The admissions decisions that Tufts made available to applicants late last week indicate that the incoming Class of 2011 will not differ greatly from its predecessor.
"We accepted 27 [percent] of this year's applicant pool, the same as last year," Dean of Admissions Lee Coffin said in an e-mail to the Daily. "We are expecting a freshman class between 1,275 and 1,285, as usual."
The number of applicants has also remained steady. This year 15,381 students applied, according to the Office of Undergraduate Admissions. "The last three applicant pools have each been around 15,300, and that feels like the right size pool for Tufts," Coffin said.
The mean SAT score also varied little from last year, although it did increase seven points from 1433 to 1440.
In other areas, differences were more statistically significant. "Interestingly, applications from California increased by almost 7 [percent] while those from Massachusetts declined by six percent," Coffin said.
Coffin attributes the increase in applications from California both to efforts by the admissions office and the fact that Tufts' reputation is improving.
"I think that shift reflects our increasingly national profile and the recruitment work we're doing on the West Coast," he said.
Recruitment efforts were also employed to attract minority applicants. As a result, there was a 26 percent increase in African American applicants this year, according to Coffin.
"We visited more schools in urban areas, with a particular emphasis on Boston; joined more organizations that counsel under-represented students toward college access; hosted the largest-ever fall Telescope event; and conducted more direct outreach to these students," he said.
As a result, Coffin said that the Class of 2011 will be a diverse and talented one. "We offered admission to a highly-qualified and diverse group of black applicants from across the country, and I am optimistic that we will see an increase in our diversity enrollment for next year's freshman class," he said.
This statistical increase was restricted to black students, however, as all other demographic groups were represented at levels similar to previous years, he said.
Another change is that more students requesting financial aid were accepted this year than last, said Coffin, who described this increase as "subtle but significant."
"The capital campaign continues to raise additional dollars for the financial aid endowment, and recent gifts allowed our admissions process to move a step closer to the need-blind goal," he said. "The admissions process itself was less 'need sensitive' than in prior years."
According to Coffin, the new Kaleidoscope initiative, which offered extra, optional essays intended to assess the "creativity, practical intelligence, analytical reasoning and wisdom" of applicants added a new dimension and important dimension to the admissions process.
Though information about the exact number of applicants who opted to answer one of these questions has not been compiled yet, "the optional essay added a useful perspective," he said.
"In addition, the quality of writing in the [mandatory] Tufts-specific essay was notably strong," he said.
The variety of writing opportunities afforded by Tufts' application was one of the reasons that accepted high school senior Pat Mulholland praised the university's admissions process.
"I think Tufts did a good job in deciding to do a bunch of smaller essays rather than one big one," said Mulholland, who attends West Chester East High School in West Chester, Pennsylvania.
According to Coffin, applicants took full advantage of the opportunities provided by these essays. "Our applicants did terrific job of adding an authentic personal narrative to their applications," he said.
-Christy McCuaig contributed reporting to this article.
Correction: In print, this article stated that the Class of 2010's mean SAT score is 1443. It is 1433.
