Tufts University TUFTS acceptance rate 2026, 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018

Tufts Class of 2026

In 2022, Tufts lowered its acceptance rate to 9 percent, which is the lowest acceptance rate in the university’s history. However, the Tufts University Class of 2026 applicant pool was 12 percent larger this year with a record-breaking 34,880 applicants. Compared to other, smaller NESCACs such as Bowdoin (which received 9,446 applications), Middlebury (which received 13,028 applications), and Amherst (which received 14,800 applicants) Tufts continues to both attract larger numbers of interested students and accept larger numbers into their freshman class.

Applicants continue to show an interest in the ED and EDII binding application options, as seen in the rising number of total ED applications—up 10 percent from last year. 

Tufts received a 26 percent increase in applications, this year, for the B.F.A. program at the SMFA at Tufts. The increase in applications is in part due to the Tufts Civic Semester program, a gap service semester. During a fall semester, accepted students will work with a local community organization and complete academic courses as they concentrate on community engagement and social and environmental justice in one of two locations—either Urubamba, Peru or the Southwestern United States.

Student Demographics

Tufts has made strides to accept a more diverse incoming class by committing to meet the full demonstrated need of all admitted students. They have recently budgeted $25.8 million in need-based grants for undergraduates, a new record, to make this possible. Director of Financial Aid Patricia Reilly explained to the Daily, “Each year our office works with the university budget officers to increase the financial aid budget to allow us to continue to meet 100% of the demonstrated need of every admitted student … The average annual increase in undergraduate financial aid over the past 10 years has outpaced the average increase in tuition and total student costs.”

While most of the accepted students come from Massachusetts, New York, and California, all fifty states are represented, as are eighty-four countries. More than half of the students accepted regular decision were women, 55 percent, and 11percent were international students. Roughly 56 pecent of the accepted students attended public high school, and 12 percent are first-generation college students. In terms of racial diversity, 20 percent of the admitted students identify as Asian American, 14 percent identify as Hispanic, and 11 percent identify as African American.