Hey I am a current senior who needs to choose by Monday so please spit any reasons you think I should pick one over another!
I’m from a small town in NY, like the outdoors, liberal, mainly undecided but interested in psychology and economics, play viola, don’t really party much, distance is not really an issue but I want a job on the east coast when I graduate!
THANKS
All three are great options, but I think Middlebury sounds the best for you. CMC is known to be a little more conservative leaning, and California doesn’t make as much sense given you know you want to stay on the East coast. Tufts is a great school, but doesn’t compare to Middlebury in terms of access to the outdoors.
Second the choice of Midd. Very outdoorsy, Econ is the biggest major and job placement in boston and nyc is the norm
Midd! Ski, Snowshoe, learn, eat homemade granola. Great opportunity.
Middlebury has the best economics program of the three, plus it has the best opportunities for experiencing the outdoors. Good luck!
It all depends on what you want to prioritize.
Middlebury is in the wilderness of Vermont and almost a three and a half hour drive from Boston
Tufts is adjacent to Boston and a two and a half hour drive to a “Loj” that Tufts owns in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.
For a quick “wilderness fix” at Tufts, there is a 2.500 acre reservation called the Middlesex Fells 2 miles away.
Walden Pond Reservation is 20 min from Tufts.
The Mystic Lakes are 10 min away.
Metrorock Boston is 20 min away
Brooklyn Boulders is 2 and a half miles from Tufts
The Minuteman Bikeway is connected via a bike path to Davis Square a half a mile from Tufts.
The Tufts Mountain Club is one of the largest clubs at Tufts and provides vans to get to the Loj, and there are scheduled trips to various recreation areas including Metrorock which is one of the top climbing gyms in the country.
https://tuftsmountainclub.org/about/
https://tuftsmountainclub.org/loj/
http://www.mass.gov/eea/agencies/dcr/massparks/region-north/middlesex-fells-reservation.html
http://www.friendsofthefells.org/trails/
http://www.fellsbiker.com/information/
https://www.metrorock.com/boston
http://brooklynboulders.com/somerville/
http://minutemanbikeway.org/
For Music, Tufts has one of the top small performance halls in New England and 3,000 of the 5,000 undergrads participate in music programs. Tufts has a partnership with the New England Conservatory and Boston has a thriving classical music scene.
http://as.tufts.edu/music/documents/courseGuideSpring2016.pdf
http://tuftsjournal.tufts.edu/archive/2007/february/features/
For Economics, Tufts is ranked higher than Middlebury (by the only ranking system I know of) and also offers a minor in finance and a major in quantitative economics. The 2013 Nobel Prize winner in economics graduated from Tufts and performed undergrad research in the same area that he won the prize. He compared the teaching at Tufts’ undergrad economics program to the research at UChicago’s graduate program (where he works). Boston is the third largest financial center in the US, so internships are possible even during the school year. Tufts has an active alumni network that sponsors one of the top investing clubs in the country and lots of Wall Street prep activities. The CEO of JP Morgan is a Tufts alum, and a recent grad made Forbes “30 under 30” for co managing a $9B fund at JP Morgan.
https://ideas.repec.org/top/top.usecondept.html
https://www.facebook.com/Tufts-Financial-Group-521743821191249/
For Psychology, Tufts offers a wide range of options including one of the only undergrad clinical psych majors, possibly the only engineering psych major, a bio-psych major, an interdisciplinary major in cognitive and brain sciences, and a child development major. Minors in media studies and entrepreneurial leadership as well as classes in the experimental college can be combined with a psych degree to facilitate employment in advertising and business.
My daughter just graduated from Tufts last spring with a psych major and a media studies minor and some experimental college courses in marketing. She had several internships including during summers and the school year. She is currently living independently in NYC working in digital advertising.
Her high school friend graduated from Middlebury last spring with a psych major and is currently working at an internship in Boston.
http://ase.tufts.edu/psychology/undergraduate/
http://gordon.tufts.edu/programs/entrepreneurial-leadership-program
http://ase.tufts.edu/cms/
http://www.excollege.tufts.edu/courses
@Mastadon “Middlebury is in the wilderness of Vermont” . . . um, not quite. Yes, Middlebury is the quintessential small New England town, but the wilderness? No.
And if you can tell the story of a friends at Middlebury who were less successful than your daughter, I’m going to have to do the same. One of my friends graduated from Middlebury he’s very successful in finance. He owns a large apartment in NYC and large house on the beach in the Hamptons. His best friend graduated from Tufts and works for him.
There are examples of successful people at both schools. Anecdotes don’t tell the whole story.
Middlebury, in terms of location it is nicer for a college student. Tufts students rarely go to Boston. Middlebury you are close to Burlington, much nicer place for students to visit. The other aspects of Middlebury’s location are obvious.
I liked middlebury when I visited with my younger son while he attended the New England young writers’ conference at middlebury bread loaf, but he felt it was too remote for him, never applied (only LAC he applied to in the end was Wesleyan), and is attending tufts. As a sophomore, he’s been to boston quite a bit, particularly because he loves the celtics and he and his friends have gotten tickets discounted for college students. He’s also gone in with his GF to the BMFA and out to eat, but mainly they and his friends go to the movies, comedy clubs, and to restaurants in Davis square and Harvard square bc frankly, that’s where many young ppl (college and post-college) hang out.
I think you’ve got to figure out what’s best for you. My 2 sons were raised just outside of NYC, going in to socialize quite a bit during high school, and they are also big outdoorsmen…serious hikers and bikers. But they love the social outlets of an urban environment while at school (and hit the gym) and on break, they head outdoors.
I was at Middebury yesterday (full disclosure, I’m committed to Tufts) and wouldn’t say it’s a better location for a college student. It’s a good 45 minutes by car from Burlington and my friend who’s a freshman there hasn’t gone once this year. Middlebury is a cute town, but it is SMALL, and definitely in what this city girl would call the “middle of nowhere”.
Given these three choices, I would be strongly inclined to pick Middlebury. For me, the deciding factor (beyond excellence) would be size. You will get lots of personalized faculty attention as an undergraduate at a top LAC. You can always go to Tufts (or other larger universities) for grad school, if you are so inclined.