU (Washington Univ. in St. Louis)</p>
<p>For the record, I've heard about a lot of kids who supposedly were rejected from Tufts because they are overqualified... but have never seen one of those supposedly amazing students who had better stats & extracurriculars than I did. Hum... maybe, just maybe, Tufts looks at more than SAT scores. Their application process covers academics (grades, course load, quality of high school, SATs), extracurriculars (honey, if you are one of those people with one extracurricular activity, and you started during your junior year, you're going to get a thin envelope - don't "Tufts Syndrome" me), and "personal qualities," which are things like essays and recommendations. Tufts gets 16,000 applications for 1,200 seats. They could fill their class a few times over with perfect-stat kids - but they choose kids who have interesting backgrounds. Community service is practically a prerequisite to admission. The people who complain about "Tufts Syndrome" are often those who don't have the "other stuff" to get in - they might have good grades & good SATs (good, but, as I've said, they are lower than mine and lower than a heck of a lot of Tufts students), but they got those from sitting at home and studying all the time. That works for some schools. It doesn't work for a school which prides itself on having community-minded, caring, involved, and diverse students.</p>
<p>intheory, i've never heard anyone say that ivies or schools like MIT and Stanford suffer from Tufts syndrome. I think it's pretty preposterous to say that someone could be overqualified for one of those schools.</p>
<p>To answer the OP, some people have been pretty much right, Tufts Syndrome is when a school rejects really stellar applicants because they feel that that kid is simply using them as a safety. It is a strategy to help keep the yield up (the percentage of students admitted who actually enroll) Tufts was notorious for this a while ago (or at least so people say) as many applicants heading towards the Ivies would use Tufts as a safety.</p>
<p>And yeah, I'd agree with other posters that Emory and Wash U have this reputation.</p>
<p>It's really not that big a deal, you just have to fake a lot of interest in the school so they think u actually want to go there.</p>
<p>Caltech certainly doesn't suffer from Tufts syndrome... since we often get the very best (the winner of IPhO and a top IMO gold are my classmates) we would be quite dumb to reject them for fear they wouldn't pick us.</p>
<p>This may be a stupid question, but how do these schools know they are being used as safeties? Is it common on college applications that you have to write down what your safeties, matches, and reaches are? How many of each do you have to write down? Can you have like 5 safeties, 5 matches, and no reaches? Or no safeties, 5 matches, and 5 reaches...etc?</p>
<p>Well, one tip off would be that the essay starts with "I've always dreamed of going to Yale..." :D</p>
<p>Seriously, I don't think it's as big of a deal as people might think. If you're applying to a community college with a 1600, there's probably something fishy going on, but other than that I don't think it's an issue. There's no such thing as a "perfect applicant," as ariesathena said above, they might be looking for a different sort of student that year.</p>
<p>One of my friends got accepted to UCLA, Biola, etc., but rejected from UC Merced. That's ridiculous. For cases like that, in which he would have wasted his four years of education, "Tufts Syndrome" applies. If the admissions committee can tell that, with your soaring goals to cure cancer, you have no business applying there, they will reserve their sports for people who really match the school.</p>
<p>"honey, if you are one of those people with one extracurricular activity, and you started during your junior year, you're going to get a thin envelope - don't "Tufts Syndrome" me), </p>
<p>Were you referring to me with this? Just for the record, I just wanted to know what it meant.</p>
<p>i<em>wanna</em>be_Brown: I agree with you, infact I never said that MIT or Stanford suffer from the Syndrome- I indicated specifically that they were part of the group (ivy/ivy equivalents) that wouldn't, and I said that because another poster asked before if they would</p>
<p>corinnas54, it means that ariesathena is ticked off that people write off rejection from Tufts as being so much beneath them that the adcoms knew they were destined for greater. She just wants everyone to respect her college, and since you're thinking of transferring there, I believe you do.</p>
<p>Her "honey" was directed at the various bookworms of the world who don't realize they live in it. Like me. But I'm OK with that :)</p>