<p>It’s dawned on me that Tulane is doing some very aggressive cherry picking. Anyone else know this term? </p>
<p>They are letting others play the old hum-drum admissions game, keep students long at practice, do lots of boring (and often useful drills) and scrimmage lots.</p>
<p>Tulane is putting money up front in 2 ways … </p>
<li><p>application fees (which have always baffled me as to why colleges and universities would exclude candidates at the $50 level of purchase, let’s face it, lots of kids … or their folks say … 10 apps no more … LONG before they’ve a clue about purchasing. The marketers call this “evoked set” or whittling the list down), and</p></li>
<li><p>upfront scholarship (or discount coupons), which virtually all of the good students who are now including Tulane in their evoked set when previously it was either excluded as marginal … or not even on the good students’ radar screens … would have gotten in the end anyway!</p></li>
</ol>
<p>This is very exciting to watch. Desperation (via NOLA events, i.e. Katrina mostly and the ensuing bad news) leads to adversity leads to creativity leads to ingenuity leads to bold action.</p>
<p>Wanna bet what we’re watching leads to change in the admissions game lots of places. Tulane is nicely forcing the hands of competitors and in the meantime “cherry picking” a whole bunch of very good students they otherwise wouldn’t get. The real cost? $50/head for a freebie app. with the payoff being $$80-150K in otherwise unrealized tuition fees over the ensuing 4 - 5 years. It’s unfortunate to realize it took a monumental event like Katrina to create this situation that makes a whole lot of sense.</p>
<p>An analogous situation is Davidson coming out and saying “no more loans and 100% of need will be given, not loaned so that Davidson grads may be free of financial encumbrance and more so free to do what they wish, regardless of salary. They may serve in the peace corps or join the army or go on a mormon mission or whatever … but they WON’T have to become a CPA trainee for Cooperspricewaterhouse or a trainee for Citibank simply because they are offering $60K which will be drained off to pay the loan!” And do you see who were the 1st to follow? Williams and Amherst! Watch the dominoes fall … and a lot of poor sisters fold their hands as they won’t be able to play. This is very high stakes stuff we’re watching.</p>
<p>Well, what you say is interesting, but it didn't necessarily follow Katrina. My son's free personal app and large scholarship happened immediately before the storm and pulled him away from UNC-Chapel Hill, where he was also offered a scholarship. So yes, he was "cherry-picked," I suppose, and it turns out to have been very good for him as I hope it is for many others. However, I don't think Katrina was the starting point for the process.</p>
<p>My son also received a large scholarship as did a few of his classmate at his small private high school, and this was in 2002! Tulane was always known at the school that offered the scholarships upfront.</p>
<p>He's extremely happy. He started his third year this year with enough credit hours to be a senior and as a triple major with a couple of jobs. He's working with one of the labs, and he's just won a small grant for independent work. I can't imagine this many opportunities in most universities. Clearly, it's possible to spend time at Tulane in "social mode," but equally possible to be a very serious student there. (He also loves the city.)</p>
<p>I have to say that my son is the same story as ctymomteacher. Tulane is doing some savvy marketing and scooped my currently enrolled Tulanian freshman away from Georgia Tech and some other higher ranked schools because the admissions office took a personal interest, they gave him $22k a year and then one trip to NOLA (which Tulane credits you $300 if you enroll) and you're hooked. So he is enjoying frosh year, balance between the social and the academics is a challenge. I would say that is true for every freshman no matter where they land, but make no mistake, the Tulane course requirements are rigorous. In summary, it has been a great choice for him although as parents we were skeptical at first.</p>
<p>I don't think they personally select candidates, rather they send free apps to anyone at or above XX on the ACT or XXXX on the SAT. And Tulane isn't the only one that does this. I got a free app from Marquette, Loyola Chi, UMinn, St. Louis, and a couple of LACs.</p>
<p>I don't see a problem with an college doing everything it can to attract a high quality student body. Tulanes "cherry picking" will almost certainly make it stronger.</p>
<p>Last year when my daughter got the acceptance letter it came with information about what scholarship money she also received... If you look through the accepted threads I think the same appears to be true this year also... Not sure if the acceptance letter doesn't come with any offer of $$ if you are totally out or if you will be re-evaluated when the complete pool of applicants are defined.. I know we spoke with a Tulane student on campus last year during our visit and he said that he really wanted to go to Tulane but they didn't offer enough $$ but he contacted financial aid office himself and did some "campaigning" for additional scholarship money and was successful.</p>
<p>maleahhpluvr -
If the question of "how much $ more was received" - my post referenced a Tulane student we met during a visit with my daughter... I didn't ask the particulars of what the initial award was vs. final scholarship award was but my guess it that it might have been to the highest amount (which at that time was 22K per year). The only higher award that I know of is the dean's honor scholarship.<br>
Hope that helps.</p>
<p>They were waiving application fees well before Katrina. The two are not related. </p>
<p>And with the scholarships they give out, it works! I can't tell you how many kids i met there that just applied because of the free application and that they ended up getting a scholarship.</p>
<p>Tulane spends a ton of money on publicity and upping their US News Ranking. </p>
<p>Speaking of which, I think it took an unwarranted dive this year. Thoughts?</p>
<p>This is an interesteing discussion. For those of you who are either now enrolled at Tulane or have children who are, did you choose Tulane over say one of the traditional Top 10 or 20 schools where you were admitted? Cherry picking implies to me that Tulane is reaching out to students who are going to get into the top, top schools. So did that strategy work in your cases and you in fact did choose Tulane over say Penn or Amherst?</p>
<p>Few do. And if they do it usually has to do with either location / social life (it's wicked fun down there...), money because of the huge merit scholarships they give, or people wanting to stay near home. HOWEVER, many Amherst/Penn qualified applicants who don't have need but also don't have parents that will pay an EFC don't even apply to Amherst/Penn knowing they can't go. My roommate wanted to go to Yale, and probably could have, but didn't even apply because she knew she couldn't afford to go. So in that sense, yes. In other senses, no.</p>
<p>And a lot of people end up at Tulane by chance!</p>
<p>I applied to Tulane because of the free app and no new essay. So it took like 30 minutes.</p>
<p>I got in with a $24,000 Presidential Scholarship and an invitation to the Honors program plus an undisclosed national merit scholarship.</p>
<p>I didn't apply to Dean's because I was too busy to come up with a "project" and really didn't know what they were looking for anyway.</p>
<p>I will likely apply for the community service scholarship.</p>
<p>I don't know how elligible I am for need-based. My family makes around $160k but with a lot of debt and low home equity (though we just took out a $50k loan to add to the house so that could bring the home equity up). A lot of our money currently goes to private school tuition. I don't know what Tulane does. I think I read that 97% of those who have demonstrated need receive aid.</p>
<p>I did not apply to the Ivies because the EFC calculators I used came up with around $30k, which was just too much. Harvard's recent annoucement would have changed my desire to apply to top schools, but my senior year grades and the fact that I didn't take any SAT IIs would have hurt me there.</p>
<p>But prior to senior year, yes, I'd be considered to be a "cherry picked" candidate. I'm in the top 3% of my class with a 96 weighted GPA, National Merit SF, 2350 SAT, good ECs, and Hispanic.</p>