It’s been a week since ED decisions were released last Monday afternoon but a growing herd of newborn Jumbos (139 and counting) has already claimed their place in our next freshman class. (Translation: They returned their enrollment form.) As you complete your applications over the next few days, here’s a sample of 18 students whose ED applications really sparkled.
This isn’t an admissions abstraction: these are some of the people who would be your classmates:
First up is the three-sport varsity captain and prospective child development major from Boston’s North Shore. He co-founded his school’s weekly feminism discussion group and was just elected President of his Student Council. I’d call that well-rounded!
Delray Beach, Florida sends us the pre-med who is an avid hiker and an all-around medalist in gymnastics at the USAG competition. The yearbook editor-in-chief also enjoys mucking out the stalls at her family’s farm in New Hampshire. (Prospective roommates take note: she sounds like someone who’d keep her room tidy!)
Upstate New York produced the baseball recruit who works as a sportswriter for his school newspaper and is 1st-chair sax in the orchestra. His application celebrated the importance of baseball in his life and explained how that passion led him to found an annual drive to bring baseball equipment to children in Costa Rica.
The LGBT Alliance co-president from New York City is also a member of the NYCLU Teen Activist Project: “I want to use my life to make a difference,” the potential history or physics major told us. He credited his grandfather and his two moms with instilling him with a passion for social justice.
The lit mag editor-in-chief from Newton, MA showcased her writing prowess through a creative, introspective YOLO response that mused about human mortality through the planetarium at the Museum of Science, Macbeth’s poison ambition, and “Kim Kardashian’s marriage spectacular.” She concluded, “Attempts at immortality are inherently selfish and therefore meaningless…I want to absorb all existence has to offer, to connect with others, to learn, and to find beauty.”
A poly-lingual humanities gal from Malaysia is vice president of her school’s finance club and likes to make slam poetry videos. When she answered “let your life speak,” she offered a lovely image of her “little apartment in the heart of Penang” where “sipping Nanyang coffee by the dusty pavement is a brilliant way to live.”
Nearby Vietnam produced the prospective anthropology and psychology major voted “Girl with the Weirdest Knowledge” by her classmates. She explained, “I’m the one who can’t wait to talk about intricate Japanese funeral customs and who rummaged through every bookstore in Hanoi to find an English-language copy of Faith of My Fathers.”
Let’s go back to Upstate New York to meet the biomedical engineer and softball catcher. She’s also a #1 doubles tennis player with a strong commitment to increasing female access to engineering.
Charlotte, NC is home to the triathlete considering a major in economics. A swimmer who finished first in a state meet, he applied ED because he thought Tufts is “simply unexpected, inclusive…and downright interesting.” He’s currently reading Tesla “for fun” and is the founder of a bat conservation service project.
Tufts’ film and drama offerings attracted the Thai youth activist who spoke at the opening of the UN’s Asia Population Conference last year. The captain of her school’s soccer team is also the founding president of the video production club; she keeps the UN declaration of Universal Human Rights posted on her bedroom wall next to a poem by Joyce Stevens about women in society.
As Sandra Bullock tried to say in Gravity, Hello Houston! The daughter of a fork lift operator, she is the salutatorian of her class and commutes two hours to school each morning! She hopes to study international relations and anthropology.
Another drama buff joins us from Columbia, SC, where she works 18 hours a week at a movie theatre. Her application offered some fashion flair: “Go-go boots are fashionable in any time period and on any planet.” (I’d say the same of my Converse sneakers.)
“If I could, I would spend the rest of my life lying on my bed devouring one book after another,” the competitive hip hop dancer from Westchester County announced. She loves sampling exotic foods, making jewelry and serving as a board member for the Students for Senegal group at her school. Chinese and international relations are on her radar as possible majors.
The environmental engineer from Grand Rapids, MI is first chair in the drum line and VP of his school’s Young Democrats Club. “My life speaks through engaged parents who taught me that living and learning are inseparable,” he said. And he walks the talk: his long-time best friend is autistic and he volunteers in his school’s autistic classroom as a gesture of friendship.
Saint Paul, MN sends us a valedictorian unicyclist with an interest in chemistry and community health. She described her commitment to mastering the showmanship of the unicycle as “Madonna circa 1990.” (Your parents can explain that one.)
The DNA-enthusiast from Queens is the son of Colombia immigrants who spent last summer studying chronic kidney disease in zebra fish as a model for humans. He also won of eight spots from New York City for the Korea Society Youth Ambassador Program.
Down the Long Island Expressway (or the LIE to those in the area) comes a humanities guy with a long resume in mock trial and moot court. A tour guide at Walt Whitman’s birthplace, this comedy improv troupe member loved the pizza and elephants he discovered at Tufts.
And the cellist from Belmont, MA rounds out this preview of ’18 Jumbos. She once played a chamber duet with her dad: “You only really get to know someone (even your dad) once you’ve debated whether a piece should be forte or pianissimo at measure 52.”
So there they are: 18 personalities who now populate our Class of 2018. Do they sound like the kind of people you’d like to find at your college?