What exactly is Tufts Syndrome?

<p>My friend told me that that Tufts rejects overqualified applicants due to "Tufts Syndrome". I have seen many references to it on this discussion board about whether it exists or not. I think it must be true to some extent or else Tufts wouldn't have been labeled as having Tufts Syndrome in the first place. Some people say most schools reject applicants who don't show interest, so why is Tufts singled out and the phrase is not some other X University Syndrome?</p>

<p><em>rolls eyes</em> i really don't want to have this conversation again, but given that it's one of the main criticisms levelled against Tufts on this forum (and unfairly in my opinion), i will respond.</p>

<p>Tufts syndrome refers to the belief that Tufts rejects over-qualified appliacants who it "knows" will be accepted to "better" schools. Students who thought they were sure to get into tufts will sometimes be rejected or waitlisted, and in an effort to rationalize their rejection, they will decide that they were overqualified for Tufts. The thing is that college admissions is not a strictly objective numbers-based process. Also, Tufts, like all top 50 schools, has become harder to get into in recent years, so students who would have been easily admitted even 5 or 10 years ago are now getting rejected.</p>

<p>that said, "tufts syndrome" may still happen occasionally, but other schools do it a lot more than tufts does.</p>

<p>Agreed, other schools play this game which are not necessarily Tufts.</p>

<p>I know of someone who got into Penn & Duke, but not into Lehigh.</p>

<p>The SUNY schools play this game too. I know of someone who applied to a few EA & got into Binghamton, Stonybrook & Albany.. but was deferred at New Paltz. (To let you non-NY'ers know the first three are considered harder to get in to than New Paltz.)</p>

<p>Lehigh & New Paltz both played the game of "Inferiority Complex Syndrome".</p>

<p>I've been involved with Tufts for 35 years and I never heard the term Tufts Syndrome until I read it on this board.</p>

<p>Seashore - if you do a Google search, you'll get many hits.</p>

<p>If other schools do it a lot more than Tufts does, then why call it Tufts Syndrome?</p>

<p>I think that 'Tufts Syndrome' may have been true 20 years ago. But Tufts is competitive enough in and of itself that it does not have to engage in this kind of selective behaviour now. </p>

<p>Like a poster above said, admissions is not just a numbers/stats game. Intangibles certainly play a decisive role. Just because the kid with a 1600 didn't get into Tufts, that doesn't mean that this a case of yield manipulation by the adcom. It's likely Mr. 1600 didn't have the public service, active citizenship, internationalist, character that Tufts is known for now; or maybe his essays were frought with grammatical errors or filled to the brim with cliches.</p>

<p>I don't know why it's called 'Tufts Syndrome'; seems to me it could've easily been called WUSTL Syndrome or Wesleyan Syndrome or any school of this nature.</p>

<p>I agree with the above, and it sounds like there are many schools out there that take student interest into account-- not just Tufts. Also, when a student is presented with a "Why School X?" essay or an interview, one would hope they'd have something worthwhile to say.</p>

<p>Certainly! I mean, if we take the case of a poster on the Tufts board who recently said he was offered an interview with a Tufts alum but wants to reject the invitation for no good reason (laziness?); well, I'd say that clearly shows very little interest in the school. </p>

<p>Why then, should the school, in turn, show interest in that student, even if (s)he is statistically eligible for admission? </p>

<p>Isn't it better -- and more logical -- for BOTH parties, for the the school to reject the disinterested student and offer a spot in the class to someone who is clearly excited about the prospect of being admitted to the class? </p>

<p>I would be hard-pressed to call that "yield manipulation."</p>

<p>I read a pretty interesting article a couple of years ago. It compared SAT scores with admit rates at a lot of schools. Only at MIT was there a direct correlation--the higher the score, the higher admit rate. For everywhere else they looked at, including Harvard and Princeton, there was a diminished acceptance rate for the highest scores. They attributed the result to yield manipulation or "Tufts Syndrome" (they didn't use the term). Maybe so. I tend to prefer to think that schools, including Tufts, are looking at more than scores. Heck, maybe some kids with perfect test scores are otherwise boring.</p>

