I'd like to respond to Adam Pulver's recent viewpoint ("Blind admission," March 7). I write not so much to defend the admissions department, which Pulver vilified (apparently the fact that schools are interested in high SAT scores and yield rates is a revelation for him). Rather, I write to attempt to point readers in a different direction than where Pulver has so oft urged during his tenure at Tufts.
The common theme in Pulver's writings is that something is wrong at Tufts. In the column he wrote for the Daily it seemed like he was making a different attack each week. From the administration to the students, Pulver found something to criticize with every Tufts organization. Furthermore, he often made thinly-veiled allusions to groups with whom he had had falling outs. This semester his column in the Daily ended and the campus hadn't heard from Pulver until he published his March 7 viewpoint.
The reason I write this short history is to point out that Pulver's allegations must be taken with a grain of salt. He has criticized every possible person, been forced out or "resigned" from several on-campus groups, all the while writing often
self-aggrandizing columns pointing the blame elsewhere. I posit that perhaps the problem is not Tufts, its groups, its admissions department, its nutritional policy or any number of other recipients of scorn from Pulver. Maybe, just maybe, the problem lies elsewhere.
This leads me to the second point of this viewpoint: college is what YOU make of it. Tufts can only influence you one way or the other so much. Everybody has things they dislike about Tufts. I wish there were fewer requirements, and that prices weren't so high. Others wish there was more "Jumbo" spirit. Even the professors probably don't like working in their cramped, sometimes windowless offices - but, hey, that's Tufts. For everything bad about Tufts, there are things that are great. I, for one, think the faculty in the German department is excellent. Others find pride in taking part in the EPIIC program or attending one of the seemingly hundreds of lectures that occur every semester.
Tufts certainly provides plenty of exciting opportunities, as well as many frustrating policies, all under the umbrella of what all of my friends would agree is a challenging academic environment. Neither these policies nor opportunities force you to have a good or bad time at Tufts. One can simply choose to ignore the policies they like or for that matter, get involved in changing them, but it is important to recognize that Tufts itself can not ruin your day, so to speak.
I've had my difficulties with Tufts, as well as personal issues while attending the University. I found it important to differentiate between Tufts causing the problems, and my own experience with such problems while I was at Tufts. By doing so, I have, along with tens of thousands of other current and former Jumbos, successfully negotiated my way to commencement without finding it necessary to burn every bridge I cross. Some of us have even managed to graduate from Tufts (or anticipate doing so) as happy adults, content with most aspects of our college education.
Claude Mendelson is a senior majoring in political science.
