Tufts University
Medford, Massachusetts | Admissions Phone: 617-627-3170
E-mail: undergraduate.admissions@tufts.edu | Website: www.tufts.edu
ADMISSION
Admission Rate: 15%
Admission Rate - Men: 15%
Admission Rate - Women: 14%
EA Admission Rate: Not Offered
ED Admission Rate: 42%
Admission Rate (5-Year Trend): -4%
ED Admission Rate (5-Year Trend): +7%
% of Admits Attending (Yield): 47%
Transfer Admission Rate: 14%
# Offered Wait List: 1,957
# Accepted Wait List: 723
# Admitted Wait List: 8
SAT Reading/Writing (Middle 50%): 680-750
SAT Math (Middle 50%): 700-780
ACT Composite (Middle 50%): 31-34
Testing Policy: ACT/SAT Required
SAT Superscore: Yes
ACT Superscore: Yes
% Graduated in Top 10% of HS Class: 78%
% Graduated in Top 25% of HS Class: 93%
% Graduated in Top 50% of HS Class: 100%
ENROLLMENT
Total Undergraduate Enrollment: 5,643
% Part-Time: 2%
% Male: 48%
% Female: 52%
% Out-of-State: 76%
% Fraternity: 12%
% Sorority: 15%
% On-Campus (Freshman): 100%
% On-Campus (All Undergraduate): 65%
% African-American: 4%
% Asian: 13%
% Hispanic: 7%
% White: 55%
% Other: 5%
% Race or Ethnicity Unknown: 5%
% International: 10%
% Low-Income: 10%
ACADEMICS
Student-to-Faculty Ratio: 9:1
% of Classes Under 20: 69%
% of Classes Under 40: 89%
% Full-Time Faculty: 64%
% Full-Time Faculty w/ Terminal Degree: 94%
Top Programs
Biology
Computer Science
Economics
Engineering
English
International Relations
Quantitative Economics
Science, Technology and Society
Retention Rate: 96%
4-Year Graduation Rate: 87%
6-Year Graduation Rate: 93%
Curricular Flexibility: Very Flexible
Academic Rating: 
FINANCIAL
Institutional Type: Private
In-State Tuition: $57,324
Out-of-State Tuition: $57,324
Room & Board: $15,086
Required Fees: $1,254
Books & Supplies: $1,000
Avg. Need-Based Aid: $48,886
Avg. % of Need Met: 100%
Avg. Merit-Based Aid: $0
% Receiving Merit-Based Aid: 0%
Avg. Cumulative Debt: $28,014
% of Students Borrowing: 33%
CAREER
Who Recruits
1. Gelber Group
2. Cogo Labs
3. Amazon Robotics
4. Putnam Investments
5. Oppenheimer & Co.
Notable Internships
1. Deutsche Bank
2. UBS
3. Wayfair
Top Industries
1. Business
2. Education
3. Research
4. Engineering
5. Operations
Top Employers
1. Google
2. Amazon
3. Microsoft
4. Deloitte
5. Facebook
Where Alumni Work
1. Boston
2. New York City
3. San Francisco
4. Washington, DC
5. Los Angeles
Median Earnings
College Scorecard (Early Career): $75,800
EOP (Early Career): $73,100
PayScale (Mid-Career): $118,100
RANKINGS
Forbes: 34
Money: 90
U.S. News: 29 (T), National Universities
Wall Street Journal/THE: 30
Washington Monthly: 50, National Universities
Inside the Classroom
Quite small for being one of the nation’s top research universities at just over 5,600 undergraduates, Tufts excels in delivering a highly personalized educational experience that is on par with its upper-echelon liberal arts rivals Williams and Amherst. In fact, like Amherst and Brown University, the school is notable for having no core curriculum. Instead, students are “encouraged to immerse themselves in the full expanse of course offerings, deepening existing interests while discovering new areas of study.”
Three schools serve Tufts’ undergraduate population: The College of Arts & Sciences, the College of Engineering, and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. The three schools combined offer more than ninety majors and minors; approximately one-third of all students double major, and half declare a minor. The school encourages freshmen and sophomores to “Go broad, then deep.” Students who do not want to be tethered to a laundry list of required introductory courses will relish the freedom Tufts affords its undergrads.
The university prides itself on its undergraduate teaching, and it shows; 82 percent of the Class of 2018 reported feeling satisfied with their educational journey. Nearly every professor is willing to take on research assistants, and plenty of funding is available. In the College of Engineering, 60 percent of students have a chance to participate in a research project at some point during their collegiate experience. Classes are small, especially when considering the school’s legitimate research university status. Twenty-two percent of all courses see fewer than ten students enrolled, and 69 percent have sub-twenty enrollments. The student-to-faculty ratio is 9:1. A substantial segment of the student body, 40-45 percent, study abroad at one of eighty preapproved programs in locales such as Chile, Ghana, Hong Kong, and Madrid.
Well-regarded by industry and elite graduate/professional schools, a diploma in any discipline from Tufts will get you where you want to go. The most popular majors by volume are international relations, economics, computer science, engineering, and biology—all of which receive very high marks. The university does a fantastic job helping students land nationally competitive scholarships. Tufts is a leading producer of Fulbright Scholars, hitting double digits most years, and it also has seen its fair share of Goldwater, Udall, Truman, and Astronaut Scholarships in recent memory.
