Am I good enough for Tulane (and a few other reach schools)?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

I’m a rising senior, and I did a tour of Tulane last week and LOVED it! My mom’s from New Orleans, and we’re only about a three-hour drive from NO, so I’ve been to and love NO a lot. Of course, during the tour they talked a lot about the “prestige” of the school, so I just wanted to get some advice to see if I match up.

Sex: Female
Race: White
State: FL
GPA: 3.96/4.66
Rank: 5/328
ACT: (superscore) C: 31 E: 35 R: 31 M: 30 S: 28 (I’m awful at science) (not taking again because I hate the ACT)

SAT: 1420 (700 Critical Reading/Writing, 720 Math, 7/7/7 essay) (taking again in October)

SAT II: USH 750 (taking two more in November)

High School: Public, Magnet

APs (my school only offers eight): World History (5), English Lang (5), APUSH (5), APES (4)

Junior Courses: APUSH, AP Lang, APES, Honors Chem, Honors Pre-Cal, Journalism 2, Web Design

Senior Courses:
-AP Cal AB
-AP Gov (first semester)
-AP Macro (second semester)
-AP Lit
-Journalism 3 (yearbook)
-Television Production (my school forces you to be a part of a career program, so TV production is the multimedia program) -two other honors/AP classes (my schedule is messed up right now, but I’m running out of courses to take at my school because my school offers nothing)

Extra-Curriculars/Summer:
-yearbook staff writer (10th)
-yearbook editor-in-chief (11th, 12th)
-NHS member (10th, 11th)
-NHS President (12th)
-editor-in-chief for local Odyssey community
-just got hired as a four month intern for a college blog (that belongs to a current USC Annenberg student)
-Spanish Honors Society member (10th) (my school does not let you be in SHS if you are not in Spanish III honors or higher, but my school doesn’t offer any foreign past Spanish III, so I couldn’t do it after 10th grade)
-community-based youth leadership program (12th)

  • council member on local teen outreach/volunteer program (12th)
    -co-founder/VP of my school’s Environmental Club (11th, 12th)
    -founder of my school’s Creative Writing Club (10th) got busy with yearbook)
    -church youth group (9th, 10th, 11th, 12th)
    -attended the Washington Journalism and Media Conference at George Mason University (summer 2015)
    -attended the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications Summer Institute (summer 2016)

Community Service: 100+ hours

Intended Major: Communications

Awards: (nothing major, just school stuff) Academic Achievement (highest grade) in multimedia (9th)/English II Honors (10th)/Spanish III Honors (10th), Top 10 (10th, 11th)

Certifications: Adobe Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Premiere Pro, and Flash; Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel (through my Multimedia Academy/my school is very technology-focused)

Work Experience: worked part time during school breaks at PacSun

I’m also applying to USC, NYU, UF, FSU, U Miami, UGA, Chapman, and potentially Pepperdine and Syracuse. Feel free to chance me on those too.

2

I would say you have a chance at Tulane, but I would retake the ACT. A higher score would definitely help you a lot!
USC and NYU would probably be a medium reach, but the other schools I would say are match schools!

3

@okiedokie1 thank you! I’m actually retaking the SAT in October because it’s easier for me (and I’ve taken the ACT four times now).

4

Based on the Concordance Tables, your 1420 on the new SAT equates to a 2020 on the old SAT. So your test scores put you well into the middle 50% range for admitted students.

A 31 on the ACT is the equates to a 1420 to 1440 on the new SAT. Send both scores, ACT and SAT, to colleges and let them choose the highest “score”.

https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/pdf/higher-ed-brief-sat-concordance.pdf

You’re a match at Tulane, but it’s worth the effort to get your SAT score up a bit.

You are a match at UF, FSU and Miami. It may also help a bit to raise your SAT for UF and Miami.

You are a match to UGA, but may want to try to get your SAT score up to 1470+ or better to maximize your chances at an OOS tuition waiver + scholarship.

https://www.admissions.uga.edu/prospective-students/tuition-fees/scholarships

Good Luck!

5

@Gator88NE thanks!

6

@thefloridavegan Tulane does not superscore the ACT. It only will superscore the SAT. See admissions.tulane.edu

7

You can probably get into Tulane. They have lowered their standards recently as they are having trouble getting people after the recent flooding.

8

I would not take that info as accurate on lowered standards due to flooding. New Orleans wasn’t affected and only 13% of students are from LA.

But, Tulane has no application fee so go ahead and apply! Would be helpful to know actual ACT. They do super score SAT across same versions of the test.

9

@Futuremed17 your comment is many years out of date. Tulane has had a huge surge in application numbers, Katrina was over 10 years ago. Acceptance rates have in recent years generally been in the 20s.

10

@jym626 my comment has nothing to do with Katrina. By recent I mean this year. Check out -

http://www.nola.com/news/baton-rouge/index.ssf/2016/08/louisiana_flood_recovery.html

According to someone I know that works at the university apps are down- at least in a sense that they are having to settle for lower scores. People don’t want to head down there, even if the flooding is not right by the university as it seems to be a bit of a mecca for this kind of think.

**I really could care less if you take my word or not, I’m just passing along info