<p>My daughter is deciding between Tufts and Penn. She is interested in Molecular Biology but also wants to sing in an a capella group, go abroad junior year and do ceramics/fine art.
While Penn offers the distinction of the Ivy League and a larger school, she enjoyed her visit to Tufts much more than her visit to Penn. The Tufts students seemed happy, accessible and a bit quirkier (more expressive) than those at Penn. The student panels at Penn were very serious. She comes from a small private school in Boston and has her own quirky personality. Can anyone offer advice on this quandary?</p>
<p>Perhaps it’s my bias talking, but if she likes one school “much more” than the other, that seems like quite a signal.</p>
<p>I’m interested to see where the poster’s daughter ended up going to. I’m facing the same decision regarding the school I’m going to apply to early decision–every day I find out something new about each of the schools, and, consequently, my top choice shifts almost every day. I’m probably not going to apply early to either (or any) school, even though that will probably completely jeopardize my chances at Penn. </p>
<p>It’s not that I enjoyed either visit more (actually. I lied. I enjoyed visiting Tufts more because it was 90 degrees in the middle of summer, much better weather to walk around campus than 15 degrees with 2 feet of snow when I visited Penn), but each school has their own distinctive appeal to me. Aside from talking to actual students–simply because I don’t know anyone at either school–I’ve done a lot of research, from visits to scouring the webpage to searching the network on Facebook and looking at peoples pictures to see which student bodies I would fit in more. And I’m still really undecided. T.T</p>
<p>In my opinion, based on whom I know attending both Penn and Tufts, I would say that Penn attracts a much more pre-professional kind of kid–law, medicine, MBA. Tufts’ students seem to be more iconoclastic and out-of-the box thinkers. I would think that a quirky smart kid would have an easier time finding his/her people at Tufts. </p>
<p>I also think that the significant number of Tufts pre-froshes doing a Gap year, again, says something about who is electing to attend Tufts. I think of my own kid, accepted ED for Tufts, interested in medical school, about to start her Gap year on two different continents, a fairly serious pianist and painter, and avidly trying to win the New Yorker cartoon caption contest.</p>