Victims of the Tufts Syndrome: a lack of demonstrated interest?

Applying to College
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<p>Applying to a whole host of ivies or top schools is fine, when you can see your fit, know what those schools offer you- whether it’s the lab facilities, a research center, a set of brilliant profs in your exact field, etc. What’s wrong is thousands of kids who scattershot it, hoping for the prestige-- and then people who complain that the colleges artificially drive up their number of apps. As if the colleges were reaching down and sucking in your app from the database. All for silly US News or some supposed lift in rep-? It’s your decision to apply and it should be well considered.</p>

<p>In reality, there are too many kids who apply to my employer- and don’t know much about us. They get pegged fast, in the supp.</p>

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<p>Cab,
If you read my entire posting, it said that my son was looking for schools that had strong programs in his proposed major and that was his factor #1 by a wide margin. That included three Ivies and two others at that acceptance level. If it was for trophy hunting, he would have applied to all the Ivys. He eliminated any school that didn’t have a strong program in it. Of course there are differences between schools in location/size etc but in his mind, he’s going for the major and wants to go the best possible school. He’s toured all the schools to which he’s applying and said he could feel comfortable at any one of them ( that’s his personality).I think that is a safer and smarter perspective than having one dream school and potentially having your dream crushed if it doesn’t work out, admission-wise.</p>

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<p>F&M knows nothing about the Long Tail, King Effect, or even 80/20 rule. </p>

<p>It’s the top students who ultimately contribute the most to a school’s academic atmosphere, reputation and ultimately prestige.</p>

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<p>^ Actually, that’s through a narrow lens. That Nobel winner may have the college on his bio- and do little or nothing beyond that for the school. It’s true the wealthiest can give more, but there is huge impact from the 80%, depending on the school and how well organized it’s fundraising is. Schools invest far more time, effort and resources to institutional research than we can begin to tackle on CC. The trigger is happiness while on campus and satisfaction with the educ received. Even Big Shots will turn their back on what they see as subpar or a mismatch.</p>

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<p>Jan-First, kudos on taking the time to actually research and visit all the schools on your son’s list. I did not see anything in your original post about his major at the five reach schools, only in reference to the match schools. I focused on your “the other five are crapshoots” and on the original comment from lvv about “…SOME of them…” (my caps, not his/hers). I agree that applying to 5 reach schools is a safer perspective then having one dream school, and based on the fact that your son feels comfortable with any of them it sounds like he doesn’t really have a “dream school”. I think that it’s a rare kid who cares only about the academics in his major, and not about all of the other things that make up the college experience. </p>

<p>Hunt, congrats on your two kids in (or graduated from?) terrific schools. It sounds like they both applied EA or ED and withdrew their other applications upon acceptance (thank you). I agree that a bright kid can be happy at either Brown or Columbia, despite the differences. My opinion is that, for most kids, applying to a half dozen Ivies or near Ivies (can I create an acronym-IONI?) smells like admissions trophy hunting-akin to “I don’t care where I go to school, as long as it’s in the Ivy League”. I also think this is more parent driven than student driven.</p>

<p>Lookingforward states that too many kids scattershot applications to elite schools, hoping for prestige. I agree with that comment.</p>

<p>My personal perspective is from the opposite end of the spectrum. S1 is currently a college freshman, is happy and doing well (3.5 first semester). He applied to one school EA (non-binding), and four others. He was accepted at four, wait listed at one (expected-it was a reach and not his first choice), and is at his EA school. S2 is currently a HS senior, and I had to pull teeth to just to get him to submit to five schools. He has a dream school, a reach/probable, a probable and two safeties. I would not be surprised to see him accepted at all five, and then it’s just a matter of comparing financial aid packages. He did not apply ED to his dream school since finances are a factor and it is binding. </p>

