How to Apply to Tufts University for Public Health: No Major Named Public Health in Arts & Sciences, the Closest Is Community Health (BA/BS) With a 150-Hour Internship, Apply to the School of Arts & Sciences and Declare by Spring of Sophomore Year, for Domestic, International (Including Chinese) and Transfer Applicants

The short answer first: in the majors list we read on Tufts’ admissions site, the School of Arts & Sciences has no undergraduate major named public health. The closest is Community Health, offered by the Department of Community Health in Arts & Sciences, which students can take as a BA or a BS; the department also has a five-year combined BA/MPH in Community Health and Public Health. The School of Engineering has a separate Public Health Engineering program, a BSE track in Civil and Environmental Engineering, mentioned only briefly here. If you want a bachelor’s degree literally named public health, the Arts & Sciences option is not that type, so please confirm this first. Below are the published details for fall 2027 entry for U.S. applicants, international applicants, applicants from China and transfer students.

1. Degree and program

• Community Health major: offered by the Department of Community Health; Tufts describes it as one of the university’s oldest multidisciplinary programs, running since 1975 and relatively small. It is presented as suited to careers in public health, health policy, health economics, social work, health care or medicine, with courses in economics, public health, epidemiology, medical ethics, history and sociology.
• Degree type: the Declaring the Major page says students may choose either a Bachelor of Arts or a Bachelor of Science.
• Size: 12 courses (seven core and five electives, see section 3).
• Practice requirement: the required Community Health internship, CH 140, is a for-credit field placement of 150 hours, about 11 hours a week in the fall or spring or 14 hours a week in the 12-week summer session, with group supervision meetings on the Medford campus. Past sites include hospitals, clinics, public health and government agencies, community organizations, consulting or technology firms and research institutions. Tufts advises students to be in the Boston area the semester before to search for a placement, and to move CH 140 to another semester if they will not be.
• STEM designation, honors or research tracks: not on the pages we read (the department has research pages we did not cover); ask the department.
• Combined BA/MPH (five years): the Community Health department page says it is offered exclusively to Tufts undergraduates and leads to a bachelor’s in Community Health and an MPH in five years. The School of Medicine’s Bachelor/MPH 4+1 page says the program welcomes students from any major; the MPH is 42 credits including a 160-hour Applied Practice Experience and an Integrative Learning Experience; as an undergraduate you take four 3-credit graduate courses (two count toward both degrees, two only toward the MPH), each with a B or better; you may apply from the spring of sophomore year (after four semesters), with rolling review through junior year; rising seniors have a 15 July priority deadline and a 15 October final deadline; the GRE is not required, and a personal statement, two recommendation letters and transcripts are. The two pages differ on whether the route is limited to Community Health majors, so rely on the School of Medicine page and the program lead. The page requires only that you be a current Tufts undergraduate and does not mention citizenship; whether international undergraduates are eligible is not published there.
• Public Health Engineering: a BSE track in Civil and Environmental Engineering, applied to through the School of Engineering; not covered here.
• Pre-med and graduate study get one sentence: the department says graduates go on to graduate study in public health, law, medicine or allied health fields.

2. How you get into the major, and the bar

• You pick a school, not a major, when applying: Tufts’ application FAQ says you are not asked to commit to a specific area of study, but you must indicate a school or degree program on the Common App: Arts and Sciences (more than 70 majors and minors), Engineering, the SMFA BFA, or the five-year BFA+BA/BS combined degree. For Community Health you would choose Arts and Sciences, whose students have until the spring of sophomore year to declare a major.
• Declaring: contact the department administrator for an adviser assignment, fill out a course planning form, then complete the registrar’s online declaration form after meeting your adviser.
• Minimum GPA, seats or prerequisite gates: not stated on the Community Health pages we read; ask the department (CH@tufts.edu).
• Separate application: none; you declare after enrolling.

