<p>Hello,
Thanks for all the posters, the info is helpful. I am father of entering freshman. Tulane seems to be a very good school and NO is an exciting city. (one reason we chose Tulane was to experience life other than urban northeast city).</p>
<p>But it has only 88% retension rate. Why is this and to which types schools are they transfering "up" to?</p>
<p>Who says they are transferring to better schools?
I've heard of several instances of kids going to Tulane because it's a party school but then not doing well academically.</p>
<p>There are a number of reasons for the relatively low retention rate. The school considers the rate a problem and has been working to improve it. But I believe a large part of the problem is that a lot of the kids come from a very long ways away. Tulane has more kids from more than 500 miles away than any other school in the country and that physical distance from family and friends combined with being on your own for the first time and the obvious allures of NO - well frankly not every kid is up for it. You are from NJ and you go to NYU or Tufts and it is easy to get back home and there is little culture shock - the dominant culture is NorthEast liberal. Tulane is culturally a little more diverse and NO and Louisianna are definitely not Scarsdale or Bethesda or Cherry Hill. A third of Tulane kids are from the NE but the other two-thirds are mostly from places - well I can't put this delicately, folks in the North-East can be a tad provincial and don't necessarily adapt well and frequently consider any section of the country west of the Appalachians or south of the Potomac (with the possible exception of a couple of places on the West Coast) to be populated by snake-handling fundamentalists and folks who marry their cousins.</p>
<p>Additionally a lot of kids might not have had Tulane as their first choice. Cornell turned them down on the first go around so they want to transfer when the grades come in.</p>
<p>Thanks for the insightful comments.</p>