Which school should I attend? Tufts University or Carleton College?

College Search & Selection
1

Hey. As the title suggests, I am trying to choose between these two schools. Would love any insight or advice! I posted this on other threads as well but I just want as many opinions as possible.

Points to consider:

  • My major is psychology.
  • I plan on attending grad school.
  • Asian living abroad. Never lived outside of Asia before.
  • Cost will not matter, so comparing FA will not be relevant to my choice!
  • My high school is a super competitive atmosphere, so I will want a more laid-back community in college.
  • Will want to work in either the US, Hong Kong, or Singapore in the future

Thank you guys in advance!

2

Carlton College offers a very tight knit community. Its more of a true liberal arts college, while Tufts offers preprofessional programs, like engineering so the student body is more preprofessional at Tufts, but still a fine liberal arts program. Tufts also offers a graduate school, law school, and medical school, while Carlton focuses on undergraduates exclusively.

Boston is urban, and has the largest concentration of colleges of any location in the USA, and the T will take you on the Red line right from Tufts anywhere you want to go. Carlton is in a college town, with St. Olof College, but the two schools offer different calendars, Carlton is on a quarter system,so there is not much interaction with St. Olof which is on a semester calendar. The Quarter calendar at Carlton is intense, and you can only take three classes per quarter, for a total of nine classes per year, as its so rapid paced.
But I think the atmosphere is very relaxed at Carlton, cookies are baked frequently, students love the outdoors and play broom ball, and Carlton offers some of the best undergraduate teaching in the country.

Diversity is better in the Boston area, and Asian students and Asian restaurants now dominate Harvard Square, which is close to Tufts, and a playground for MIT, Harvard and Tufts students, but Minneapolis and Carlton are very liberal and open places, and I think an Asian student might be comfortable in either place.

Both will prepare you well for graduate school. Carlton College students are well mentored for their graduate school applications, as are Tufts students.

Both locations have long cold winters and , although Minnesota may have more actual days of sub zero weather.

The weather is not a problem for most students, however, snow is enjoyed in both locations. Hockey teams are fun to watch too.

3

Tough choice. My instinct is to say Carleton. Quirky, interesting, intelligent, diverse students. It’s only an hour from Minneapolis. It has a great reputation. But, I agree that the trimester system is pretty fast-paced. The town is charming, and there will be a lot of fun campus activities. Your classes will be small. You will definitely get to know professors, and they will know you. You will be taught by professors, not TA’s. You will have good opportunities to get involved in research because all resources and attention are focused on undergrads. A school like Carleton will have a high number of students being accepted to grad school, med school, and the like. There will probably be a very nice community feeling among the student body. You will not feel anonymous.

Tufts has a wonderful location, though I don’t know how many students hang out in Cambridge. It isn’t walking distance. Tufts is much bigger than Carleton (10,000, inc. grad students, versus 2000). Great info in the post above. Because it’s that much larger, some of the benefits of being at a really small college are going to be lost. You will have more classes to choose from. There will be bigger classes, which might be taught by grad students, rather than professors. You will have to make more of an effort to meet with professors and get to know them. There will be more competition for research positions. Then again, as a research university, you may have access to higher level research. You have the benefit of being able to easily go into Boston, which really is a wonderful city.

Both schools are going to give you an excellent education, and both schools have great reputations and will lead to opportunities. Academically, simply due to the fact that you are likely to have small classes for all four years, I give the edge to Carleton. In fact, in Princeton Review’s annual rankings, Carleton is in the top 20 for Best Professors, Most Accessible Professors, and tellingly, Students Love Their Schools. Tufts is not ranked in any of those categories, but it is, of course, an excellent school. Both schools lean liberal and are friendly to the LGBT community. You should consider what type of environment you will be most comfortable in: small v.s. large.

4

I like Carlton better for undergraduate education as well.

For Tufts, The Red Line does go directly to Harvard Square from Davis Square, and students can take the bus or walk to Davis Square:
https://moovitapp.com/index/en/public_transit-Tufts_University-Boston_MA-site_11784975-141

Carlton is just a really outstanding education, very personal, you will make life long friends and you will be mentored to get into a Psychology PhD program, a bit better if thats your goal.

I don’t know about connections in Singapore or Hong Kong. If thats important to you, you may want to explore how many alumni from each school are located in those two Asian cities. Something tells me Tufts may be a bit better for Asian job contacts, but I don’t know.

5

I have a son at Tufts. We visited Carleton (and Macalester) while college shopping.

Both colleges are wonderful, but the settings alone are so vastly different that you may prefer one over the other. My son couldn’t see himself living in a small town like that for 4 years. He has a more urban sensibility, and wanted the opportunity to socialize in a city while a college student (he’s gone to the art museums, restaurants, bars, movie theaters in boston and Cambridge, to Celtic games).

Tufts does have grad schools (although it doesn’t have a law school as one of the above posters stated), however its biggest grad schools (medicine and vet, I believe) are not on or near the undergrad campus. My son, a senior, hasn’t had one TA. Most of his classes have been reasonable in size and he’s gotten to know his professors well because he’s gone to office hours and he participates in class (many of his classes are discussion based).

I think you have two wonderful choices that attract a similar student body. It’s just a matter of figuring out which one suits you best.

6

I have a Carl and a Jumbo. As others have mentioned, both Carleton and Tufts offer excellent undergraduate education, but in different settings—a medium-sized university with easy access to a large city vs. a typical liberal arts college in a nice small town.

