Cambridge
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Post by Cambridge on Apr 16, 2007 16:45:34 GMT -5
thanks for posting that, very intersting chart. as a west coast interviewer i see a lot of applicants who get into stanford and Cal as well as us, Stanford has stolen a couple from us that would have come to GU but they had a much better aid package to offer. tufts really gets spanked, will have to mention that to my wife and her two siblings, all tufts alums. As a New England Prep schooler (Exeter), I'll say that back in 1998, just about everyone (~80%) in my 300+ senior class applied to Tufts, BU and BC as safety schools. That's not really a fair reflection on those schools, but a lot of people wanted to stay in the NE area if they didn't get into the ivies. Also, not many people know about Tufts outside New England, so the influx of Prep schoolers applications probably skews the numbers. Thus, all the kids who applied to and were accepted by Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Cornell, Georgetown, Stanford etc...also applied to and got accepted at Tufts, etc. Thus, many of the people they accepted, were likely to head somewhere else. I think this is a reflection on Tufts inability to really carve out an identity for itself. It draws from the same applicant pool as Gtown and the ivies, but it doesn't have much to sell itself on besides its rankings. It's in Medford (not pretty and much father afield from Boston than you would imagine), the campus is not pretty, the weather is miserable, the sports are non-existent, it has no real name recognition and it is severely overshadowed in its region by MIT and Harvard.
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SFHoya99
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Post by SFHoya99 on Apr 16, 2007 17:43:45 GMT -5
Tufts has a very defined identity.
It's the Ivies' safety school.
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tgo
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Post by tgo on Apr 17, 2007 10:37:50 GMT -5
i like medford, nice little college town, if it werent in the shaddow of MIT & harvard it would probably be thought of very differently. at least on the west coast, they have a weak alumni community, they have one event a year if that and you get about 15 people at such events.
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thebin
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Post by thebin on Apr 17, 2007 11:30:19 GMT -5
I prepped at Exeter in 95 Cambridge, and I can't agree that Tufts was in the same league as a BU to my recollection among Exonians. It might have been a safety for the kids who had good shots at getting into the Big 3 Ivies, but to at least half the Exeter class they knew that was not a reality given who they were going up against within their own class. I liked Tufts and Medford just fine, would certainly choose it over ND. With the elite Fletcher school, it always seemed like a natural sister school to Gtown. I think from the NESCAC, Tufts, Williams, Middlebury and Amherst have plenty of name recognition among grad schools, employers, etc.
I would much rather go to Brown than ND. I am sure this is my coastal prejudice as well as the extreme superficiality of my nominal Catholic-ness- but a rather strict religious school in the middle of Indiana because of, let's face it, 6 home football games a year? No thanks, give me Rhode Island (an under-rated state) and Brown anytime over that, despite how rabidly left wing a place Brown is.
I have enormous amounts of respect for UofChicago, it might be in some ways the best school in the world. But I too have heard that like Hopkins, its a very miserable place.
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SoCalHoya
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Post by SoCalHoya on Apr 17, 2007 11:55:30 GMT -5
Some kids are gluttons for punishment (Univ. of Chicago).
Others just can't leave New England/try every barbiturate on the market (Brown).
If you all haven't read the book "The Price of Admission" I highly recommend it. Gets slow at times, but does reveal some of the treachery involved with the whole admissions/matriculation game.
Though our endowment sucks (compared to our peers, mind you), you really can't buy a better location than what we've got. And I think we offer the best education/location/sports/campus beauty and enviro/extra-curric/spirit school out there.
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Cambridge
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Post by Cambridge on Apr 17, 2007 12:21:43 GMT -5
I prepped at Exeter in 95 Cambridge, and I can't agree that Tufts was in the same league as a BU to my recollection among Exonians. It might have been a safety for the kids who had good shots at getting into the Big 3 Ivies, but to at least half the Exeter class they knew that was not a reality given who they were going up against within their own class. I liked Tufts and Medford just fine, would certainly choose it over ND. With the elite Fletcher school, it always seemed like a natural sister school to Gtown. I think from the NESCAC, Tufts, Williams, Middlebury and Amherst have plenty of name recognition among grad schools, employers, etc. I would much rather go to Brown than ND. I am sure this is my coastal prejudice as well as the extreme superficiality of my nominal Catholic-ness- but a rather strict religious school in the middle of Indiana because of, let's face it, 6 home football games a year? No thanks, give me Rhode Island (an under-rated state) and Brown anytime over that, despite how rabidly left wing a place Brown is. I have enormous amounts of respect for UofChicago, it might be in some ways the best school in the world. But I too have heard that like Hopkins, its a very miserable place. Maybe it was different for each class, but I'd estimate nearly a quarter of the class went to the big three (~50 kids). The rest of the ivies + MIT, Georgetown, Stanford, Chicago, Berkeley, UVA, and mix of top small liberal arts schools took a third or so (~80, GU had over 15 in my class alone). The rest went to a mix of BC, BU, Tufts and various state schools and liberal arts colleges. I guess you could put Tufts in that middle category, but it was my recollection that it was the chief "safety" for all the kids in the top two categories.
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thebin
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Post by thebin on Apr 17, 2007 12:42:19 GMT -5
Those numbers seem about what I recall from 95- its just that I would most certainly put Tufts in the middle catagory with the top small liberal arts schools. I can see going to Williams or Amherst over Tufts, but I certainly would not go to Middlebury or Wesleyan over Tufts- I would put all five of those schools in the middle third of schools Exeter kids matriculated at. Maybe even slightly closer to the top than the bottom. For what its worth (probably not much) at least in my mind Tufts is a level above BC academically (although not for fun) which is in turn at least one level above BU academically. Too many levels? Maybe, but either way, I would say only a very select few Exeter kids could call Tufts a true safety. Maybe you just hung out with more accomplished kids than I did! But when I think safety and the NESCAC, I think more Hamilton, Bates and Colby.
Alone among the NESCAC schools FYI, Tufts is a top 30 national university according to latest US News, above Wake Forest and William & Mary for one and pretty darn close to us. Grain of salt already taken....I know the other NESCACs are at the very top of the small pond list.
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Cambridge
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Post by Cambridge on Apr 17, 2007 13:10:15 GMT -5
Those numbers seem about what I recall from 95- its just that I would most certainly put Tufts in the middle catagory with the top small liberal arts schools. I can see going to Williams or Amherst over Tufts, but I certainly would not go to Middlebury or Wesleyan over Tufts- I would put all five of those schools in the middle third of schools Exeter kids matriculated at. Maybe even slightly closer to the top than the bottom. For what its worth (probably not much) at least in my mind Tufts is a level above BC academically (although not for fun) which is in turn at least one level above BU academically. Too many levels? Maybe, but either way, I would say only a very select few Exeter kids could call Tufts a true safety. Maybe you just hung out with more accomplished kids than I did! But when I think safety and the NESCAC, I think more Hamilton, Bates and Colby. Alone among the NESCAC schools FYI, Tufts is a top 30 national university according to latest US News, above Wake Forest and William & Mary for one and pretty darn close to us. Grain of salt already taken....I know the other NESCACs are at the very top of the small pond list. Fair points.
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