<p>Let me try to stop hijacking and get back to the original point of the thread and how it relates to all of this. Schools that reject overqualified candidates because they don’t believe that the candidate will actually enroll can be said to suffer from “Tufts syndrome”, and the OP wanted to know if there were other factors aside from demonstrated interest to assess the vulnerability of a school to TS. I don’t think that there are any other flags to determine that, but I do think that, with so many students applying to 8, 10 or more schools that many of those non-reach schools can, and probably should, guage a student’s serious interest as part of the admissions process.</p>

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<p>A few thoughts:</p>

<p>I applied to Tufts in the late '90s. I took the SATs once and got three questions wrong (800M, 750V); I was in the top 3% of my high school class; and I had a slew of varsity letters. (That is better than all of these allegedly wondefully amazing “Tufts Syndrome” rejectees.) Oddly enough, I was not a victim of Tufts Syndrome, probably because it doesn’t actually exist, and didn’t exist even back then. </p>

<p>Tufts has always emphasised extracurricular activities, community invovlement, and real diversity in admissions. The two things that all of these alleged “Tufts Syndrome victims” have in common is (1) they are white kids from the suburbs of Boston, NY, DC, or California; and (2) they don’t show any real commitment to their extracurricular activities. </p>

<p>Tufts takes a lot of students from private high schools; what these people don’t get is that a student in the top 30% of Phillips Andover will beat out someone in the top 10% of a non-magnet public high school. So you can’t look at the bottom quartile of class rank admittees and complain that your class rank is better - those are almost all private school or magnet high school (e.g. Boston Latin, Stuyvusant) kids.</p>

<p>A kid who is the first in her family to go to college and who works during the school year will get a lot more slack on her GPA and SATs than will the child of two lawyers who doesn’t hold a job. A huge proportion of Tufts students do not speak English as their first language, but take the SAT: their scores aren’t going to be compared to those of a native-born person. </p>

<p>Tufts - over 20% ESL, 15% international, 9% first in family to go to college, and students from almost all 50 states.</p>

<p>Likewise, if your only high school extracurricular activity is to be on the yearbook committee, Tufts will reject you, and it’s not because you’re so freakin fabulous that they thought you would go somewhere else. Most of my classmates, and most of the students whom I interview, are very active outside of school. I’m talking about people who have played the cello for eight years, varsity athletes, kids who founded clubs at their high school and worked on those clubs for years. </p>

<p>Rant over.</p>

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<p>Aries-lol-nice rant. Please don’t take offense at the term “Tufts syndrome”. From what I gather, it’s an older phrase. I don’t think anyone here is disparaging the school. </p>

<p>It sounds like your are saying that a lack of extremely strong ECs might be an indicator for a school that could reject otherwise “overqualified” applicants.</p>

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<p>We need a new name for “Tufts Syndrome.” How about “TPPY” Syndrome–“Top Pruning to Protect Yield.”</p>

<p>Or, even better “Pruning the Obviously Overqualified to Protect Yield,” or POOPY Syndrome.</p>

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<p>"It sounds like your are saying that a lack of extremely strong ECs might be an indicator for a school that could reject otherwise “overqualified” applicants. "</p>

<p>Yes, that or the mistaken belief that you can be in the middle 50% and be a “strong” candidate for any elite school. The advice often given out on CC, but not translated over to “Tufts Syndrome” type cases, is to assume that if you’re a kid from the suburbs near where that school is, and your parents went to college but not the one you are applying to, that you absolutely must be in the top quartile of admitted students in order to be remotely competitive. (And that is “competitive,” not “a shoo-in”.) </p>

<p>Colleges could fill up their entire class with 750+ on SAT scores, top of class kids, but it might be a really, really boring place to go. They’ll take a hit on hard numbers to get kids from all fifty states (look at NMS qualifying scores to really understand how big the disparities are), from foreign countries, who are the first in their families to go to college, varsity athletes, professional ballerinas, etc.</p>

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<p>TPPY or POOPY-I like both of them. </p>

