<p>I know this term is pretty much universal on this board... but I'm new here and clearly too lazy to go through any old posts that have already addressed this.</p>
<p>I think Tufts Syndrome is when Tufts (or any school for that matter) rejects or waitlists overqualified people, who they know will probobly not attend if they get in, because their Stats are so impressive, and the did not show much interest. I think Tufts Syndrome is also used when people have the "I could have/should have gotten into an Ivy League" problem, but are going to Tufts.</p>
<p>Okay I have really really had enough of this Tufts Syndrome talk. I have worked at admissions all year and have had to file away hundreds, maybe thousands of applications, including towards the end of the process into piles based on acceptances/waitlist/deny etc. I have never ever seen one clear instance of Tufts Syndrome. Earlier in the process I had to file away kids whose decisions had been made early because the cases were so clear cut, and virtually all these kids were 1550-1600, very top of their class, great personal and extracurirricular scores etc. etc. The percise kids "Tufts Syndrome" would apply to. Now heres the shocker- these were not put in the waitlist pile, GASP!, but the accepted pile. Sure it may have existed a few years ago when a different Dean was here, and judging by the fact that it is named Tufts Syndrome Im guessing there is some truth to the fact that it once was employed here. But last year a new Dean came in, and I see no reason why it would continue. Tufts Syndrome may very well exist- but not here. Franklin and Marshall for instance, openly admits to employing it, and WASHU's decisions seem a little sketchy as well. Nothing on the admitted students thread surprised me in the least If you as white northeastern applicant think ur automatically getting in with a 1500 and 3.6-3.8 GPA you are sadly mistaken. Tufts is a more competitive school than seemingly anyone on this board is willing to give it credit for. Im sorry to those who didnt get in and really wanted to attend, and congrats to those that made the cut. My good friend applying was waitlisted and I really thought/hoped shed get in, apparently even I underestimated my own school.</p>
<p>LOL--and I am sure that you hired additional EXPERIENCED staff to handle the 15,000 applications you got this year yielding an 8% acceptance rate. I say there is no way you or your committee read all those applications throughly--I dont see how it is possible. So what's the criteria-----My daughter visited, interviewed, 1500+ SAT's and everything else---REJECTED!</p>
<p>Actually they do. A committee of 15 people discuss the applicants and are never rejected with one vote. It usually is mulled over I believe. I understand you're angry, but I don't think you should take it personally as an attack on your daughter's capability. Regardless of being accepted or rejected, all the Tufts applicants are stellar. However, it simply isn't possible to offer a space to every applicant for a competitive school. I'm sure your daughter will be successful and happy wherever she goes.</p>
<p>well for starters, tufts has nowhere near an 8% accept rate, youre getting spaces in a class confused with acceptances...tufts actual accept rate was 26% last year, and could be a smidge lower this year. And i believe that applications are viewed with a discerning eye, and given proper attention and careful consideration. That being said......</p>
<p>as for kj, we have no way of testing your credibilty as an actual student-employee in the tufts admissions department, for all we know you could just be a passionate tufts student tired of people knocking your school's practices. the fact remains that this syndrome is a common practice at #1A schools (not quite ivies or stanfords but still fantastic schools) that a lot of wannabe ivy students use for safeties. They have gotten tired of these applicants "using" tufts and not matriculating after acceptances. Tufts Syndrome isnt rejecting overqualified applicants exactly. Tufts still hopes that they will get a few of the the creme de la creme kids with knockout SAT scores in the 1550-1600 range, and accepts them as fits. Who this syndrome hurts are those that are overqualified but arent necessarily overachievers. These students wont cure cancer and are much less likely to do anything great so the upside for the college is small and the gamble that theyll matriculate is larger. Tufts takes a gamble on the realllllly smart kids, but the kinda smart kids dont have the same potential payoff. By accepting kids they predict will matriculate, these kids help their acceptance rate drop further and their yield increase. If tufts has accepted 20 students at a particular high school last year and only 4 matriculated, they might only take 10 the next year and minimize the hit their numbers take, even if the applicants are just as strong. applications are viewed on a school-by-school basis at tufts.</p>
