Tufts University is a private research university incorporated in the municipality of Medford, Massachusetts, United States. Tufts College was founded in 1852 by Christian Universalists who worked for years to open a nonsectarian institution of higher learning. Charles Tufts donated the land for the campus on Walnut Hill, the highest point in Medford, saying that he wanted to set a "light on the hill". The name was changed to Tufts University in 1954, although the corporate name remains "the Trustees of Tufts College". For more than a century, Tufts was a small New England liberal arts college until its transformation into a larger research university in the 1970s. Tufts is a charter member of the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC). In 2017, the university accepted 14.8% of undergraduate applicants from a pool of 21,101. In 2016, it was ranked 27th nationally and 156th internationally by U.S. News & World Report.The university is organized into ten schools, including two undergraduate degree programs and eight graduate divisions, on four campuses in the Boston metropolitan area and the French Alps. The university emphasizes active citizenship and public service in all of its disciplines, and is known for its internationalism and study abroad programs. Among its schools is the United States' oldest graduate school of international relations, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. The School of the Museum of Fine Arts offers art programs affiliated with a major museum, the Museum of Fine Arts. The School of Engineering has an entrepreneurial focus with the Gordon Institute and maintains close connections with the original college. The university maintains a campus in Downtown Boston that houses the medical, dental, and nutrition schools, affiliated with several medical centers in the area. The university offers joint undergraduate degree programs with the New England Conservatory, and the Sciences Po Paris with additional programs with the University of Paris, University of Oxford and constituents of the University of London. Several of its programs have affiliations with the nearby institutions of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
