Posted in Getting In
The Admitted Student Guide
In case you hadn’t noticed, my colleagues and I are fairly connected online with Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, the Admissions Blog, and our Student Blog. Oh, and we even release a magazine three times a year. Students even write messages on our cannon to get their points across. What can I say? We over communicate.
The last three weeks have been a whirlwind of committee decisions that have had their fair share of highs and lows. After all the stress that surrounds the process on your end, I can’t help but chuckle at how very much we want you to choose us. You found your voice and we heard you. Now we want to herd (elephant reference anyone??) you to Matriculation Day.
As it turns out, your future classmates are already buzzing and our newest blogger (and Jumbo!) Liz Dielentheis has begun to share what makes the class of 2016 special. Come to think of it, there are a lot of voices that can share what makes Tufts worthwhile for future Jumbos at home and abroad. They’re waiting for your questions;...
College Conversations #2
College conversations for seniors—now what?
As parents we often feel the same range of emotions our children feel during stressful times. During this college decision season it is no different. We get anxious, worried, elated, disconcerted and confused just like our sons and daughters.
As a mom who has been there, I have some suggestions for Families of High School seniors:
Take a deep breath.
Some students have already heard from Early Decision, Early Action and Rolling Decision schools and we know that for all the other students, the waiting is torturous. I can attest to the fact that we are spending every waking hour reading applications and in meetings in order to make the best possible decisions – hang in there!
Parents -your role is to step back and support your child. The admission decision is not a reflection on your parenting –how you react, is. Give your son or daughter space to absorb all of the decisions, to process the news. Be available for hugs, support & guidance...
College Conversations
For Juniors and their parents who are just beginning the college process:
As parents we know that communication is critical. Somehow the college process can throw all we know right out the window. What happens when our children grow up and the ‘c’ (college) word is mentioned? We put our hopes & dreams on the line, we think about our own lives and what we would change if we could do it all again, we project our own aspirations into the equation – how can we not?
As a mom who has been there, I have some suggestions for sons & daughters, mothers & fathers
You have time to ponder, discern, research, dream.
Pick ONE day a week when you will discuss the college process (the remaining six days are off limits for college talk). As a family, make a pact and stick to it. If you know when you will be talking about college the whole family will have time to prepare. Younger siblings can run for the hills, parents can be more thoughtful about the questions, suggestions, impressions they want to...
Reading A File
If you’re reading this, chances are you are curious about how we approach an application once you’ve clicked the always terrifying submit button. When I applied to schools, I imagined a cloak and dagger process behind closed doors where admissions officers guffawed at the bad ones and lionized the works of art.
Guess what, there are no daggers…and a distinct lack of guffawing. Mostly we just read in our homes.
Every couple days, I wander into the office to take a look at my “reader bin” which, in reality, is a metal shelf with my reader code on it. See, you all get the common app ID and we get numbers too. 16 (my reader code) evaluates 1343564 (I made this number up completely). That may seem impersonal but once we open a file (admissions lingo for the manila folder that holds your common application materials) it couldn’t be more personal.
First, I’m all about academics. What have you taken in high school? Have you challenged yourself? Does your performance line up with your testing?...
Committee Timeline
What I will present here is a selected timeline of events from Early Decision committee on December 5th. Committee is where the not always pretty conflict between the strength of our applicants and the limited number of seats at Tufts unfolds. In short, this is where the decisions are debated and admits get made. This year, there were three committees running at the same time with different admissions officers in each room. In the room with me were Lee, Justin, Meredith, Ben B, Jen, and Kerrin. The seven of us are positioned around a table, and we take turns presenting the applicants from our territories to the other six members. My applications come from Maryland, Asia (except for Korea, People’s Republic of China, and the places that the PRC considers part of China), and Lexington, MA.
By giving you a brief peek inside the room and inside my head, I hope you can understand the very human nature of our decision making process, and how driven that process is by the way in which the tangible...