<p>To the poster who sent me an IM-thank you. I would reply but I can’t until I have 15 posts. Serves me for being a long time lurker and infrequent poster.</p>

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<p>While I do think some schools use demonstrated interest to manage yields I think “Tufts Syndrome” has always been a way for kids to explain to themselves why they didn’t get into a school ranked lower than others to which they were admitted instead of simply recognizing that the schools to which they were admitted saw something in their application the other didn’t.</p>

<p>I often see applicants commenting that they had stats that placed them in the top half of past admitted classes and were therefor shocked not to be accepted. What they don’t pay attention to is that the same stats might also place them solidly in the group of students rejected from the institution.</p>

<p>If a school has an accepted 50% range of 3.7-3.9 and SATs of 2100-2300 they might have a rejected 50% range of 3.5-3.8 and 2000-2250. That 3.8, 2200 kid might be a solid match for the school but it doesn’t mean they’ll be admitted.</p>

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<p>It is possible and it has happened where students applied to a bunch of schools, were accepted to some that were more selective than those that denied or WLed them. Which could and has led to discussion as to why this happened, with Tuft’s Syndrome being one possibility. Does it ever happen? Yes, it could. A former Admissions director from the F&M out and out admitted to WLing a bunch of top applicants to protect the school’s yield. I doubt he is the only one who ever did this. So, it is always a possibility. But any school doing this in a systematic way will be discovered, especially these days with Naviance and other computer programs that can show cluster points and patterns clearly.</p>

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<p>I love both, but if I only had one vote, it would be for POOPY! Very funny!</p>

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<p>It’s also a rather poor way to manipulate the US News rankings. A college’s acceptance rate only accounts for 1.5% of the ranking. Colleges could more easily change their US News ranking by offering a few more small seminars (7% of the score), limiting a few more classes to 49 students instead of 50 students (2% of the score) or finding more creative ways to increase the number of tiny alumni donations (5% of the score).</p>

<p>[How</a> U.S. News Calculates Its Best Colleges Rankings - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2012/09/11/how-us-news-calculates-its-best-colleges-rankings?page=3]How”>http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2012/09/11/how-us-news-calculates-its-best-colleges-rankings?page=3)</p>

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<p>Good points Sue. Overqualified is in the eye of the beholder.</p>

<p>Cpt, it sounds like you don’t like the idea of WLing an “overqualified” applicant. I stated in an earlier post that non-reach schools should gauge a student’s interest as part of the process. The admissions office should be putting together a well rounded freshman class, just as they are looking for well rounded students. Can WLing otherwise “overqualified” applicants be part of that process?</p>

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<p>Even if a school had rejected applicants who were more desirable under that school’s OWN CRITERIA in favor of less qualified students, I don’t think that this necessarily means that the school was engaging in gamesmanship or was necessarily trying to “protect their yield” for unseemly PR purposes. Couldn’t it simply be prudent management?</p>

<p>Here’s an example. Let’s say that a school historically has a 33% yield and they want a class of 2000 students. So, before the applications come in, they decide that they are going to accept somewhere in the range of 6000 students. </p>

<p>Then the applications come in. Assume that they get 25,000 applications, but 5,000 of those are no-brainer rejections. So they are left with 20,000 qualified applications.</p>

<p>Now assume that the school is for some reason hot – on an upward trajectory – and the applicant pool is better than the school has ever seen. The middle 50% of qualified applicants – the middle 10,000 – is stronger than any applicant pool that the school has previously seen. But the kids in this pool of 10,000, while better than usual, are not signficantly different from the kids who historically have matriculated at the school. Because of this, the school is confident that its past data is applicable to this population. </p>

<p>Now let’s look at the top 5,000 students in the applicant pool. Let’s assume they are off the charts, much better than the kids who typically enroll at the school. The school has very little experience with this population. Almost all the students in this range who have been accepted in the past have declined their offers, but the school has never had anywhere near this number of applicants in this range.</p>