<p>The moderately overqualified's impact wont be felt even if they do come, a scenario which isnt as likely as if they select a more modestly qualified student. This forum isn't an accurate sample of the tufts acceptance population either; most people on this board are overachievers and completely immersed in college admissions this time of year. Tufts median 50% for SAT scores of incoming freshman are listed as 610-700V and 640-720M. Meaning that only a quarter of the students tha are freshman at tufts now bested 700 in verbal, and only a quarter got better than 720 math. To have so many students on this board who were not accepted despite having terrific qualifications and stats that would put them in the top 10-5% of Tufts incoming freshmen, its hard to say there isnt a bias in place. SATs arent everything but theyre a pretty good indication. </p>
<p>Now, Take a school like Johns Hopkins for instance. Their accept rate is roughly 30%, slightly higher than Tufts, but they have garnered a repuation of having meritocratic admissions policy, where the best applicant always is selected. US news has JHU at #14 in the country while Tufts is at #28. A better school that's less selective? The reality is that Tufts has spent years manipulating applicant pools to bring down admit numbers and raise yields -and it has worked. Now I don't want to knock on Tufts, its an incredible school, but this is and was their practice and will continue to be. It's well within their right to accept whomever they damn well please. The question remains however, is it ethical?</p>
<p>Your SAT data is several years old. The average SATs scores of enrolling students jumped dramatically last year from 1332 to 1368 and will likely jump again with the 5.5% increase in applications this year. The Tufts Daily reporting statistics on the Freshman class this year reported a huge jump from 1250-1420 mid 50% range for the entering class last year (the one you see in the current US News) to 1290-1490 mid 50% range for the class of '08. Contrary to your opinion, I think the results listed in the decision thread strongly support the fact that Tufts Syndrome is no longer practiced. Perhaps like you said, the strategy worked for Tufts in the past, but this does not mean it is continued today. What makes you so sure that a practice that was carried out in the past would continue under a new Dean who may have a different philosophy? The bottom line is Tufts has gotten really hard to get into in recent years, and is now more selective than people are willing to admit. Like at similarly selective schools like JHU, Northwestern, etc, they cant accept all the kids that apply with very high stats. If kids who dont get in with 1500+ SATs want to think its because of Tufts Syndrome than more power to them.</p>
<p>"Who this syndrome hurts are those that are overqualified but arent necessarily overachievers"
From where do you draw this from? First Tufts syndrome starts as a rationalization for the rejection of the very best candidates, and now it has moved to the "best" candidates? I find this rather incredulous, giving everyone a reason to cast a doubt over the validity to this claim. I don't think Tufts Syndrome exists anymore, it doesn't seem practical. Yield is no longer a factor in US News rankings. Therefore does not the foundations of this theory fall? I think too many people are combining the interest factor with the Tufts Syndrome into a pseudo-pan-explanatory to explain a rejection.
"This forum isn't an accurate sample of the tufts acceptance population either; most people on this board are overachievers and completely immersed in college admissions this time of year. Tufts median 50% for SAT scores of incoming freshman are listed as 610-700V and 640-720M. Meaning that only a quarter of the students tha are freshman at tufts now bested 700 in verbal, and only a quarter got better than 720 math. To have so many students on this board who were not accepted despite having terrific qualifications and stats that would put them in the top 10-5% of Tufts incoming freshmen, its hard to say there isnt a bias in place. SATs arent everything but theyre a pretty good indication. "</p>
<p>The median does NOT mean that 25% bested the 720s etc. It means that this is the middle representation of the middle SAT scores. You are misinterpreting the data. That is what is so deceiving of the data - it is not representative of what proportion of the Tufts student body scored what. You cannot assign the 25% figure in this manner. In fact, the % of students scoring in the 700s are available on the website, with the numbers being around last time I checked 40%?</p>
<p>The Tufts acceptance letter included a note that none of the other acceptances (that have recieved) did: a search for "citizenship and originality... [and] personal integrity." Decisions simply aren't going to be black and white when a school is focused on choosing people, not statistics. There is more to the process than meets the eye, just as there is more to us than meets the eye. It is not all as quantifiable as CC'ers and others tend to believe. If it were, admissions decisions would not take nearly as long.
