As I think is incredibly obvious from the Admissions blog and Twitter account that the Tufts Admissions team keeps, Tufts is in general a super fun and friendly place to be.
I’ve always been of the philosophy that the personalities of an admissions team at any given school is very indicative of the personality of the school overall- which in my opinion, is only logical. After all, it’s the admissions team that decides which students are accepted! Dan Grayson, one of the admissions officers, totally agrees with me on this, FYI.
In this way, I’m always proud to say that I go to Tufts and know admissions officers like Dan (who treated me to Thai food the other day- thank you, Dan! And all you single ladies, I think Dan is total marriage material. If you like it then you shoulda put a ring on it! Just saying. I hope he doesn’t read this part cause then he’d just get embarrassed and trip on his own feet or something
). Really though. I’m thrilled with these faces of our university and I think potential students can learn a lot about Tufts through reading all the blogs that are kept through the admissions website.
I do think it’s a little harder to really get a feel for what it’s like when applying as a transfer, though. There’s no transfer admissions team blog, and I’m the only blogger currently writing about the transfer experience.
Well, I’m happy to inform all concerned transfer potentials that the transfer admissions team is really really awesome! After lunch with Dan on Tuesday, he took me back to the admissions office to meet Denny, the man who basically oversees the transfer decision process. I had tried to meet him earlier this year, only to discover to my greatest dismay that he was out of the office at the time
Denny, who is busy all the time, was only excited to see me. He not only knew who I was right away, but he remembered my application and the names of other transfer students I told him about. Plus, Denny has a little table covered with delicious snacks that he told me to come and eat anytime I want. Transfer students, if you’ve never gone to see Denny, the macadamia nuts and chocolates he keeps in his office should be reason enough! Though he’s just really great in general
I have a bit of a history with Denny. Denny, in some crazy moment, somehow decided to admit me to Tufts- and the great part is, he really helped me out by giving me my decision early. There are plenty of reasons why, but in short I was still in Kenya, my spot for another school would only be held until the end of April (while other decisions were to come out in May), and I was panicking all around. My friends in the States scurried to help make phone calls for me while I e-mailed admissions offices, and not a single school was helpful. Except for Tufts and Denny!
I very strongly feel that there is wisdom in knowing which rules to break under special instances, and I’ve never had much of a tolerance for those who always follow the rules no matter what. When Denny went and read my application early, he was doing something unusual, but it was the result of an informed decision and careful consideration of my situation. All other schools (which will certainly remain unnamed) were kind of, well, douchebags (Am I allowed to say this on an admissions blog? Sorry if not!). Though I knew plenty of people here before I even enrolled, I think that this was my first real impression of what the Tufts community is like and I liked what I saw.
But anyway, I think it sums Tufts up in general- we break the rules when we see they need to be broken and we care about you. Every single member of the Tufts community- whether it’s Denny the admissions officer or Larry Bacow, the president of our university- pays attention to the students and is here to help them out. Another reason I love Tufts






