Tufts’ Class of 2019 Sets Records for Selectivity and Yield

Tufts University’s first-year class of 1,360 students is once again one for the record books. Whittled down from 19,062 applicants, only 16 percent were offered admission, setting a fifth consecutive record for selectivity; yield on those offers was a record 44 percent, the sixth consecutive increase in that critical index.

According to Lee Coffin, dean of undergraduate admissions, who addressed the entering class at the matriculation ceremony on Sept. 2, “This is a class with intelligence and personality, a group of students with a wide and sometimes unexpected set of perspectives and backgrounds.”

The students matriculating as Tufts’ 160th undergraduate class include an alpine skier from Quebec seeking low-cost solutions to water purification in Cambodia; a mechanical engineer who created an automatic cat feeder out of string and rubber bands; a documentary-making ice scream scooper; a Turkish businessman who started a ready-to-wear clothing brand; the Teen Jeopardy contestant from Chicago; and a Thai photographer featured in Italian Vogue.

Diversity by Many Measures

International students represent 14 percent of the class. Included are 38 citizens of the People’s Republic of China, the largest group of any nation outside the U.S., followed by 13 from India, and 11 from Singapore. The new undergraduates come from 46 American states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and 44 countries with hometowns that span from Grand Bay, Alabama to Harare, Zimbabwe to Zug, Switzerland.

Including foreign citizens more than a third of the total class is non-Caucasian, and 138 of the students are among the first generation in their families to attend college. Tufts budgeted a record amount of financial aid for the class –$18.5 million in need-based grants — and continued its commitment to meet the full demonstrated need of each undergraduate admitted for all four years.

The incoming class includes 57 National Merit Scholars and 47 high school valedictorians, with mean SAT scores of 713 in critical reading and 723 in math.

– Submitted by Tufts University. Courtesy photo.