<p>I wasn't under the impression that the poster didn't want the interview with the Tufts alumni because of disinterest. I thought it was because he or she was nervous. Students should always accept interviews if offered in my opinion. Interviews are usually far less terrifying than imagined.</p>

<p>I think there might be something to the Tufts Syndrome. I have noticed that when looking at ************ which shows the stats of students that have been admitted or rejected from various schools. Of course, as people have said, just because you have a perfect score on your SAT's doesn't mean that you have the other attributes that colleges are looking for. I think Lolabelle is correct when she says that Tufts admissions are looking for students that have public service, active citizenship, international outlook, etc. They are looking for students that will fit in with the focus of the university.</p>

<p>(Apparently, I am not allowed to mention the competing website that posted students' stats. Pretty funny.)</p>

<p>I definitely think that the idea was created by people who didn't get into Tufts who thought they would have, and their response was that they must have been overqualified. I had a friend tell us that was why she didn't get into a certain school early action, but then she didn't get into seven other schools she applied to regular decision (which were at about the same level as the early school), so that should tell you what I think about that.</p>

<p>Washington University in St. Louis Syndrome...yup, catchy.</p>

<p>Thing is only 30% of the people accepted to Tufts enroll. If the AdComs were rejecting over qualified applicants wouldn't that percentage be alot higher?</p>

<p>Anyways, it's a moot point really since students who actually are overqualified make up probably less 5% of the applicant pool. I think people really fail to consider what being over qualified for Tufts actually entails. Those are the students who've already cured diseases and saved stranded Brazilian soccer teams and whatnot. Again, probably less than 5% of the applicant pool.</p>

<p>In the real world, this kind of things happen all of the time. For example, many companies will reject "over-qualified" candidates for various reasons.</p>

<p>Also, some people don't want to date people "out of their league." I think those things are all rational!</p>

<p>I have no reason to be biased about this either way, but I do know a student from our HS who was rejected by Tufts last year but was accepted by Harvard. More about that later. </p>

<p>Our HS provides acceptance data on the Naviance web database. You can see scatterdiagram plots of GPA vs SAT scores, and whether an applicant was accepted, rejected, or waitlisted over the last 5 years of data. Surprisingly, the plots directly show that all the highest academic achievers were all accepted by Tufts. It is one of the least fragmented charts on there along with Dartmouth, despite the rumors about Tufts.</p>

<p>Now back to the student who was accepted by Harvard. On the basis of GPA/SAT, the student was below the central "cloud" of acceptances on the charts for both Tufts and Harvard, yet Harvard extended an acceptance.</p>

<p>i think i was a victim of tufts syndrome w/ a 2170 and 4.1 weighted gpa</p>

<p>th3strok3s: your stats are actually pretty average for a tufts applicant these days. You are qualified, but not overqualified. I'm sorry that you were rejected, but sadly tufts, like all top schools, must reject qualified applicants.</p>

<p>Um, a 2170 is good, but it's not so unbelievably good that you'd be a shoo-in for tufts. Neither is a 4.1 weighted, depending on how grades are weighted. My advice? Remove lips from behind, and gently squeeze temples until your cranium has deflated to a normal size.</p>

<p>Mm, my GC warned me of this, though I haven't heard the phrase "Tufts Syndrome" before.</p>

<p>She did say, however, that she's heard of people who've gotten accepted to Harvard and rejected by Tufts before, because Tufts doesn't like to be thought of as a "safety" for Ivies. Hence why her main bit of advice was to lie through your teeth in interviews no matter what, and not name any "better" schools that you're applying to, in addition to making sure you're really sincere about Tufts being at the top of your list.</p>

<p>Tufts does not, let me repeat, does not, reject students because they might be accepted to an Ivy.</p>

<p>If that were the case, Tufts would have to reject a majority of their applicants.</p>

<p>I would never recommend that anyone lie through their teeth during a college interview. </p>

<p>Anyway, the Tufts interview handbook specifically says, "Refrain from asking candidates about other colleges or universities they are considering or how Tufts rates amonth their college choices. The level of interest in Tufts may increase as a result of their contact with you."</p>

<p>Dean of Admissions Lee Coffin has said some similar things, such as, "Do not rate candidates based on their amount of intererst. That's a factor that is subject to change."</p>