Tufts Blogs

Hi all! We're almost at March 15th, the transfer application deadline, so we asked three current Tufts students who were in your shoes a year or two ago if they would share some advice and their experiences! Transfer students come to Tufts for a variety of reasons and we hope that these these stories will help you during this last bit of the application process. First up, meet Tait Smith!

Tait Smith is sophomore and an Economics major who transferred to Tufts after one year at another four-year institution. In terms of extracurriculars Tait joined Palmier Magazine (which is a brand-new food magazine at Tufts) as a writer, and is involved in trying to set up the new Transfer Student Association. Tait primarily focuses on writing recipes “because that’s my specialty, I’ve never been good at telling stories or creating informational articles, but I’m passionate about food!” 

What brought you to transfer to Tufts?

I went to my old school [which was one of my safety schools] knowing I was going to transfer, because I knew it wasn’t a good fit for me right off the bat. I remember my friend was an incoming freshman and she told me a lot about the culture, and it was so easy to meet people. She was talking about all the fun stuff she gets to do, and I thought, that sounds like something I want in my college experience that I wasn’t getting elsewhere. 

How did you get involved in Palmier at Tufts? How did you make friends at Tufts?

I was actually recruited. I posted on my Instagram stories about baking and cooking, and I met one of the founders of Palmier online. [Some of the other transfer students and I] went onto the pages for the class of 2023 and 2024 and made some [profiles] for ourselves. One of the people who approached me was also a big baker and also the founder - he saw some of the stuff I made and he wanted me in! He wasn’t a transfer student, I just happened to meet him. I made some other friends through German and most of the friends I have now I met through language classes and a few others online through various communities. 

What has been your favorite class that you have taken?

It’s probably German. Professor Schumann is amazing, everyone loves her. You don’t feel stressed out in class, you really enjoy it. I think anyone who comes here should definitely try and take a language class. It’s not just to learn a language — especially during a pandemic — it’s one of the easiest ways to meet people because the classes will force you to interact with other students more than other classes. You tend to find sociable people! All my classmates, we get along very well, and several of my closest friends on campus are through my German 1 class. 

Close behind that is Environmental Economics (EC 30). It’s taught by Michael Quinn and it’s a fantastic class, he’s a very charismatic speaker. It’s more about learning the applications and real-world involvement of what we would learn in a micro or macro class. 

What advice would you give to someone thinking about transferring?

When you’re going through the transfer process, there are things you can do before you get into the school. Having friends to help you during the process who know you and can help you look for a new school is important. Have fun destressing hobbies to have some things you can do — not specific to a school — for example, I took up baking to take stress off. 

Try to make friends at the schools you are applying to before you transfer there or commit. Before I enrolled at Tufts, I was friends with students at [three institutions], and through them I got to know whether I would fit in by getting their feedback on the school. Look into clubs that exist across institutions such as Engineers Without Borders. Reach out to professors at schools you’re interested in, I reached out and some of them were pretty nice about it. 

Think deeply about why you’re transferring and be honest about why you’re transferring. Admissions is looking for people — not statistics or numbers — so try to stay away from just saying “here’s what I’m looking for”, more why do I fit Tufts, why does Tufts fit me, what kind of person am I? Don’t write the same essay three times! It’s one thing to say this is a big part of my life, it’s another to have that same emphasis drawn out three times in three essays. Be three dimensional in your essays. 

You’re going through the whole acceptance/rejection process a second time. Be prepared to handle rejection. When you’re going through this a second time, especially when you’re trying to leave a school, it is hard — so having options and support is important. 

 

What was the thing you found most unexpectedly difficult after transferring?

Academics and balancing it with social life. I ended up dropping a class to have a better balance on the last day of the add/drop period. I came from an institution which had a very different teaching style that wasn’t as homework orientated as here. It can take up a huge portion of time, they’re very tough, they’re meant to take days or hours. At my old school, homework was just something you did to wrap up what you learned in your lecture, a lot of it was mainly just in class participation to show you learned everything. 

Any pieces of advice for the first semester at Tufts?

Having an adjustment period and building a social network [in your first semester] is really important. Keep that destress hobby — not enough transfers do that, they get here, they immediately overload their courses. If you come in with a decent amount of credit, consider taking it easy in the first semester so you can adjust and figure out your work schedule. You are going to have a very different kind of academic life. Take it easy your first semester — learn the university, learn the people, don’t overload yourself.  

Do not just interact with just transfers, you want to make friends not just with your class, but with the incoming freshmen, because they’re going to relate to your excitement about Tufts. If we do anything as transfer students [in the association] we do not make it exclusive to transfers, because we need to interact with other students too. It’s not that hard to squeeze yourself into a friendship group on campus at Tufts. The pandemic has made it a little harder to hang out with friends, but on the other hand everyone wants to make friends. 

 

Thank you for reading and to Tait for sharing his advice with us, and stay tuned, we'll be introducing two more students this week!

 

Feature photo by Kelvin Ma, Tufts University.