Outside the Classroom
Unlike some of Tufts’ graduate programs, the undergraduate schools are not located in downtown Boston. However, Medford is part of the Boston metro area and is only five miles from the city limits, which makes its location far less remote than many of its rival New England colleges. Fewer than 70 percent of students live on campus in one of forty residential options ranging from traditional dorms to shared apartments. Many upper-classmen move off campus or live in fraternity or sorority houses. Close to one-quarter of the student population has traditionally gone Greek. Yet, some recent well-publicized hazing incidents led to dissolution or suspension of many chapters that altered, at least for the time being, the influence of Greek-letter organizations on campus. Presently, only 12 percent of men and 15 percent of women are Greek affiliated. Few Tufts students are lone wolves as a staggering 94 percent join at least one of the school’s 341 recognized student organizations. Opportunities for community service are plentiful. Many students are involved in athletics, whether a member of one of the twenty-nine varsity sports teams competing in NCAA Division III, twenty-two club teams, or intramural groups. Campus is attractive and full of perks, including the new 42,000-square-foot Tisch Sports & Fitness Center that features tennis courts, pools, squash courts, and dance studios. As a bonus, dining options are given rave reviews as every Tufts student has a favorite dish.
Career Services
With thirteen full-time staff members who focus on undergraduate advising, career relations, and alumni outreach, the Tufts Career Center sports a 426:1 student-to-advisor ratio, which is within the average range of schools featured in this guide. The career services staff has done an incredible job improving its outreach over the past two decades. In 1998, only 32 percent of graduates were satisfied with the university’s career services, but by 2015 a healthy 83 percent expressed positive feelings, and annual interactions with students had risen to over 7,600. In 2017, they increased the number of sessions with engineering students by 41 percent from the previous year, another indicator that this is an office on the rise.
Tufts does an exceptional job of assisting undergraduates with internship procurement. A robust 66 percent of Tufts graduates completed two or more internships during their time at the university; 89 percent completed at least one. The Fall Career Fair is attended by 185+ companies, and on-campus recruiting/interviews take place throughout the academic year. Career Treks and networking events in cities like New York and San Francisco are also regular occurrences. A recent switch from the antiquated Jumbo Jobs platform to Handshake was lauded by students. As an added long-term support, alumni have lifetime access to the spectrum of career services, including one-on-one job counseling. With a solid track record in internship participation, job placement, and graduate school outcomes, Tufts career services does an exceptional job setting its undergraduates up for next level of success.
Professional Outcomes
Six months after earning their diplomas, 96 percent of 2018 Tufts graduates were employed, attending graduate school, or otherwise productively engaged. The most commonly entered fields were health, life sciences, environmental (22 percent); engineering and technology (17 percent); finance, consulting, real estate (16 percent), and advocacy, education, and social services (15 percent). All of the leading finance, consulting, and technology companies sit atop the list of the most prolific employers of Tufts alums including Booz Allen Hamilton, JPMorgan, Facebook, Google, Deloitte, Amazon, Raytheon, Morgan Stanley, and BlackRock. The median salary at the start of what is considered midcareer is $73k, higher than Amherst and Boston College but lower than Bentley and Harvard. Most Tufts alumni remain in the Boston area, but many also head to New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, DC, and Chicago. Of the 16 percent of the Class of 2018 who went directly to graduate school, over three-quarters were accepted into their first-choice institution. Included among the ten universities enrolling the highest number of Tufts alumni were MIT, UCLA, Penn, Carnegie Mellon, and Columbia. Law school applicants routinely gain acceptance into top-tier institutions. In 2017, alumni were admitted into Harvard, Northwestern, University of Michigan, Penn, Duke, Brown, and Yale. Medical school applicants gained acceptance at a 75-90 percent rate, depending on the year. Those with at least a 3.5 undergraduate GPA find a med school home over 90 percent of the time.
Admission
The university’s acceptance rate seems to have settled in the 14-15 percent range in recent years and held steady for the Class of 2022 despite an all-time record 21,502 applications. The vast majority of those applicants were for admittance into the School of Arts & Sciences followed by the School of Engineering with the smallest number applying to the fine arts programs. Overall, the mean SAT score was 1467 and the mean ACT was 33. The mid-50 percent ranges are 1380-1530 and 31-34. Last year, over 78 percent of the freshman class finished in the top 10 percent of their high school class, and 93 percent were in the top quartile.
There is nothing unexpected on the list of what factors the admissions committee considers “most important.” It is looking for students who achieved top grades in AP classes, scored well on standardized tests, finished in the top 10 percent of their class, come highly recommended by their high school teachers, and are capable of composing a killer essay. Like many schools in its weight class, Tufts loves to scoop up a large portion of its freshman class in the early round—its ED acceptance rate is close to four times that of the regular round (42 percent vs. 11 percent)— and those accepted early comprise 65 percent of the incoming cohort. Even though it is no longer relegated to Ivy League safety status, Tufts is still understandably eager to lock down as many top candidates as possible via ED. Like all Ivy and Ivy-equivalent schools, Tufts is looking for the best and the brightest and is competing with even bigger names to haul in the best candidates. Therefore, demonstrating commitment through ED can pay dividends for qualified applicants.
Worth Your Money?
Boston is America’s fourth-most expensive city, so perhaps it is no surprise that Tufts is on the pricey side. At $76k per year in cost of attendance, it ranks as the fifteenth most expensive school in the country. Only 37 percent of current undergrads qualify for need-based aid, and the average annual grant is for just under $49k. Of course, many in attendance don’t have to worry too much about the cost because, based on historical data, a high percent of undergrads hail from wealthy families. It’s no wonder that despite the high costs, graduates carry a mean amount of debt slightly lower than average (compared against all college grads). Even if you have to make an economic sacrifice to attend, Tufts is a school that will expose you to many personal and professional networks that will come in handy as you enter the world of graduate school or employment.