For an international student, both are convenient for international flights. It takes about 20 minutes to get to Tufts from Logan by Uber. It takes about 50 minutes to get to Carleton from MSP airport by bus. Both will give you great opportunities of immersion in American culture, unlike some colleges with a huge crowd of international students from Asia. If you miss authentic Asian food, you can easily get it at Davis Square and Harvard Square, but I don’t think there’s any authentic Asian restaurant in Northfield.

Both colleges are known for a non-competitive learning environment, but both offer challenging courses and you need to study hard. Most of the students, including my kids, would say that they study harder in college than in high school; however, in college you do have more free time and choices to pursue what you want to do. So, studying is much more enjoyable. Both of my kids spent most of their time on campus. The kid at Carleton probably went to the Twin Cities for fun only once or twice a year, completely happy and content with campus life. The kid at Tufts got more chances to hang out with high school friends attending colleges in Boston area on the weekends (and spent more money for social occasions).

Tufts only guarantees the first two years of campus housing. The off-campus housing typically costs more than the dorms. Carleton guarantees four years of campus housing. IMO, Carleton dorms are generally better than Tufts’. Carleton campus is really nice and cozy. Tufts campus is a little hilly, which helps my kid become stronger.

Both colleges have their share of cold winter; however, there seem to be more sunny days in Northfield than in Boston. In recent years, Boston seems to have more snow and rain. My kid at Tufts appreciated to get a raincoat and needed a sturdy umbrella. The kid at Carleton never used an umbrella there. The kid at Carleton never had a class day cancelled due to snow during his four years there. The kid at Tufts had several days off due to inclement weather.

Personally, I prefer trimester to semester calendar. It’s more fast-paced but you take less courses per term. Carleton’s winter break starts with Thanksgiving and students get the whole December off, a good time to be with family or get a holiday season job or doing research/internship/job-shadowing.

Both kids always got the classes they wanted to take. The kid at Tufts had a freshman English class of only 12 students, taught by an adjunct, along with some classes of 20-50 students. The kid at Carleton hardly had any class over 20. However, nowadays any lower level CS class in any college can be large due to popularity.

It’s important to have research experiences to apply to graduate school. It may be easier to get research opportunities and mentoring at Carleton, but you can certainly get it at Tufts, too. It all depends on your efforts. Professors at both colleges are very good at teaching, according to my kids (they often exchanged their classroom experiences with their high school friends in many other colleges). Both colleges are known for friendliness of the people there. Carleton is smaller in size, so it may give a closer feeling.

What is the most important factor to you? There’s no wrong decision. Both are very fine colleges.

7

Tufts has about 5000 undergrads (liberal arts plus engineers). Engineers are outnumbered by Liberal Arts by more than a factor of 4:1. Tufts engineers tend to be more liberal artsy than than the average. Possibly less “pre-professional” than the typical business school bound econ major or law school bound polysci major. There are a number of interdisciplinary majors/minors (including Engineering Psychology and Cognitive Science) that span the boundary between Engineering and Liberal Arts. The largest undergrad majors are IR and CS.

The vast majority of the grad students are associated with the health sciences complex (Medical, Dental, Nutrition, and most of the biology) in downtown Boston and the Vet school in Grafton. These remote schools are the primary reason that Tufts is classified as a Research University. Many of the liberal arts departments do not offer Phd degrees. Those Phd programs that do exist are quite small. There is a strong emphasis on undergrad teaching. There is a Phd program in Psychology, so there is easy access to research. At least one of the psych professors has a lab at Mass General Hospital (Harvard’s primary teaching hospital).

There is a higher percentage of arts students at Tufts than most liberal arts colleges. There is a Museum School downtown affiliated with the Museum of Fine Arts that offers studio art classes on the Medford/Somerville campus. There is a regular shuttle bus that connects these two campuses.

Somerville is a classic “streetcar suburb”. It is residential, small in area, but it has about the 15th highest population density of any city in the US. It has the second highest density of young people and artists in the country (Cambridge is the third) and is one of the hottest real estate markets in Massachusetts. It has been ranked as one of the most hipster cities in the country. Davis Square, in Somerville, is a half mile walk from Tufts (Tufts also supplies a shuttle bus). Davis Square recently surpassed Harvard Square as the most popular square in Somerville/Cambridge. There is a subway station for the Red Line there that connects to Harvard Square (2 miles) MIT/Kenmore Square (4 miles) and Mass General Hopital (5 miles) and downtown Boston (6 miles). The corridor along the Red Line between Davis and Kenmore Square is like a big college town. There is lots and lots to do even before you cross the river to Boston

The Green Line of the subway is being extended through Somerville and will terminate right on the Medford side of the Tufts Campus. Scheduled completion date is fall of 2021, but there has been a history of schedule slips. This will provide additional connectivity within Medford/Somerville/Cambridge/Boston.

For outdoorsy types, there is a 2,200 acre urban forest two miles from Tufts (in Medford) and Tufts owns a “Loj” in the White mountains of New Hampshire. The Loj is a 2 hour drive and shuttle vans are provided by the Tufts Mountain Club.

The Medford/Somerville campus is only 150 acres - smaller than most LACs. Feels like a LAC, but with higher population density and not as isolated. Very tight knit. Lifetime friendships.