<p>sphairistic: If your GC told you to lie through your teeth, I would really hesitiate to take further guidance from that counsellor! </p>
<p>My D interviewed for Yale, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Tufts, Penn, Stanford and not one of the interviewers asked her to name other schools she was interested in and/or had applied to. None asked her if she had applied Early Action/Decision. None asked her to rate their school as far as interest level. Interviewers can tell level of interest from the questions the applicant asks and answers and how much the applicant knows about the school.</p>
<p>I have heard the term "Tufts Syndrome" long before discovering CC. What you are calling "Tufts Syndrome" I believe is also called Strategic Admissions. I have seen a study that plotted SAT scores vs acceptances, and as you might expect, on average the acceptance rate climbs with the SAT score. However, with some schools there is a drop in acceptance rate at the high end of the graph. This was seen as evidence of strategic admissions, ie the admissions office will accept fewer at the very high end of the SAT range, presumably rejecting those that they feel have a low probability of attending. I don't know if Tufts showed up in this type of study as practicing strategic admissions. </p>
<p>I have also heard the term "Tufts Syndrome" used to describe the phenomenon where many students on a campus are attending the school as their safety. In the case of Tufts, the presumption is that most of the students really wanted to attend an Ivy, and therefore are unhappy being at Tufts. This is why a binding early decision program is important to many schools like Tufts. They want to be the first choice school for many of their students. They do not want to be the safety school for ivy league hopefuls. My opinion of Tufts rose dramatically after visiting. The entire info session was built around what Tufts has to offer and what makes it special and neither the words "Ivy League" nor the name of any IL institution were mentioned once.</p>
<p>I had never heard the term before visiting this site, nor have I particularly seen it since then beyond this site. Also, Tufts, lest anyone forget, is not a safety for anyone, unless you're an auto admit for Harvard. Their stats compare with Cornell, etc. Maybe in 1975, it could have been called a relative safety, but certainly not in 2007. Please move into the present. You simply cannot refer to one of the most competitive US universities as a "safety." Tufts, I believe, does suffer from a problem similar to that of Johns Hopkins (among others), where it is not the very first choice school for many applicants. This is changing, however. </p>
<p>I have also learned that GCs frequently know little about many schools.</p>
<p>My GC is known for getting around 20 of the 50 kids she's "assigned" into Ivies/NESCACs each year, and I've heard her sentiments of not telling Tufts about applying to Ivies echoed by several people who have witnessed that issue first-hand, one of which told Tufts about applying to Princeton and was rejected (despite getting into Princeton) and another who had the same issue with Harvard. Of COURSE Tufts isn't going to sit about looking at their top applicants and reject someone who "might be accepted to an Ivy" because that'd defeat the purpose of getting the best students possible, but they ARE concerned with maintaining their enrollment rate and reputation, and could very likely pick someone who spoke of Tufts in her interview as her first choice over someone who mentioned that she'd also applied to Harvard, Princeton and Yale. Lying may never be ideal, but my GC's sentiments are agreed upon and her advice taken by every single one of my friends who applied to Tufts this year.</p>
<p>And, regardless of what the "interview handbook" says, interviewers ask you about which other colleges you've applied to anyways. This year I was asked where else I'd applied--specific schools, even, not just what "type" of schools--by Harvard, Princeton, Georgetown, Tufts and Brown. Harvard and Princeton interviewers even asked me where, if anywhere, I applied early (which was Yale). They may not be supposed to do it, but they do it anyways, and I saw my interviewers writing down my answers on their notes.</p>