3. Prerequisites and courses

• High-school prerequisites: the application and Community Health pages we read give no specific high-school math or biology requirement.
• Seven core courses: Introduction to Community Health (CH 1), Introduction to the US Healthcare System (CH 2), Introduction to Global Health (CH 11), Community Health Methods (CH 30 or SOC 100), Fundamentals of Biostatistics (CH 116, or an approved alternative: BIO 132, CEE 006, CEE 156, EC 13, ES 56 or BME 141), Principles of Epidemiology (CH 114 or CEE 154) and the Community Health Internship (CH 140). CH 1, CH 2, CH 30 and CH 116 must be completed before the internship, which is open to second-semester juniors and all seniors.
• Five electives: one intermediate Community Health course, two CH courses or approved electives from other departments, and two advanced seminars. Students matriculating in fall 2026 (Class of 2030) and beyond must take one of the five electives from the approved methods cluster.
• Grades: no pass/fail in the major; C- or better in all major courses, B- or better in the internship; students with more than one major can double-count up to five courses; up to three courses from other institutions may count after transfer-of-credit approval.
• AP/IB credit: Tufts says Arts and Sciences students may receive up to five credit-bearing pre-matriculation course equivalents, with at most one applied to each of the distribution areas; most carry three credits. Examples: AP Biology 5 earns 5 credits; AP Statistics 4 or 5 earns 3 credits, equivalent to MATH 0021. MATH 0021 is not among the alternatives to CH 116 listed on the Community Health page, and whether AP Statistics credit can serve the biostatistics requirement is not stated; ask the department.

4. Rounds and materials (fall 2027 entry)

• Deadlines: the Checklist and Deadlines page lists Early Decision I on 2 November 2026 (notification mid-December), and Early Decision II and Regular Decision both on 4 January 2027 (notification early February and by 1 April). Materials deadlines (school report, recommendations, optional self-reported scores) are 20 November for ED I, 11 January for ED II and 17 January for RD; mid-year grades are due 15 February.
• Platform and fee: the Common Application, Coalition Application via Scoir or the QuestBridge Application; the fee is $75, with automatic waivers based on application responses and Tufts-specific waiver criteria.
• Essays: the Tufts short-answer questions.
• Recommendations: a counselor or school-official recommendation and one from a core academic teacher (English, math, science, history or social science, or a world language), plus official transcripts and senior-year grades.
• Testing: Tufts is test-optional for all undergraduate applicants. It generally encourages scores of 1300+ on the SAT or 28+ on the ACT to be submitted, and reports that admitted first-year applicants who submitted scores in the most recent cycle ranged from 1240–1600 on the SAT and 26–36 on the ACT; it says it will not assume a score is low if none is submitted. The ACT Science and Writing sections are not required. Tufts superscores both tests.

5. Three types of applicant

U.S. applicants

• Tufts is private. The cost page we read shows one tuition figure with no in-state/out-of-state split, and we found no statement of in-state preference.
• Tufts says that beginning with the fall 2026 entering class, U.S. undergraduates with annual family income under $150,000 (with typical assets) attend tuition-free (the Tufts Tuition Pact); families under $60,000 receive aid packages with no loans; and Tufts meets the full demonstrated need of every admitted student.

International applicants

• English: applicants whose primary language is not English must submit proof unless they have been enrolled in an English-instruction school for at least three years (those with three years need not submit but may). Tufts accepts TOEFL, IELTS, PTE and Duolingo. It states no score minimums; successful applicants generally have at least: TOEFL iBT 5.0+ for exams taken on or after 21 January 2026 or 100+ before that; IELTS 7+; PTE Academic 68+; Duolingo 130+. The TOEFL ITP Plus and the IELTS Indicator do not satisfy the requirement. Tufts also accepts an InitialView or Duolingo interview to show English skills.
• Academic documents: Tufts asks for four years of internal academic results (three years of grades plus any current-year marks), results of national exams taken so far and predicted marks for pending exams. Transcripts must be sent directly from the school (no photocopies), and transcripts and recommendations cannot be translated by the student or family; you do not need a credential evaluation company.
• Aid: all Tufts financial aid is need-based and the university offers no merit scholarships. The international aid page says Tufts meets 100% of the demonstrated need of every admitted student regardless of citizenship, while the international FAQ says the university makes available a limited amount of funding for talented international students; the two are not worded the same, so check the latest. Aid must be requested at the time of application; you can submit the free ISFAA or the CSS Profile (Tufts gives no CSS Profile fee waivers). The application fee is waived for international citizens seeking need-based aid. You may apply Early Decision as an aid applicant with the same package, but ED is binding.
• Proof of funds: enrolling students who are not seeking aid document their resources when applying for the student visa.
• Internships and work: Tufts says international students are eligible for paid on-campus employment and for paid and unpaid research on campus; unpaid off-campus research or internships can count for academic credit, and Tufts has resources to support students in unpaid summer positions. The Community Health internship page points to the International Center’s F-1 internship (CPT) page, which we did not read.

