Tucker attended Fanny Buckland School but at the beginning of the Second Boer War was evacuated with her family to East London. When they returned to South Africa in 1900, she studied at the Wesleyan High School for Girls in Grahamstown, matriculating in 1902. Hoping to become a teacher, with encouragement from her father, Tucker enrolled the following year at Cape Town's South African College (later the University of Cape Town), studying classics, French and philosophy. A "star student", she won prizes in both English and philosophy and in 1906 became the first and only woman to serve on the student council. As a spinal nerve condition impacted her ability to write, her work was typed with the assistance of an amanuensis, and she was given extra time to write her bachelor's examinations, which she passed with honours.
