100% honest & Troll-free

I just finished reading this entire unbelievable thread.

I’m recuperating from cancer surgery, which, other than incarceration, is the only sane excuse for spending half a day reading this.

I went to a public high school in a seedy Boston suburb, then to undergrad in the area. I was Ben Affleck in Good Will Hunting before he was (the drinking age was 18, and yes, we would occasionally slither into Harvard bars for sport).

This might take a couple posts, but I’ve got plenty of time (I hope!).

1. Colleges are incredibly multifaceted—moreso than corporations, airports, maybe even some small countries. To glibly say one is “better” than another is a grotesque simplification. For example, Boise State is a far “better” place to go than Princeton if you want to study accounting as an undergrad.

2.Just because somebody gathers a ton of data and numerically ranks entities by their chosen criteria, it doesn’t follow that there are significant differences between #4 on in the ranking and #87. I think you could make a case for, say, it being possible to get a roughly equivalent education at us news colleges 20-70. Certainly the hair splitting over Tufts’ peers is an outrageously optimistic view of the numerical ranking’s use in deciding qualitative relationships…Especially if u know how hard it is to get tenure-track positions these days. It’s tv probably unlikely that there is something the faculty at Tufts knows that the profs at UC-Irvine or University of Louisville don’t know (ESPECIALLY as it applies at the undergraduate level).

3. The Tufts name… I never, ever heard anyone pronounce the second “t” in Tufts. When I first mentioned that there was a college named Tufts to my foreign-born wife, she thought I was kidding.

4. Never underestimate the gravitational pull of the Boston/Cambridge area on college-age kids. I think many here are over-analyzing the flaws & merits of Tufts. I bet a lot of those who ED there aren’t comparing it to Northwestern, Cornell, and Georgetown using spreadsheets full of data. Kids that age aren’t usually driven by stark rationality. A military recruiter once told me the trick to selling young people on something is to find that one thing that gets their juices flowing. No matter how complicated we think the college-selection process is, I bet in the minds of a bunch of those who ED to Tufts, the selection process is “Good college near Boston? Cool!” They couldn’t care less what departments are ranked (especially nutrition & conflict resolution!!!); they are more excited about being able to party with classmates they know who will be going to BU, Brandeis, & Northeastern.

Anonymous wrote:Weirdest post. Tufts is a top notch school in a great location. It’s the first choice of many at my kid’s school and many apply early. It’s 2023 not 1993. Signed an HYP grad

+1

OP has a handful of schools, applying the same rhetoric.

Weirdest post. Tufts is a top notch school in a great location. It’s the first choice of many at my kid’s school and many apply early. It’s 2023 not 1993. Signed an HYP grad

Anonymous wrote:Uh, I'm sorry to say, but the people who love to harp the most about Tufts' ranking is students, alumni, and parents. Tufts is notoriously insecure, hence Tufts Syndrome.

I have no connection to Tufts, but I’m really tired of bullies like you who come here to trash colleges and people who happen to like those colleges. You are awful people. Your existence makes the world worse.

Anonymous wrote:Wow, this thread sucks. So much elitism. All the schools you guys are name-dropping here are awesome. Emory, Tufts, Rochester, and anything else. They're all amazing places with many opportunities for those that want them. A school doesn't define a person's future, intelligence, or personality. It's such a blanket statement to say that Tufts students have "A brains and B personalities." You have no idea what any of these people are like or their circumstances. Stop labeling people like this, it's so toxic. Maybe instead of worrying about the name brand of the college you attended, worry about your personal goals in life. That's much more important.

x1000000

As if there are any, for OP.

Wow, this thread sucks. So much elitism. All the schools you guys are name-dropping here are awesome. Emory, Tufts, Rochester, and anything else. They're all amazing places with many opportunities for those that want them. A school doesn't define a person's future, intelligence, or personality. It's such a blanket statement to say that Tufts students have "A brains and B personalities." You have no idea what any of these people are like or their circumstances. Stop labeling people like this, it's so toxic. Maybe instead of worrying about the name brand of the college you attended, worry about your personal goals in life. That's much more important.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Uh, I'm sorry to say, but the people who love to harp the most about Tufts' ranking is students, alumni, and parents. Tufts is notoriously insecure, hence Tufts Syndrome.

Oh, let me guess…you are an alum, which is why you are so sure of your statement? Ha…Please! I am not even affiliated with Tufts, but just look back on this thread. There is no evidence the Tufts detractors even have a Tufts relationship. I call BS on your implausible assertion.

+1

The troll college posts are the most obvious, because the trolls obviously resort to Googled information, which is easily decimated by people who actually have first hand familiarity with the school.

Tufts - tough to get into these days because of high inflation with flow of printed money? LOL

Anonymous wrote:The Reddit thing is just dumb.

It’s DCUM that seems oddly obsessed with Tufts and trying to bring it down.

+1

There are a handful of schools that certain DCUMers target. It is more than obvious that those posters have never been to the schools they try to "discuss" - if you read their posts, they sound similar, have similar voice, and attack nonsensical and/or untrue things about the school/s. Their posts are basically rubbish.

Anonymous wrote:I went in the 90s and I liked it enough. Strong academics, safe campus, and there’s enough stuff to do. When I went it was an intelligent somewhat nerdy, crunchy granola student body. Lots of Birkenstock’s. Greek system was preppier but they represent a small portion of the student population. Overwhelmingly though the vibe from the place was ivy-reject with a chip on their shoulder and lackluster school spirit. Most students who were there didn’t want to be there and were vocal about it. It’s a good backup to Brown. It’s also good for engineering, pre med pre vet pre dentistry, IR. Other than that, I think the academics of other schools match it and have better student cultures. Outside of academia, no one really knows of tufts, haven’t encountered an alum in any of my corporate travels. I think most grads go on to grad school, med school, etc. I think tufts is good for a certain type of kid. A colleague’s son went for two years on a lacrosse scholarship and then transferred to UVA for the last two years. He says the academics at UVA were like high school compared to tufts, but the culture was way better. In hindsight no real regrets, but I would have had a blast at BC.

+1

I have heard this often.

I read this long thread. My kid did not even apply for Cornell and Dartmouth, because some kids do not like cold and nowhere environment. Also, as parents, we prefer my kid applying for schools only at north eastern area including NY, NJ, MA and PA. One more condition, my kid does not like smaller LAC colleges but okay for UP, Yale, Columbia, Brown, Tufts and applied for NYU, BU as backup. We have net family asset over $6M through over 25 years of hard working and smart investment so we do not have problem to pay higher tuition as first generation of highly educated immigrants.

Anonymous wrote:Uh, I'm sorry to say, but the people who love to harp the most about Tufts' ranking is students, alumni, and parents. Tufts is notoriously insecure, hence Tufts Syndrome.

Oh, let me guess…you are an alum, which is why you are so sure of your statement? Ha…Please! I am not even affiliated with Tufts, but just look back on this thread. There is no evidence the Tufts detractors even have a Tufts relationship. I call BS on your implausible assertion.

Uh, I'm sorry to say, but the people who love to harp the most about Tufts' ranking is students, alumni, and parents. Tufts is notoriously insecure, hence Tufts Syndrome.