<p>WorriedMom: My DD has received the full tuition at PITT and the $25,000 scholarship offer at Tulane. Even with the $25,000 scholarship, Tulane seems to be much more expensive than PITT. $25,000 does not come close to covering the tuition costs at Tulane. Can you explain your math? Maybe I am missing something in our evaluation of the two school’s costs.</p>
<p>TitanMom16: What state are you from? My S has an equivalent SAT score so that gives us hope. He applied in early Dec, got his acceptance about 10 days later and got the honors college acceptance just before Xmas. Based on your experience, when can he expect to hear about any scholarship money? We’re also OOS (MD). thx.</p>
<p>I meant Tulane with a scholarship of $25 k vs.Pitts. with no scholarship. At any rate, she is headed for Tulane, especially based upon this last snowstorm which has made her realize how much she hates the cold. Also, kids need to feel wanted, too, and the fact that Tulane has acknowledged her accomplishments, while Pittsburg has not, has made her feel much more appreciated at Tulane, which is where she will attend. Each place is a decent plane ride from upstate NY so it is no difference to us.</p>
<p>My son has a 4.0 GPA + 1570 SAT Reading+Math score (99.5+ percentile nationally) and has decent research experiences in Universities and a local hospital and is also captain of a Varisty team. He does have strong math and state awards and has done 11+AP courses in addition to 3 college level courses. He got full tuition. He would apply for guaranteed medical too.</p>
<p>The thing about college admissions is that it is not 100% objecive. So instead of making an hurried decision- I am not saying yours is- my advise would be to communicate any missing information and see if it works out. At the end it has to be a combination of quality of the school + the cost + other factors like climate etc. Good luck.</p>
<p>Unless the student is doing early decision, which is binding, no one has to accept or reject any school’s scholarship offer before May 1. And if the school is asking for a decision before May 1, you need to protest. The student deserves the chance to weigh all offers before committing to one school.</p>
<p>@worried Mom-- I apologize if I offended you that was not my intent! I’m not quite sure why giving you some information was interperated as a speech. It’s a subjective process in general and we’re all just trying to weave our way through it and keep a smile on our face :)</p>
<p>@rmac399 We received the scholarship letter about 3 weeks after aceptance.</p>
<p>Tulane over the University of Pittsburgh??? Just sayin.</p>
<p>Just saying what?</p>
<p>Just guessing, but there is a common perception that Tulane was and remains adversely affected by Katrina. Much of that is fact based - following Katrina, Tulane phased out many programs including most of its engineering departments:</p>
<p>[Tulane</a> Engineering Is Latest Katrina Victim - IEEE Spectrum](<a href=“http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/tulane-engineering-is-latest-katrina-victim]Tulane”>Tulane Engineering Is Latest Katrina Victim - IEEE Spectrum)</p>
<p>That said, Tulane remains a very good school and New Orleans seems like a fun place to attend college - maybe too much fun :-).</p>
<p>After visiting Tulane last summer it looks to me as though the school has regrouped nicely after Katrina and it hasn’t lost its very good rating by U.S. News & Woirld Report or the Princeton Review, which are bith higher than Pittsburgh, BTW. Also, my daughter wasn’t planning on entering the engineering program. As for being too much fun, it is at least a 45 minute street car ride from Tulane’s campus to Burboun Street.</p>
<p>Undergrad maybe, but have you seen US News’ rankings of medical schools? One chooses the reputation of the entire university and every school within it. Just sayin.</p>
<p>Tulane’s physical plant has recovered. However, it wasn’t just engineering that was phased out at Tulane. For instance, they phased out Sophie Newcomb College (their women’s college). Katrina cost the University $200 million and the subsequent restructuring was necessary for it to survive. The hope is the remaining school would be smaller but stronger. It’s still a very good school and is ranked higher than Pitt by USNews (51 v 64). If your daughter’s intended program of study is one of their strong programs, it’s great. For certain programs like anything related to biological sciences, Pitt might be a better choice. (People in medical fields perceive Pitt as elite due to its medical school and research.)</p>
<p>Bourbon Street might be 45 minutes by the St. Charles Streetcar but it is 15 minutes by car. Bourbon Street is mainly for tourists but the distance from campus to the French Quarter is not daunting. Anyway, students can find other places for fun much closer in Uptown. And there’s always drive-through daiquiri bars: [#12</a> Drive Through Daiquiri Shops Stuff Cajun People Like](<a href=“http://stuffcajunpeoplelike.■■■■■■■■■■■■■/2008/04/03/12-drive-through-daiquiri-shops/]#12”>#12 Drive Through Daiquiri Shops – Stuff Cajun People Like)</p>
<p>US News has been giving Tulane a pass due to its recovery efforts.</p>
<p>I don’t think USNews is giving Tulane a pass. It has a strong reputation in its region and is a popular school in the Northeast. It has some outstanding programs such as its top ranked Latin American Studies program and it has good architecture and business schools. It had been ranked as high as 34 in the past.</p>
<p>Maybe this could be a new topic…and this could go back to being the chancellor’s nominee thread?</p>
<p>quill – I concur! I hope the students who applied for Chancellor’s start hearing soon.</p>
<p>I agree it is off topic, but quakerstake is a bit misleading with the comment about Sophie Newcomb… Newcomb as a coordinate college was indeed phased out, but that has zero to do with the quality or the atmosphere of the school. It had long become a mere formality to have Newcomb separate because everything was coed anyway. Everyone had the same dorms as it is today without Newcomb, the same faculty, etc. etc. The only thing having Newcomb as a formal entity accomplished was to add administrative costs, which Tulane could ill afford after Katrina. That part is certainly correct. But to imply that Tulane is somehow diminished in any way by eliminating this formality is just not right. I do agree with the rest of his post, except I would add that Tulane has also added many programs since recovering from Katrina, and the overall quality of the student body and (IMO) the school in general is higher than pre-Katrina. The only reason it has gone down in USNWR rankings is the same thing that shows that Madame is way off base.</p>
<p>USNWR uses graduation rates as part of their calculations. However, Tulane obviously took a unique hit on this because of Katrina, yet USNWR refuses to make an adjustment to take this into account. In fact, Tulane won’t even be able to report a 6 year graduation rate this coming year because it is 6 years after Katrina. This, coupled with the significant misperceptions many have of Tulane’s current state because of the news reports of New Orleans which leads to a small hit on their peer assessment, has led to a decline in Tulane’s ranking. Odd, since the student body is actually stronger academically than any time in the school’s history and it is very popular right now. In fact, if one listed schools in order of average SAT scores, Tulane would be about #29 or 30 for research (national) universities. I hardly call that a pass by USNWR. Besides, USNWR just compiles numbers based on surveys and statistics and grinds it through their calculator. I am not sure how they could give Tulane a “pass” unless they were to make an adjustment for the graduation rates due to Katrina, which they don’t.</p>
<p>Just wanted to clear that up.</p>
<p>Bumping this up…and PLEASE can we make it a thread and discuss the Chancellor’s Scholarship? If you have applied and heard anything back, please let us know!</p>
<p>From his postings, Fallen Chemist appears to be a Tulane booster.</p>