<p>The New York Times reports a 13.36% decrease in applications to Tulane for 2011, is this correct?
Applications</a> Rise (Yet Again) at Dozens of Selective Colleges - NYTimes.com
Tulane U. (La.) 37,574 43,368 -5,794 -13.36%</p>
<p>Could well be. Since, as has been discussed on here, Tulane is looking to enroll 230 fewer students in the fall (1630-1400=230; -14.1%) that would seem to tie in pretty well. It makes me suspect they scaled back on their marketing effort, but that is just a guess. I don’t know that they did that or if there are other reasons. In any case, it is still a lot of applications compared to most on the list in the NY Times article. Not that I really think the sheer number of apps means too much. Mostly when I mentioned it in other posts it was to refute contentions that Tulane was on the decline and/or that people were afraid to apply there after Katrina.</p>
<p>Edit - It also occurs to me that this is the first year that Tulane changed to the Universal App from the Common App, isn’t it? I haven’t really looked at what that entails, but perhaps that is part of the reason also. They also added the “Why Tulane” question, even though it was marked as optional. So there are a few variables, although I think this last one is probably not a factor. But one thing you learn in marketing is that sometimes the changes you think would be the least impactful actually cause the biggest reactions.</p>