<p>Finally, assume that there are all sorts of institutional needs that have to be met, from oboe players, to sports team participants, to humanities majors, to a cappella group performers, to diversity goals, to gender balance, etc. </p>

<p>Now, let’s say the admissions office has three goals: (1) To make sure you have an entering class of as close to 2000 students as you can get WITHOUT going over, (2) to make sure that the class will meet all of the institutional needs that you are tasked with filling, and (3) to make sure the class is AS STRONG AS OR STRONGER THAN past entering classes.</p>

<p>What would you advise the admissions office to do? Remember, the school has already decided that it needs to accept 6000 students to get a class of 2000. </p>

<p>Would you advise them to accept ALL of the 5000 of the off-the-charts students, and only 1000 of the middle 10,000, and to cross their fingers and hope that their previous experience and data will apply equally to the unknown population? In other words, would you advise them to accept mostly “REACH” students and hope for the best?</p>

<p>Or would advise them to try and shape the class and to meet their institutional needs primarily from the population that historically has matriculated at the school and for which you have scores of data, selecting, say 5000 from the middle 10,000? If you go this route, would you then say, “What the hell, let’s accept all 5000 of the top group; they probably won’t come anyway?,” thereby increasing the number of acceptances from the 6000 you planned on to 10,000, and hoping and praying that the yield numbers work out and that you don’t end up with a class of more than 3000? AND thereby increasing your acceptance rate?</p>

<p>Or would you accept only some portion of the top group – perhaps the kids who give you some reason to believe that they will act similarly to the population you regularly draw from – and increase the number of acceptances slightly but not dramatically over the planned 6000, allowing you to accept more students that are a “high reach” for your school but still allowing you to manage the process based on data and experience? (Keep in mind that this last approach will allow you to meet ALL of your goals and still end up with a STRONGER class than before.)</p>

<p>Wouldn’t this last approach lead to results that have been called the “Tufts Syndrome”?</p>

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<p>To Catia:</p>

<p>I am a Tufts alum from a family that consists of multiple Tufts alums, a Harvard alum that was rejected by Tufts and a Tufts student that was rejected by a “lower ranked” school that yet another family member is an alum of. Although it sounds like a soap opera, nobody has ever complained about yield protection. </p>

<p>The emergence of “the syndrome” you are referring to correlates with the emergence of ranking systems and the associated mentality that college admissions is a “contest to be won” rather than a “match to be made”. </p>

<p>When the “contest to be won” camp hears that an applicant has been rejected from a school that has a lower rank than a school that accepted them, they immediately cry foul, then dig out their “Official College Ranking Rule Book” (published by Ivy University Press) and examine the evidence to try determine which rule has been broken. The rule that this camp seems to come up with most often is the “yield rule” and the school is said to be afflicted with “the syndrome”.</p>

<p>When the “match to be made” camp hears about the same situation, they examine the evidence to try to determine why the attributes of the applicant and school don’t match. The explanations that this camp comes up with tend to vary depending on the depth of knowledge of the school and the applicant and usually the applicant is said to be afflicted with “the syndrome”.</p>

<p>The reasons that “the syndrome” was first associated with Tufts and CC is that:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>The Tufts applicant pool has a very large overlap with the Ivy applicant pool (because of its geographic location and its academic standards).</p></li>
<li><p>The Ivy applicant pool has a large overlap with the CC membership pool.</p></li>
<li><p>The CC membership pool has a large overlap with the “contest to be won camp”.</p></li>
<li><p>The Tufts culture is characterized by fiercely independent, creative thinkers and therefore it chooses to write it’s own rule book.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>The reason that “the syndrome” is now being applied to other applicants/schools is that the “contest to be won” mentality appears to be spreading beyond the Northeast and the Ivy League. This competition may compel some applicants/schools to try to break the rules by “cheating”.</p>

