<p>Hi. I'm from New York City and I haven't visited Tufts University yet. Can you all share your opinions on the school campus? Is there easy access to the city? What do you like to do for fun there (at school)?</p>
<p>Also, what do you LOVE/really like about Tufts and what do you HATE/dislike about it?</p>
<p>What I love about Tufts - the convenience of the dining halls and the excellent food. Really nice and jovial student body with smart but laid back kids. Cool diversity and lots of internationals. I really like my professors and have a really easy time getting to know them. Research opportunities are flowing out of the departments.</p>
<p>What I dislike about Tufts - the food gets repetitious. Campus gets slippery in the winter as it's on a hill. Pretty preppy and a general consensus that Tufts is underrated. Paperwork gets cumbersome as the administration can get really frustrating over trivialties.</p>
<p>I'm not a student, but my son is a sophomore at Tufts. He's about as unpreppy as they come and he loves Tufts! He goes into Boston about once every two weeks or so, easy access as Davis Square -- on the Red Line -- is a short walk from campus. He loves his classes, especially his science classes, and his music extracurriculars. Most of all he loves the friends he's made there. If there's something he hates he hasn't mentioned anything to me. What <em>I</em> hate about Tufts is the hefty pricetag and no merit aid. :(</p>
<p>Actually "merit" aid exists but it's very low key and rare. You can't apply for it as it comes to you rather than you gravitating towards it. It's more like athletic merit or individual scholarships from private Tufts alumni.</p>
<p>LOL well actually, I tend to talk really loudly about what I love about Tufts whenever I see a tour passing, because SOMEONE needs to give this amazing place good press. basically, i love everything about it.
1. The people. Everyone i meet is absolutely incredible and excellent. Even though they're from Colorado or Korea, you have to remember that WE ALL CHOSE TUFTS, therefore we have something in common because we all wanted to get the same things out of our college experience. As a result, it's really easy to relate to people, get comfortable with them - everyone's really open and helpful, interesting, talented, and make each day so much better. Plus there definitely IS diversity - my roommate is from South Korea/Utah, across the hall are two guys, one from Chicago and one from Minnesota, and next to them are a girl from San Diego and one from France. Yet we all set up camp in the lounge by our dorm room and tell funny stories with no problem. And they're all here for a REASON - I can make references to books or political situations and know that everyone will get the reference :-D FINALLY!
2. The size. Someone summed it up nicely by saying that no matter where you go, you'll see both people you know and people you don't know. That way, it still feels nice and homey b/c you recognize lots of friends, but you know there are always more people to meet.
3. Location/campus. I think the campus is beautiful, and the fact that it's this beatufiul, safe, suburban campus with the community feel, but a hop, skip and a jump away from Davis Square, Harvard, MIT, and downtown Boston and all the schools there. So convenient and provides tons of opportunities for anything you can imagine. Plus, I go home about once a month, and let me tell you, getting to South Station and hopping on the Greyhound/Fung Wah to New York is SO easy.
4. The professors. Parents should not worry, because every single one of my professors just amazes me at each and every class. They are WORTH the money. All of my teachers are so engaging, and you can tell they have such a vast store of information and know how to impart it. It's such great motivation to walk all the way uphill for a 9 15 class when you know that it's going to be really interesting and fun.
5. The food! I really cannot stress enough how amazing the food is here. I talk to my friends at other schools who always complain about how gross and inedible their food is - and then I think about what I had for dinner, which could be anything from sirloin tips to singapore noodles to stuffed salmon to cajun pasta to white pizza to italian sausage soup...or, if you go to Hodgdon, the take-out dining hall, you grab a really good wrap or sandwich, or maybe the pasta special, or a burrito, or anything from the Asian foodstand, because seriously, Hodgdon's chinese food is better than the kind you get in restaurants. Then you grab some water bottles, walk back to your dorm, and eat this DELICIOUS food while sitting in the lounge with friends or studying. I'm a really picky eater, so I really try not to take the food for granted. SOME people complain that the food gets repetitive, but that's more because every day they'll have the standard burgers, pizza, sandwich stand, but then there's the food that changes every day, too. Dewick (the main downhill dining hall) has a wall where you leave suggestions/praise, and i love walking past and seeing tons of notes that say "The corn chowder today was the best soup I've ever had, please make more!" and seeing Joe, who's in charge, reply with "will do! glad you liked it!"
6. The atmosphere and way of life. Everything is so comfortable and laid-back - it is VERY different from high school, and in a good way.
