<p>The Newsweek ranking is utter crap, I'm afraid. Tufts is every bit as good as WashU in academics and reputation. Frankly speaking, comparing the two schools' name recognition is like splitting hairs; neither of the two have achieved the level of high profile schools like HYPS, but the two are equally well-regarded and respected among people in the know, and anyone who tells you otherwise is simply basing their opinion on rankings that have little value after you've passed the college admissions process. </p>
<p>Recognition should not be a deciding factor when choosing between these two schools.</p>
<p>MANY thanks to whomever decided this discussion because both are on my list. However, like others have said, Tufts gets the edge for me because they are more focused on study abroad and international relations, they even have a language requirement. I also think location plays a HUGE factor in choosing between the two. As far as notoriety goes, when I told someoen I was applying to Wash U and Tufts, they prided me on Wash U but laughed when I mentioned Tufts.</p>
<p>Well I have officially visited both now...WashU's campus was much prettier and centralized than Tufts IMO (not to say that Tufts was ugly, not at all, but rather generic, while WashU was very castle like). WashU is right in the middle of St. Louis and Tufts is in Medford....the area directly around WashU is more city like then Medford but Tufts is right outside Boston, so that makes it tough to decide which is better. Academically both seemed great and from what I could tell the people seemed very similar (very nice and helpful). Visiting did not really help me much in deciding, does anybody else have an opinion on this issue?</p>
<p>Yeah I realize that, and thats my problem. I really would like to apply early decision to one of them, but I am not sure which one....(and don't give me the "you should not apply ED if you can not decide between two schools" b/c I feel that people can "love" two schools, and be happy at two schools)</p>
<p>Funny this thread comes up, because WashU and Tufts were interchangeable on my college list. I ended up going with Tufts, but only because Boston seemed cooler than St. Louis and I preferred staying on the East Coast.</p>
<p>From the sampling of students I know at both schools, I would say the strength of the student bodies are identical. Both WashU and Tufts are a arguably a "notch below" the Ivies, and what a "notch" means to you is entirely debatable, though I think you can get the same experiences and opportunities there that you can at an Ivy.</p>
<p>Another thing: most people have a really, really hard time remembering anything other than a brand name. For jeans, it's Lee or Calvin Klein (forget about Diesel or Lucky or Seven for All Mankind). Colleges are not much different. Harvard, Yale, state school. I would bet good money that most people don't even know Brown or Cornell, and are convinced that any "institute of technology" is a souped-up junior college.</p>
<p>unalove: I am sure people that matter know the schools (recruiters, ect)
brand_182: "WashU gives a lot of credit to ED applicants" where do you get that if you do not have stats?</p>
<p>Trust me, they do. This comes from various sources - students, admissions officers, admissions books, etc. WashU really likes to see students who really want to go to their school and thus greatly values ED applicants.</p>
<p>To my knowledge, WashU doesn't post a Common Data Set or anything. If you really wanted to know the ED numbers, you could probably email admissions. They're really nice.</p>
<p>abank: I agree that recruiters know the school. If they don't, they're not doing their jobs well. What I'm really thinking about is the general population and their knowledge.</p>
<p>I once upon a time thought that WashU and Tufts ED were shoo-in.... as schools that are often considered second choices to ivies, they must be flattered to have a group of students who have them down as a first choice.</p>
<p>oh, believe me, I am far from thinking that either are a shoo-in, plus I think in about 30 years schools that are "just below the ivies" now are going to move way up in prestige and reputation as the generation who has grown up with tougher admissions standards will be the parents</p>
<p>They do, but at a lower rate than the Ivies and a few others (Duke, Northwestern Stanford, MIT, Williams, etc). Recruiting is an area where WashU hasn't risen nearly as fast as its selectivity.</p>
<p>It depends on what kind of recruiters you're referring to, but neither of the two are core schools for consulting firms (which is what a lot of posters on CC seem to mean when they say "recruiters").</p>
<p>Like slipper mentioned, the core schools are traditionally the Ivies and Ivy Pluses like Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, MIT.</p>
<p>abank, if you are seriously interested in WashU or Tufts, then ED would be a very smart move because it will significantly increase your odds of admittance. Both these schools are often second choices for the Ivy bound and you stand a much better chance in their ED pool. </p>
<p>If you are really on the fence with these two schools, since Tufts has an EDII, you might want to consider applying ED to WashU and then if you are rejected, apply EDII to Tufts.</p>
<p>FWIW, the Times of London does a Higher Education Survey on the world's top 200 universities. </p>
<p>There's a category for "recruiter review" that counts for 10 percent of the total score. WashU and Tufts are neck and neck, scoring 32 and 31 respectively. (I just looked at the chart, though, and didn't read through the entire methodology to see who was conducting this part of the survey.)</p>
<p>Also FWIW: WashU lands in the top 50 of the 2006 THES at #48, while Tufts is #130. The peer review score, at 40 percent of the total, gives the edge to WashU over Tufts at scores of 25 and 17 respectively. You can see the data at the following website. Log in for the free trial. </p>
<p>Neither WashU nor Tufts is going to match the recruiting power of the Ivies and top 10 universities and if you want to know who comes to campus, go to each uni's website for the college you're interested in and look it up or email and ask. I'm sure it's an area both unis are working hard to improve so that picture might be getting better and better each year. You should also look into how much spending is done on undergraduate research stipends and how much effort is put into making paid internships available to undergraduates. </p>
<p>Honestly, you cannot make a bad choice between these two universities as to the quality of education you'll get and the respect for your degree when you complete your four years, so just choose based on how you liked the campus and the surroundings and the people you met. Your four years in college are more about the four years you're at college and not just the last year when the recruiters matter, imo.</p>