If believing that you were "too good' for a school helps you cope, so be it. However it may serve you better in the long run to try and gather perspective and overcome some defensiveness.</p>
<p>I find this hysterical---Tufts sends a letter to rejects with the stats for THIS YEAR----Close to 15,000 applications for 1250 places---You do the math---that comes to about 8% of apps be accepted! I am merely making the point that unless they increased staff, there is no way in high hell that they gave applications a thorough evaluation---the type of evaluation that most of these schools claim they give their applicants. My daughter went up to Tufts, did the interview, wrote them a letter telling them they were her top choice----As far as citizenship goes (my daughter acheived the highest level as a Girl Scout, did countless hours of community service etc) She is all-state Choir, winner of several academic awards including the history student and French student of the year etc---I could go on. Her school superintendent wrote her a recommendation, the first one he has done in twenty years. The point is simple, the rejection was not based on anything but a poor reading of her resume. </p>
<p>Anyhow, I'm not losing too much sleep over this one. She will go to an excellent school (either Hamiltorn, Amherst, Cornell or Barnard) where she will flourish. I just dont like to be conned by the marketing department (admission department) of Tufts.</p>
<p>Uhh, its not 8% accepted, because they guess that approximatley 1/3 of those accepted will matriculate. Therefore, the acceptance rate is about 25% or so, because they know that a majority of those accepted will not attend...</p>
<p>
[quote]
the rejection was not based on anything but a poor reading of her resume.
[/quote]
Vladimir, unless you are a Tufts admissions officer, you do not know why she was rejected. She does seem to have an excellent application, but do not assume that you know the reason for her rejection. I understand that you are upset, but simply blaming the admissions office for misreading her app is patently ridiculous for someone who has no idea.</p>
<p>vladimir, I can assure you that there are no conspiracies behind your daughter's rejection. It is important to keep in mind that the admissions officers are not greedy, malicious, and terrible people. They are people like you, me, and everyone else. They have the pressuring job of choosing a small fraction of the 15,000 applicants that apply: there are bound to be heartaches along the way! I have heard some of them depressingly talk about how they had to regretfully let people go because of simple statistics: there simply aren't enough spots. When one has to make those painful decisions, some get lucky, and some don't unfortunately. It's the risk one accepts when applying to the elite colleges in the United States. I hope you can understand where the admissions officers are coming from.</p>
<p>Hi,</p>
<p>my D just came home for lunch, she goes to great high school in western
burbs of Boston, rated #5 high school in state. She has great GPA
3.9 in all AP/advanced courses, 1500 SAT's good EC's and great teacher/counseler recs, already accepted at 3 top LAC's, WAITLISTED AT
tufts. The top 5 kids in her class that applied to Tufts either waitlisted
or rejected. Girl that is the star of class and receieved a likely letter from
Dartmouth rejected!! 4 students with GPA in the 3.3-3.5 in not the top classes and SAT's in 1300 range are in (plus the usual couple of football
player non-students). Tufts definitely did not take the best qualified
students from our high school, but ratherwho they thought would end up
going there!</p>
<p>You don't know those students, nor have you seen their applications. Do you therefore have sufficient knowledge of the admissions officers to declare this Tufts Syndrome? Please think about this rationally. Quick judgements only inspire anger and misattributions. There must be another explanation in which you have not considered.</p>
<p>I understand some of the parents feelings, but i have full confidence that the tufts admissions officers put forth a good-faith effort into reading and evaluating each application. </p>
<p>to snuffles and kj, my interpretation of the middle 50% is perfectly correct. if 4 people were going to a school next year with math scores of 600 650 700 and 710, then their middle 50% would be 650-700. only 1/4 of incoming freshman did better than the upper bound of the 50%. if 1000 kids are going theyd take the 250th kid and use him/her as the upper bound and the 750th kid as the lower bound. </p>
