<p>nique - Congrats on the DHS! Honestly, it is hard for me to see passing up that opportunity. BTW, it isn’t most of your tuition, it is all of it. I guess what you mean is it doesn’t include the fees, which is true. I don’t know if you also applied for the Hainkel, which would cover everything. I also don’t know if they even announced the winner for that yet. But as you say, since you are a Louisiana resident you also get some other instate aid that I guess you would not get if you attend Baylor. I am not “up” on all the details in that regard.</p>
<p>In any case, you are obviously a great student since you won a DHS. As has been discussed on here before, a huge part of your education is the quality of your fellow students. Don’t get me wrong, Baylor is a fine school and you would get a good education there. But look at the stats difference between the latest classes at Tulane and Baylor.</p>
<p>25/75 percentile range, 2011-2012 Enrolled Students:</p>
<p>Baylor
SAT Critical Reading: 560 / 660
SAT Math: 570 / 680
SAT Writing: 530 / 640
ACT Composite: 24/29</p>
<p>Tulane
SAT Critical Reading: 620 / 710
SAT Math: 620 / 700
SAT Writing: 640 / 720
ACT Composite: 29/32</p>
<p>This is a fairly meaningful gap, and Tulane also reports a much higher percentage of students that graduate in the top 10% of their high school class (59% vs. 39%), although I have found this stat to be pretty flawed in the way high schools report it. Anyway, this is something you should strongly take into account. I would say that unlike your statement that Tulane is “an equally good school”, from an academics point of view it is stronger than Baylor.</p>
<p>The partying reputation is definitely not something your father should be using as a comparison. All colleges party hard, even a religious based school like Baylor. In fact, many people say that schools in less interesting places (and let’s face it, Waco vs. New Orleans??) have more alcohol and drugs because there are fewer alternative forms of entertainment. I can’t say for sure this is true of Baylor, but I can say I have seen this in many rural schools. My D (two years at Tulane, spending this year in Beijing, and also a DHS winner) does not drink or party hard and has found a group of friends that go to plays, concerts, attend local events like art openings and book readings, bowl, hang out, date, and of course they do attend the occasional party, just not the kind where all people do is drink. There are definitely options that many, many students choose that do not involve excessive drinking.</p>
<p>Then there is the violence issue. First, as you know Tulane is in the Uptown area, and the vast majority of crime is significantly away from campus. A year ago I would have told you that crime around campus is very low. That is still basically true, but there was an uptick last semester, and somewhat the semester before that. Tulane has brought a strong focus to this issue, and taken numerous steps that seem to have already had a significant effect, bringing the number of incidents back down to previous levels, although more time is needed to see if this holds. Among these measures are increased police presence, a new and highly energetic head of the campus police, modern smartphone tools such as GPS tracking of the SafeRide vehicles so you know when they are coming, much better street lighting, and increased communication with the city personnel, among other measures. However, and I cannot emphasize this enough, all urban schools (and many rural ones) have their crime problems because students often make easy targets due to the drinking and being out at 2 in the morning. Tulane was no worse than most other urban schools and before the uptick actually had lower crime than U Chicago, Duke, Columbia, and many others. Hopefully we are now returning to those kinds of numbers, and I can tell you Tulane has a laser-like focus on this issue.</p>
<p>Another thing that you might want to look at is the Newcomb Scholars Program. You would no doubt be a strong candidate, and it offers some really unique opportunities for women. Since you are gathering arguments for Tulane over Baylor, this is another that might work for you.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>