7. My dorm! I'm biased, of course, because I live in South, which is the nicest and newest dorm, but it's just SUCH a great place to live. I originally had misgivings b/c it's so far downhill, but it's the closest to Davis, very close to Dewick and the other downhill dorms, and many of my classes are actually right nearby in Pearson (across from Dewick), Aideckman...plus it's right by the campus center, which makes it easy to get to Jumbo Express (the convenience store) and the bookstore. The rooms are enormous...and can i have a drumroll please...PRIVATE. LOCKABLE. BATHROOMS.
8. I don't know, i kind of like the administration! My advisors were phenomenal, I ended up with the most incredible schedule ever: no class on Fridays, and my only class on Monday is at 1 30. Registration was SO easy, and any time I had an encounter with the administration - turning in add/drop forms, getting a new ID, financial aid help - they were SO helpful and got me exactly where I needed to be.</p>
<p>dislikes? they're really trivial, stupid things compared to how WONDERFUL everything above is, but i'll mention them anyway:
1. Uphill/downhill polarization. I meet really awesome uphill kids in my classes, but I never see them around because it's annoying to go up and downhill. Like, when I get invited to hang out with uphill kids, I decide I'd rather stay with my downhill friends. it's not THAT much of a hike, i make it sound unbearable, and if i REALLY wanted to hang out with these uphill kids, i could without a problem, but still. I just don't have as much incentive to go uphill b/c i know i'll have to walk all the way back to South at the end of the night.
2. We only get ten guest meals! This is just annoying b/c i'm so eager to get all my high school friends to come visit and show off our AMAZING food, and i can't because i'll run out of guest meals. Still, when my friend from Mt. Holyoke was visiting, she poitned out that she doesn't get guest meals at all and has to pay out of her pocket any time she brings someone with ehr into the dining hall.
3. the stupid laundry points system. Laundry is VERY easy to do - you can use either cash or points, but the machines you use in order to convert your points to laundry points (LOL sorry, that sounds so much more complicated than it is) are never working...i COULD use cash, but it's cheaper to use points.
4. Not enough chances to GET the amazing food! There are three different meal periods in a day, and freshmen have unlimited meals at the dining halls. Which means that i could pretty much spend the entire day at Dewick until it closes at 8. The problem is, it DOES close at 8, and often I get hungry way after that. Hodgdon, the takeout place, is open until 10, but you can't get anything from there if you've already eaten at Dewick (because people would then eat at Dewick and then go to Hodgdon, get 8 water bottles and take them back to their dorm). In the end, if you're really hungry, you end up ordering from Domino's or somewhere (which delivers till 4 am), but I feel bad knowing that my parents are already paying money for the food in the dining halls, and i'm spending even more on pizza.
5. The Joey (the shuttle), which goes from outside the downhill campus center to Davis Square and then up to Carmichael and Olin only comes every twenty minutes; I wish it came more. In reality, it's NOT that big a deal to walk to Davis or Olin, seriously, it's about five minutes either way, but i'm just saying, it's not as convenient as it would be if it came more often.
6. OH! this is probably the one REAL annoying thing about Tufts, the lack of wireless access. My laptop is hooked up via my dorm, but if I want to take it out into the lounge to study with friends, I'll GET wireless connection, but I can't USE it because there's a limited number of IP numbers or something. THEN AGAIN, it's actually sometimes a really good thing b/c if I'm on my laptop in the middle of a lecture and have Instant Messenger at my disposal, I'll probably just talk to my friends for an hour and not pay attention, so instead now i take notes, lol.</p>
<p>STILL. If those are my only hates...I mean, everyone i know is like OMG, i can't wait to be a tour guide and host pre-frosh! I can't wait to show people how amazing it is here! And plus I've heard some terrible things about schools that you don't find out until you get there. For example, did you know that at BU, you can only have one visitor, until 3 am, and you have to sign them in and out? I guess because their campus isn't as safe or secure as ours, but how terrible is that? I want to have my friends visit for a few days and sleep on the floor in my room, and that's totally fine with Tufts.</p>
<p>ANYWAY, it's 2 12 AM, I could be sleeping right now, but no, I felt the need to spread the word about how absolutely AMAZING it is here. Everyone should come! You will NOT regret it! And if you have any questions, please please post them or PM them to me, or PM me for my email address :-D</p>
<p>wow bluirinka... that's one of the grandest displays of Tufts pride I've ever seen! it makes me want to go there even more...</p>
<p>bluirinka, that was fantastic! Now I'm even more convinced that Tufts is the place for me; I just hope the admissions officers feel the same!</p>
<p>haha oh my god, i'm so glad. I'm on a mission to let everyone know that Tufts is actually absolutely amazing, and needs recognition for it!</p>
