Admissions officers at Tufts University have a good reason to watch YouTube during this year’s reading season — it is part of the University’s new college application, according to an article in The New York Times today.

In addition to submitting essays, transcripts and recommendations, prospective Tufts applicants this year were invited to submit a supplementary one-minute YouTube video that “says something about you.” Around 1,000 applicants have taken up the University’s offer, with some clips receiving thousands of hits online.

Lee Coffin, the dean of undergraduate admissions at Tufts, said in a New York Times article published today that the idea to include YouTube clips as part of the application came to him last spring after he watched a video a student had sent him. “If this kid applied to Tufts, I’d admit him in a minute, without anything else,’ Mr. Coffin said told the Times.

(Click here to read the New York Times’ full story, “To Impress, Tufts Prospects Turn to YouTube.”

This year, YouTube has become an increasingly popular recruiting vehicle for a number of college admissions offices; Yale and Princeton have both released admissions YouTube videos in the past month.

Watch some of the most popular videos below: