Why Tufts?
President’s Day is like New Year’s Day in an admissions office. It’s the wicked moment in which two admission cycles converge, when our primary focus is shared between the high school seniors whose applications are being evaluated and the high school juniors who are launching their (active) searches as February vacation gets underway.
As a bridge for this transitional moment, here’s a sampling of pithy ED2 responses to the “Why Tufts?” question on our supplement. Consider it as advice from an older sibling, things to notice if you will, as you learn how to follow the tour guide walking backwards. Anyway, here’s what some of them said as they declared their affinity for Tufts in 100 words or less:
- “My dad always used to tell me, ‘Strangers are friends you just haven't met yet." This is how I already feel about the students at Tufts—the nerdy and passionate, the fabulously quirky; the learners and the dreamers and the inventors and the thinkers-I want to meet them all.’
- “The school and its student body manage to be quirky without being weird.”
- “It’s a place where creativity underscores a dynamic intellectual community.”
- “On my visit to campus I witnessed a Shakespeare flash mob in the cafeteria.”
- “I want to go to school where an outrageously mix-matched outfit is more common than Uggs and Juicy Couture, where 'out of style' does not raise eyebrows. A polka-dotted shirt mixed with tie-dye pants - visually and mentally stimulating - poses inquiry and reflects individuality.”
- “Tufts speaks to me. It has everything I'm looking for: internationalism, compassion, strong intellectual challenge, and uninhibited joy. It is the only school on my Twitter feed, the only one that unfailingly makes me smile, the only one that feels like home.”
- I love Tufts because, even though I am interested in math…It's important to me to be well-rounded, and I don't gravitate toward other math-heavy people.”
- Dear Tufts, You're an animal. Let me clarify: you're elegant, yet not pretentious; you're brawny and full of personality. You're an elephant—you never forget; you remember tradition, yet have an uncanny ability to explore the unexplored.”
- “I'm a physics girl, so I know that energy is a very real thing that can be quantified and converted from different forms and whatnot. So knowing fully well what energy is, I'm also saying that sometimes people can just feel it. At Tufts, I felt the energy of a student body excited to learn and of their professors bubbling over with knowledge.
- “It's the only university whose admission officers are free enough to put their 'paws up' like Lady Gaga.” (That would be me, I fear.)
- “My interest in Tufts was sparked when I saw the sculpture of a poem in binary in the library. It told me that Tufts recognized the innovation in the combination of art and science. That resonated with me because although I want to major in computer science, I also want to pursue other subjects in the arts…I can take classes in the history of fairy tales and behavior-based robotics, study what I love all over the world, and be part of a community of people genuinely interested in learning of all kinds.”
- “What could Music, Astronomy, and Linguistics possibly have in common? I think my answer lies at Tufts.”
Tell us. What did you notice when you visited?