<p>How about some more...University Chorale practice on Wednesday was the most beautiful thing I've ever heard, I stayed afterwards to audition for solos, and everyone told me how incredible my voice was, and that I should get even more training. I came back to the dorm, where one of the floor sections was having Hall Snacks, so I stayed and talked to people for a few hours. Yesterday we decided we weren't taking enough advantage of the fact that we were right by Boston, so a bunch of my friends and I walked over to Davis, took the Red Line to the Green Line, and then to the Blue Line and got off by the Aquarium, then walked to this really small bakery for the express purpose of getting cannolis, which were supposedly really good there. But despite how absolutely PHENOMENAL these cannolis were, the fun was in the journey. It's just so awesome to walk around with your friends...then today was the Head of the Charles competition (this enormous regatta) so we got on the T, and two short stops away at Harvard, we got off and walked around the Charles River, taking pictures and buying food. Some of my friends met up with their friends who go to MIT, BU, BC, Emerson, etc, so it was a really nice reunion for some. Then, get this - the All-American Rejects were giving a free concert right there! So we got to see them playing. Then we took another short T ride to Quincy Market and got lobster rolls and clam chowder and gyros. It was raining, but no one noticed. I kept thinking about how if I were at Dartmouth - my original first choice - none of this would be at all possible. My face still hurts from laughing :-D we just got back to the dorm, and I think we're going to go watch Wedding Crashers...frat-hopping is annoying in the rain lol</p>
<p>anyway, like i said, if you have any questions at all, feel free to PM me. My name is Nay, but you can call me "blu" if you want. Just not Blu or Bluirinka (shudder) I'm 4'11, capital letters don't suit me haha</p>
<p>oh yeah, and we just got this email - they're starting a shuttle that goes to Boston!!!! until 2 am! Absolutely free! I LOVE TUFTS!</p>
<p>OOH another thing - sorry, my friend just stopped by and told me to write this up - the other day, when there was this torrential downpour, a ton of people decided to go outside in tshirts and shorts (and for guys, just shorts) and go MUDSLIDING. we ran over to the president's lawn, which has this really steep incline that people go sledding on in the winter - except that night we went sledding without snow or sled, LOL. We just went FLYING through the mud. Imagine a ton of kids congregated on the top of the hill, just cheering as the next person - whom they may not even know - is speeding through this gigantic muddy trench. I took a bunch of pictures, I'll post them when I get them developed :-D We were all like wow, can you imagine doing this anywhere else?</p>
<p>that sounds really great! i only recently learned about tufts (i live in seattle and there isn't much press about east coast schools that aren'ts ivies) and it justs seems to be getting better and better!</p>
<p>I <em>think</em> I saw those pictures, was that from the rugby team? I thought people got all dirty on the academic quad, not the president's lawn heh</p>
<p>haha i know there were a lot of rugby kids there, but i'm not one of them. i'm like 4'11 and 97 pounds :-D</p>
<p>estrella, i'm so glad you're considering Tufts! It's really amazing. We're registering for classes now and it's so refreshing to ask about a certain professor and always hear that they're phenomenal. One of my sophomore friends down the hall always gives me brownies his mom makes and rides to Olin, which is not REALLY that far at ALL (nothing on campus is technically FAR...i talk to my friend in Michigan who has to take a bus to his classes, b/c otherwise it's like an hour-long walk), but far enough that a ride is definitely appreciated. It's great that i CAN make friends with upperclassmen, you know?</p>
<p>yeah, that does sound nice. would you say tufts is generally friendlier than other campuses? i really want to become part of a community and everything.</p>
<p>oh, ABSOLUTELY! a lot of my friends have had visitors and they're always baffled at how friendly and open everyone here is :-D</p>
<p>WOW blurinka, WOW! that's so amazing...just everything you mentioned above...did you apply there early to Tufts or regular decision? i mean, did you know Tufts was the place for you right away or did you have to kind of get used to it before you knew? </p>
<p>amazing!</p>
<p>oh, not at all. I applied early to Penn, then got deferred and was SO happy, because after that I found out a lot of stuff about Penn that made it clear it wasn't the place for me. That is when I fell in love with Dartmouth, but I was waitlisted there - now, however, I know that I'd DIE in such a rural setting. I seriously think that everyone ends up exactly where they belong :-D</p>
<p>and I'm glad I've done Tufts proud!!!!</p>
<p>oh really? wow that almost seems like the current case for me! i just applied early to Penn and will probably apply to Tufts during the regular round...but it seems that as i talk to more and more Tufts students, i seem to want to go there as well...lol</p>
<p>haha well Penn just isn't the place for ME, but if it's where you belong, then good luck! I'll keep my fingers crossed for you</p>
<p>aw thanks! well i guess we'll see what happens in a few days!</p>