What's this so-called Tufts Syndrome?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Tufts University
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<p>Clearly, the lady doth protest too much. </p>

<p>You use far too many words to say what boils down to nothing more than "I don't know".</p>

<p>I dunno, maybe law school is not yer thing. Or then again, mebbe it is.</p>

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<p>Alright, let's end the discussion here:</p>

<p>Tufts is one of the finest universities in the United States and its popularity continues to grow. It is establishing itself, asserting itself, and is on a positive upswing. This is evidenced by the fact that applications were up this year, and the fact that the school still attracts top, top-notch applicants to apply is evidence that even the best of kids out there wouldn't mind going to Tufts. Unfortunately, the school does not have room for every applicant. If it were to admit every single top applicant, then it would be a nightmarish ordeal managing the class size- what will happen is a lot of juggling of waitlisted applicants deep into the summer which does not benefit anyone. I think people should understand that these actions are intentional, but very rational. We cannot predict who would be "happy" at a particular school, I don't think Harvard employs this factor into their decisions process, nor any other school. Tufts is strategically choosing very fine candidates who they perceive is the most likely to enroll. What has resulted is an increasing average SAT score (though it should hardly be misinterpreted as a sole or most significant reason why an applican should be admitted to Tufts) that reaffirms statements that Tufts continues to be a highly-sought after school for many great students. Unfortunately, mistakes are made, as colleges should admit to, but with this process Tufts undoubtedly loses out on some of the "better" (for lack of a better word, please don't persecute) candidates. We have heard testimony from many disappointed students who have got into schools that are generally more competitive than Tufts, and from the bits of information we can extract it seems that they are justified in their complaints. For future applicants, this must be understood- if you really want to come to Tufts, put some effort into it and wish for the best.</p>

<p>I hope both parties can agree on the major points and final conclusion. Come on, folks, bring some peace back to this board! =)</p>

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<p>peace is good and so is tufts</p>

<p>but i wont be attending</p>

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<p>What do you have against Tufts? Seriously, the fact that you even use the "smartest idiot" and the "least dangerous convicted murderer" as a point of comparison for Tufts students is ridiculous and perverse. Tufts may not be Harvard, but it is undeniably a much better school than the thousands of other colleges that other people go to. I honestly don't see your point in attacking Tufts. Tufts is a solid, above average school even by US News & World Report rankings. In any case, there is nothing wrong with people being proud of where they are going, so please stop criticizing Tufts on this board.</p>

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<p>What a great message to wrap up this thread!! There is no bitterness or
whining on the part of those capable students that weren't admitted to Tufts
from our high school. They are all great kids, great applications, great
(and in-depth) ec's and all into ivies or top ten LAC's. My D visited Tufts, had a great interview,as did the others. Looking at the application process from the Tufts admissions office point of view, with more than enough qualified applicants I think they made the right decisions (and hopefully not just to make their yield rate look good in the guidebooks!!). In this brave new world (or game) ofcollege addmissions, where every is applying to 9 schools, Tufts was smartenough to admit kids that are well qualified but will also be truly thrilled and happy to attend such a great place, unfortunately in this process fromthe messages above there were a few people who had Tufts as their
first choice over ivies, but were waitlisted. I think the message to next year's
applicants is to communicate to Tufts (or any other school) that it is
your top choice.</p>

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<p>I'm done. Carry on with the lovefest!</p>

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<p>... and clearly, saying that is a MUCH easier way for you to get out of saying "I'm wrong and I need to grow up."</p>

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<p><a href="http://www.tufts.edu/ir/SelfStudy2003V2.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.tufts.edu/ir/SelfStudy2003V2.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Page 170.</p>

<p>Kiddly, read it, weep, and shove it. I held up my end of the bargain... your turn now. Sure, you'll have to stop harping on what a bad school Tufts is, but that's justice for you.</p>

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<p>I have to agree with what has been said by others-- admissions policies are often erratic and unfathomable, but often these are the result of extremely difficult decisions being made my the admissions office. To give an example: I scored a 1500 on the SATs, had a 3.84 GPA, was a lead in every high school play, class president twice and school president once, MUN, community service, a month-long trip to Namibia in africa to build schools and libraries, a week-long trip to Cambodia to build houses, sports, music, honors, etcetera-- and I got rejected from Georgetown and UPenn (as well as yale, which i did expect a rejection from). This was not because of some massive detriment in my application-- my recs were excellent, my interviews were great-- but simply because there are a LOT of qualified people nowadays who all want to go to college. It's just the way it is. Many students who might have been admitted in previous years were waitlisted or rejected this year, simply because there are so many qualified candidates.</p>

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<p>i got in, YAY for me</p>

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<p>kiddly youre crazy ...and ariesathena, what is this top law school that you go to, that allows you to spend half your day typing up messages to 17 and 18 year old idiots like kiddly on this board. you seriously have written like 4 chapters of a book about how great tufts is on this board haha. ya tufts is becoming more popular and getting more applicants but so is every school, they all said that they received a record number of apps this year. </p>