<p>tufts scores are listed on collegeboard.com as 610-700V and 640-720M, and were updated from the statistics of the class of 2008. The mean SAT for the class of 2008 is quoted as 1368 in the dean's letter to 2008 students on the tufts website <a href="http://admissions.tufts.edu/deanswelcome.htm%5B/url%5D">http://admissions.tufts.edu/deanswelcome.htm</a> . meaning that, as i have stated before, for the class of 2008 only 1/4 of students did better than 700 on the verbal part of the SAT1. adding the math and verbal together as kj did, is incorrect, because somebody in the 10th percentile for verbal could be in the 90% for math. basically if you add the kids who did worst on verbal and the kids who did worst on math you get a really low score, and if you add the smartest togehter you get a really high score. most students hav some discrepancy in their scores, so the true middle 50 % range is much smaller than 200+ points. its probably between 1300-1400 give or take, and the dean's mean backs that up.</p>
<p>all i'm saying is that in mid may when all the admissions representatives meet, they have to show the dean of admissions the accept rate and yield for their region in addition to other statistics like sats and racial breakdowns. if a high school has a history of using tufts as a fallback for ivies and not having a great matriculation rate, those students who apply now are at a disadvantage. admissions officers are tired of being used and having their numbers brought down because of the students at these schools, so they don't think they're come as often as others, because of precedent.</p>
<p>schools like tufts, washu st louis, and bc are in the position where they are great schools but not top notch so they are routinely used as a fallback. to deny that this practice by admissions officers doesnt take place is naive. technically theres nothing wrong with it and it may teach those schools a lesson to only encourage kids to apply if they truly want to go to tufts. but i still have a problem with it ethically, for those students who sincerely want to go to tufts but cant show it.</p>
<p>And as for the students who say Tufts looks at more than Sat scores, youre partially correct. there isnt a "Why tufts?" essay to show interest, they use the generic common app with a brief supplement. so it tells you the students qualifications but has no way to gauge interest on an applicant. alumni interviews dont have much influence at all, unless they are terrible or incredible. sorry this post is so long but i had a lot to say.</p>
<p>Ugh. There's nothing I hate more than an overweening sense of entitlement. Polarbearmom and especially Vladimir, for whatever reason, your kids didn't get in. It's tough, but whining about it won't change a thing and just makes you look worse. Be mature and say "oh well" instead of concocting conspiracy theories about why your child was rejected. Tufts is an outstanding school and I seriously question whether anyone on this board is so well qualified that they automatically deserve entry.</p>
<p>Now, I got in, but if I didn't, you can bet that the last thing I'd be doing is whining and moaning about the evil Tufts Admissions Officers. I'd shrug, feel disappointed, and give the Admiss Officers, whom I've never met, the benefit of the doubt. By all accounts your kids' stats are outstanding (in fact, better than mine), but there are subjectives. Maybe their essays just rubbed the Officer the wrong way. Maybe he had just read a <em>superb</em> application right before he read your child's and it made your child's look worse by comparison. There's no way to tell. The only thing we know for sure is that <em>nobody,</em> including your kids, was a shoo-in. That's that.</p>
<p>Between today and saturday, I'm going to be rejected from Columbia, Cornell, Amherst, Brown, and Williams. I challenge you to find me posting on any of those forums, complaining about how I deserved to get in. You won't.</p>
<p>The collegeboard's data is either a) old or b) wrong. Notice your ranges would correspond perfectly with the US News data from LAST YEAR Class of 2007. The collegeboard also lists the acceptance rate as 26%, which was the acceptance rate for the class of 2007. The acceptance rate for 2008 was slightly higher 27%, which you will find on Tuft's own website, but the statistics for the class are much more impressive. The Tufts Daily reported the correct statistics in its first issue of the year, September 1, 2004. You can look in their archive online to find this as I did. I did not do my own addition as you claimed. The Princeotn Review also has more accurate data that reflects the Class of 2008, not 2007 as your data does. The Collegeboard's data is not gospel and in this case is wrong. Tufts selectivity has increased greatly in the last two years.</p>
<p>Hm. I think admissions needs to make it clear that although they accept the common app, the optional essay should be more publicized to reduce confusion. Does the common app have room for the optional essay? It's been a while so I don't remember the fine lines of the application process.</p>
<p>PR also has inaccuracies too, though. I've become much more skeptical with a lot of their numbers, though at times they are often better than what Collegeboard can give. Is there no definitive authority on these things anymore to the general public? I don't understand why there isn't a uniform consensus on the statistics among all the college websites out there.</p>