Visit to Tufts University

Tufts is beautiful! The campus sits on a hill overlooking Boston’s suburb, Medford. The buildings and trees are stately and venerable, and the grounds are well-maintained. On public transportation, it’s 15 minutes to downtown Boston, and five minutes to Harvard Square. The School of Arts and Sciences and the School of Engineering occupy the Medford campus; together they have 4000 undergrad and 1700 graduate students. Tufts has multiple other campuses housing graduate level schools of medicine, dental medicine, law and diplomacy, biomedical sciences, nutrition sciences and veterinary medicine. But at the Medford campus, it’s like being at a medium-sized liberal arts and sciences and engineering college.

Liberal arts students must take one course in each of 7 areas. Lots of interdisciplinary majors are available. “Science, Technology and Society” is a recently-added major. Students must declare their major by the end of the sophomore year. Professors teach 90% of classes. Recitations and labs are often taught by TAs. If a students wants a break from the ordinary, the Experimental College offers about 100 courses in non-traditional areas and credit is earned. Paul Allen has recently given $10M to support work in biology by Professor Mike Levin.

Engineering students, as a most engineering schools, choose a major by the end of the first year. They must take six courses in the arts, humanities, and social sciences, with one of those fulfilling a writing requirement. Engineering majors include the most common ones as well as Biomedical Engineering and Engineering Psychology. For the 800 engineering undergrads (200 per class), the school employs 100 full time and part time faculty.

Boston’s metro system extends to Tufts, so students are able to get to the city and to other campuses easily. 14% of men and 19% of women join Greek organizations. Students say that Tufts is not a party school.

A number of special academic programs are available. Musicians can get a combined degree with the New England Conservatory of Music. Tufts has purchased the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and will offer BFA degrees. A very select number of premed, pre-dental and pre-vet students can get early assurance of admission to the professional schools at the end of their sophomore year (it’s about 5 students each year for premed). Undergrad students can take grad courses with permission of the prof and if there’s room.

As for admissions, Tufts is “Looking for students who are adventurous, intellectual, bright and engaged.” With Tufts’ growing popularity, admit rates dropped to 14% for Arts & Sciences and 11% for Engineering. The schools says that 75% of applicants are qualified; so, the decision is based on individual characteristics. Once admitted, a student can choose a gap year program through Tufts that will include an international opportunity.

Tips for admissions:
– The “Why are you applying to Tufts” essay is very important.
– It’s the student’s decision as to which subject tests to take
– The School of Engr. want to see the highest level math and either AP physics or AP Chem. taken.
– They have no preference between the Common Ap and the Coalition Ap.
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Other Stats:
– ACT middle 50%, 30-33
– Meets 100% of need
– Classes under 30 students, 82%
– Freshmen returning as sophs, 96%
– Graduate within 4 years, 88%
– Grads offered employment within 6 months, 91%