<p>So, to answer the OP’s original question, schools that are more vulnerable to “the syndrome” as the OP seems to be defining it (i.e. yield manipulation) are schools with the “contest to be won” mindset. Since schools with the “match to be made mindset” don’t even perceive themselves to be in a competition, they have no reason to “cheat” by manipulating yields. </p>

<p>Discovering those schools is tough though, especially if you are of the “contest to be won” mindset, since they will probably be the schools you are most attracted to and you will not see the warning signs. They tend to have competitive cultures and an obsession with their ranking.</p>

<p>The best advice I can give you is just try to be yourself and develop a “match to be made” mindset. That way the whole problem goes away. The answer to your question about expressing interest will become obvious and the activities necessary to determine if the school is a good fit will most likely communicate your interest to any school that deems it important.</p>

<p>For the record, admitting a larger percentage of the class via ED is a better way to raise yield than the mechanism you are postulating.</p>

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<p>For an answer from a Tufts admissions officer…</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/tufts-university/448654-question-dan-do-you-ever-reject-applications-because-they-too-qualified.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/tufts-university/448654-question-dan-do-you-ever-reject-applications-because-they-too-qualified.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>To Nottelling,</p>

<p>I was accepted to Tufts when it was just starting to get “hot”. My class ended up with two hundred more students than anticipated and Tufts had to rent a hotel in Harvard Square to house them. I think that the assumption that the yield for a certain stat range remains constant when a school is “hot” is suspect. I would postulate that the yield in all ranges goes up when a school is “hot” and predicting yield in that situation is challenging.
One might use the waitlist to manage the risk, but not base it on stat ranges.</p>

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<p>For those that can’t develop the “match to be made” mindset, yet still want to figure out if a school is manipulating its stats, there is some hope. Some Ivy League researchers were concerned enough about this problem to develop a new ranking methodology designed to discourage yield manipulation. It is based on a concept called “revealed preference” and it was recently published in a prestigious journal:</p>

<p>[A</a> Revealed Preference Ranking of U.S. Colleges and Universities](<a href=“A Revealed Preference Ranking of U.S. Colleges and Universities * | The Quarterly Journal of Economics | Oxford Academic”>A Revealed Preference Ranking of U.S. Colleges and Universities * | The Quarterly Journal of Economics | Oxford Academic)</p>

<p>I also found a paper from the original research (which is much older but you don’t have to pay for it)</p>

<p><a href=“http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/papers/1287.pdf[/url]”>http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/papers/1287.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>A venture funded company recently published their second iteration of a ranking based on this methodology using “crowdsourced” data.</p>

<p>[Parchment</a> Student Choice College Rankings 2013 | Parchment - College admissions predictions.](<a href=“http://www.parchment.com/c/college/college-rankings.php?thisYear=2012&thisCategory=National]Parchment”>Parchment Student Choice College Rankings 2013 | Parchment - College admissions predictions.) </p>

<p>Schools ranked highly are less likely to be engaged in yield manipulation, because the ranking system gives you more points for “beating” higher ranked schools than lower ranked schools. </p>

<p>In head to head competition with Harvard (which is ranked #1) Tufts has the third highest winning percentage as compared to the remaining Ivy League schools. It ranks behind Yale and Penn, but ahead of Brown, Princeton, Cornell and Dartmouth. You can’t accomplish that by rejecting “overqualified” applicants. </p>

<p>Since Tufts rises significantly in this ranking relative to the more easily manipulated US News ranking (from 28 to 14), that pretty much rules out the notion that Tufts is manipulating yield to improve it’s US News rank.</p>

<p>As this thread appears to have already concluded - “Tufts Syndrome” (i.e. the reason why some applicants get accepted to Ivy League schools and rejected by Tufts ) has nothing to do with yield manipulation – it has to do with the fact that other students are better qualified- as measured by what Tufts thinks is most important.</p>