<p>TTgiang said it best, plain and simple "Tufts is strategically choosing very fine candidates who they perceive as the most likely to enroll." thats "tufts syndrome" if you want to call it that, and its the practice at almost every plan B school. ive known many people who got waitlisted or rejected at tufts who would would qualifiy as the victims of this practice, but the reality is, more often than not, they probably would have decided to go to other schools even if they had been admitted; so tufts guessed correctly. so tufts guesses right in those cases much more often than they guess wrong. so maybe ethically its not the right way to run their admissions department, but what would you do if those kids kept turning you down? probably the same thing.</p>

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<p>"Plan B"? I think you'll find that Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Darmouth, UPenn, Columbia, Brown and Stanford employ the exact same policy. If it seems likely that an applicant to UPenn will choose instead to go to Yale, UPenn will probably waitlist the candidate. It's not a numbers-boosting policy for second-tier schools; it's a policy used by every college in order to make sure that it admits students who are very interested in attending the university. Let's face it-- why would Harvard admit a perfect student if the student doesn't show any particular interest in Harvard? While certainly it is necessary to be a top student in order to have a chance at these schools, you also have to want it. That, my friend, is common sense.</p>

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<p>Ariesathena and I both have a great love for our school. People before us have taken a great deal of time to help us out when we first came to Tufts, and now it is time for us to repay the favor. Besides, it's rewarding to know that we've had a positive impact on some applicant's lives, showing them a side to our beloved university that they otherwise may never have seen.</p>

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<p>Thanks for your time Airies (and I really do mean this!), but the document you reference really doesn't help your cause. Just the usual crap produced when people (in this case, the Tufts administrative staff) are trying to justify their jobs. Nothing more than a cheerleading rah! rah! doc that contains no endowment data whatsoever relative to other institutions, which was of course key to my inquiry. Not the collective authors fault, it just doesn't further your argument.</p>

<p>For anyone on this thread who didn't recognize the intended sarcasm with the smartest idiot analogy, etc.., well, I should have realized that sarcasm doesn't come across very well in this medium. I really do consider the #1 ranked dancing thing hysterical. But thats just me, of course.</p>

<p>As far as this whole discussion goes, as I said, I'm done here. Just hope that some folks reading this thread are capable of concluding that in fact, the emperor is not really wearing any clothes at all.</p>

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<p>Collegeman: no need for me to answer that. I don't want the entire internet community knowing where I go, and this is a) a weekend and b) my work break, when I do this and IM and check email.</p>

<p>Kiddly: you asked if the endowment increased relative to other institutions. Well, it stayed constant from the 1920s on to about 1980, then shot up astronomically. So it did increase, substantially, in ways that other endowments did not.</p>

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<p>Kiddly and Ariesathena:</p>

<p>Some facts and figures at <a href="http://advancement.tufts.edu/report/giving.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://advancement.tufts.edu/report/giving.html&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p>

<p>1980-1985: $145 million
1986-1992: $251 million
1995-2002: $609 million</p>

<p>Those figures are for those periods; they are not cumulative.</p>

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<p>Thanks Kelly.</p>

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<p>i read the first like 6 posts on this thread, and it seems so silly. i REALLY don’t think Tufts does this because in my experience I have met a good group of people who came to Tufts over Cornell and UPenn and Dartmouth (in order to do this, they obviously had to be accepted into those first, and those schools obviously, being ivies, will no reject anybody who is “too highly qualified”).</p>

<p>I thought that people wouldn’t be THAT smart when I came here, I really did, because I thought all the REAL smart kids would be at the Ivies I was rejected from (Columbia, Harvard, Yale, and Brown) but BOY have these kids proved me wrong. I was feeling all high and mighty with my 2330 SAT’s and 8 AP’s (7 of them 5’s, one 4); while this is definitely above the scores I’ve heard from basically everybody, every one here is very intelligent, curious, and have great study skills (I feel like my study skills stink in comparison!!). </p>

<p>I’m just saying from a Tufts freshmen, I would not be quick to assume that Tufts rejects top applicants, I’m sure there are people who would have normally been accepted to Ivies but in the past few years were not because of increased competition, and end up at schools like Tufts (Me!!). I LOVE it here, I really, really do. So to all the high schoolers worrying that kids will be “dumb” at non-Ivies and you won’t get an intellectually stimulating atmosphere, that is SO wrong. </p>

<p>Also, my friend who is at Harvard now was waitlisted at Wash U so we know what that means…</p>

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<p>At my school it’s not Tufts syndrome but Wesleyan syndrome. As much as Tufts admissions officers/students/etc may deny it, it is clear that there is something skewed in their admissions process if they deny the top students.</p>

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<p>This thread is from 2005. </p>

<p>My answers to the question:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1060130911-post12.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1060130911-post12.html&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/5242585-post6.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/5242585-post6.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;