Applicants from China

• Gaokao: not mentioned on the pages we read; not published there. Tufts says admission is judged in the context of the applicant’s national system and that it is familiar with systems such as GCSE/A-level, the French Baccalauréat, the IB and the Abitur.
• Transcripts and school-exit exams (huikao): no China-specific requirement is on the international pages we read; see the general document requirements above and ask undergraduate admissions.
• Interview: Tufts accepts an InitialView or Duolingo interview as additional evidence of English; it is not required.
• Tufts’ own notes for Chinese applicants: none on the pages we read.

6. Costs and scholarships

• Tufts’ 2026–27 cost of attendance (first-years living on campus): tuition $74,862; housing $11,220; food $9,374; fees $1,696; total paid to the school $97,152; plus books and supplies $1,000 and personal expenses $1,846, with transportation varying by distance. The student health insurance plan is extra.
• No program-specific surcharge for Community Health appears on the pages we read.
• Tufts has no merit scholarships; aid is need-based, and the Tuition Pact is described above. For the combined B/MPH year, the School of Medicine page lists 2026–27 tuition of $31,198 per semester and fees of $770 per semester, billed for the fall and spring.

7. Transfer students

• Scope and entry term: Tufts accepts transfers into Arts and Sciences, Engineering and the SMFA, with fall entry only (no mid-year or January admission). The number of transfers varies each year.
• Eligibility: students must have matriculated elsewhere and be in good academic and disciplinary standing at an accredited two- or four-year institution; Tufts recommends at least one year of college study by enrollment; to earn a Tufts degree you must be a fully enrolled Tufts student for at least two years, so applicants with more than two years of full-time credit are discouraged.
• Deadline: 15 March 2027; review in April and May and decisions by mid-May. Materials: the Common App for Transfer (with the Tufts short answers), a Transfer College Report from each college, one academic evaluation from a college instructor or adviser, all secondary-school transcripts, official college transcripts, course descriptions, the mid-term report (uploaded 15 March to 5 April) and the $75 fee or a waiver; testing is optional.
• Credit: only courses with a C- or higher can transfer, up to the equivalent of 60 credits; a Tufts bachelor’s needs 120 credits; academic departments authorize transfer credit, and admitted students get an estimate. The Community Health page says up to three outside courses may count in the major.
• Transfer requirements specific to Community Health: not stated on the pages we read.
• International transfers: the FAQ says a student with the equivalent of two or more semesters at a university in their home country may apply as a transfer, but financial aid for international transfer applicants is “extremely limited”.

Checklist

U.S. applicants:

• Confirm the goal: Tufts’ Arts & Sciences has no major named public health; the closest is Community Health (BA/BS, 12 courses including a 150-hour internship)
• Choose Arts and Sciences on the Common App: ED I 2 November 2026, ED II and RD 4 January 2027, testing optional; declare by spring of sophomore year
• Master’s level: the B/MPH 4+1 can be applied for from spring of sophomore year; rising-senior priority deadline 15 July

International applicants (including China):

• English: exempt with three years in an English-instruction school; otherwise TOEFL iBT 5.0+ (from 21 January 2026) or 100+, IELTS 7+, PTE 68+, Duolingo 130+; no stated minimums
• Request aid when applying; no merit scholarships; how the gaokao is used is not published

Transfer students:

• Fall entry only, due 15 March 2027; C- or higher and up to 60 credits transfer; aid for international transfers is extremely limited

Sources: Tufts University, Community Health: Undergraduate Programs; BA/BS in Community Health; Declaring the Major; Internships; Combined Degree in Community Health and Public Health (BA/MPH); School of Medicine: Bachelor/MPH 4+1; Majors and Minors; Pre-Matriculation Credits; Checklist and Deadlines; Application FAQ; SAT and ACT Tests; International Applicants; International FAQs; International Student Aid; Tuition and Aid; Transfer Applicants; Transfer of Credit; 2026-27 Cost of Attendance. Information is for fall 2027 entry (costs are 2026-27 figures); check Tufts’ website for the latest.