The School of Arts and Sciences and Engineering, with the mascot “Jumbo” the elephant, has already had near 1,000 of its 15,000 applicants submit videos so far.
Lee Coffin is the dean of undergraduate admissions and was the originator for this YouTube idea. Coffin told the New York Times, when he thought of the idea, he had just watched a YouTube video a person had sent him, “I thought, ‘If this kid applied to Tufts. I’d admit him in a minute, without anything else.’”
Tufts is not giving up on its traditional essay submission requirements. Coffin stated in a blog, “We will never abandon writing,” and noting also that the ability to express oneself elegantly through writing is very important.
The video is completely optional and will not hurt the applicant’s admission chances for not having one and never be counted against for a bad video unless it is inappropriate. The video is simply to be a one minute video that “says something about you,” and gives the option to really show the college who a person really is.
In most video submissions that can be found on YouTube, applicants show their true self; the messy room, frazzled hair, wrinkly shirt. Before the video, people relied on written words that are not always fully created by the author, resumes that are not always accurate or 100 percent complete, and test scores and class rank. These are all important measures, but a video where somebody can be creative, and it’s truly them in person right there onscreen adds depth and richness that sometimes can’t be found anywhere else.
