<p>Most likely will be Trinity (San Antonio)… narrowed down from Rhodes, Miami (Ohio), Lawrence (and a few other CTCL), UofI, Iowa State, U Minn. Tulane really seemed like such a good fit for him, but looks like he won’t get far enough in the process to find out.
edited to add - obviously I’m more concerned about it now then he is ;)</p>
<p>
LOL, hardly an unusual situation.</p>
<p>Some excellent choices. I know someone that used to teach at Trinity (SA) and visited once. Love San Antonio and Trinity is a very nice school. I considered Iowa State for grad school but Ames…well, not for me. Lawrence… Is that in Wisconsin, or do you mean St. Lawrence in Canton, New York? If the latter my D briefly thought about it, but it was very early in the process before she started to really get a feel for the landscape of schools. Still, we visited on our way back from seeing McGill in Montreal and some other schools (that was a GREAT trip!) and it was a lovely little place. If it is the one in Wisconsin, I know almost nothing about it.</p>
<p>Who knows, maybe he will still get into Tulane and he will reconsider. Time will tell.</p>
<p>I just dont get this school’s admissions process at all!! So many people’s status changed from deferred to accepted back in early feb. But so many other like my son and @socal14 and @al34 have heard nothing. And all reiterated interest and applied for scholarships. My son has also moved on, in fact he laughs at the absurdity considering how they were literally emailing him daily when he did the first half of the app, but i find it really irritating. No other school does this. My son was deferred from cornell and be was told he would hear at the same time as rd. Thats it. None of this inexplicable dribs and drabs of decisions. </p>
<p>It’s very frustrating. My daughter has already mourned and moved on (at least on the surface). Our state school is looking for housing deposits already. I’m still hoping for a positive answer from Tulane and maybe a favorable financial package. Tulane is the only school that had that spark for her. I was hoping the DHS would work out for her. Unfortunately, our middle class finances don’t allow a lot of options.<br>
I’m clueless on their selection process. I wish fewer kids looked at Tulane as their “safety.” There are so many great, equally deserving kids that will be left out.</p>
<p>I think it has been well documented that college admissions is a process that is quirky, frustrating, somewhat random and overall unknowable to those of us on the outside. That is because, in part, none of us see the entire application, let alone the entire pool of applicants that represent the competition. I don’t think Tulane is any more or less mysterious in that regard than any of the similar schools, be it WUSTL, Duke, Vandy, etc. Obviously some state schools are more transparent, some guaranteeing admission to in-staters that meet certain minimums. But even many state schools reject seemingly highly qualified in-state candidates, especially (rumor has it) at places that need to take more out of state students to get the higher revenue.</p>
<p>Anyway, not to get off track, I wish any of us had answers for all of you still waiting. I can only say, unsatisfying as it is, that there will always be a group such as yourselves every year, at least as long as there are more qualified students than slots available. Tulane, and any school, is always trying to balance numerous factors. They know the delay produces anxiety in the students, not to mention the parents, but they are in a position where nothing is firm until the very end. They have to try and maintain flexibility as well. They know they will lose good students that would have been very successful at Tulane along the way. But until the entire admissions process for all schools is done a different way (and any plan I can think of or have seen proposed has enormous flaws at least as bad as this system), these kinds of situations will continue to occur. Small comfort, I know.</p>
<p>While we were at Mardi Gras we met up with a lovely young student who works in the admissions office at Tulane. She mentioned that the school is going to be lowering the number of students admitted to each class with the goal of 1,200 admitted students. So it will become increasingly competitive. </p>
<p>Wow… that’s a huge change. Did she say why? That’s quite a drop from last year. Wasn’t there over 1500 admitted last year? </p>
<p>That is a huge change, and I think she (the student) must be mistaken. Yes, @newjersy17 the last few years have seen 1550 to almost 1700 admitted each year. I am not at all doubting she told you that @dolphnlvr6 , but just doubting that she is correct. For the life of me I cannot imagine what Tulane would gain from that. They just built another new dorm so space would not seem to be the issue, and of course that kind of decrease would represent a revenue decline.</p>
<p>The only thing I can think of (and this is PURE SPECULATION) that would make that make sense is if Tulane is planning to do extensive work that would require some temporary decrease in the numbers. I know there were, and presumably still are, plans to tear down Phelps and build the replacement for Bruff. But with the new dorm (Zimple House) up and running this fall, I cannot see how that would cause a need for a decrease. So that would leave something major, such as perhaps replacing Monroe and/or Sharp. I have heard nothing like that, but IF the 1200 number is true, what other reason could there be?</p>
<p>Perhaps I can find something out later, but in the meantime it would be entertaining to postulate reasons this could be true. As long as we all understand it is pure speculation, unless and until someone finds out something more definitive.</p>
<p>@fallenchemist while you are a wonderful ambassador for the school and a wealth of information on these forums I I have to disagree with your statement that Tulane’s admissions process is no more or less mystifying than other elite schools. I cannot think of a single other school at this level that does this rolling notification and that process in and of itself absolutely increases uncertainty and confusion. As another parent stated the other day, he feels like he knows the young woman in the video because he has checked Gibson so many times. That is because there are not firm dates of notification given. Second while many schools do this “enrollment management” stuff, in my experience Tulane takes it the furthest. My son for example applied to and was accepted to several other schools for which he was “overqualified”. But they didn’t defer or reject him because they were trying to outguess him and make sure that he wasn’t using them as a safety. They want to seat the best class possible and that means hoping that higher qualified students have other motivations (financial, distance, etc) for attending. </p>
<p>@njl1022 - You make a very valid point about the rolling notification vs. firm date issue. I know Tulane does it because it is extremely effective in getting students that otherwise wouldn’t have given Tulane as much consideration to look at it more in depth and often come visit while they await the decisions from these other schools. Especially those that get high $$ scholarships.</p>
<p>But you are correct there is this side effect which, while the decision would potentially turn out the same in the end, creates anxiety in cases such as your son’s. So while I might quibble that it makes it more “mystifying” (since the denied student would still wonder why at the end, under either system), because it is spread out over a longer period of time it does open itself up not only to the increased anxiety but also to more scrutinizing and comparisons between applicants, at least in this age of social media and forums like this. I think the ones that post all the decisions at once are just as opaque as to why they accepted who they did, but analyzing and comparing all the decisions becomes a much more overwhelming task.</p>
<p>Greetings everyone from California. Thought I would check in for any news. Still no update on my D’s app. I do feel a little better about the silence this past week once I realized it was Mardi Gras and spring break. If we are lucky enough to attend Tulane, I am sure the timing of Mardi Gras will be embedded in my brain (since we would be visiting my daughter every year). For now, Cinco de Mayo is more top of mind out here in SoCal.</p>
<p>As I understand it, spring break ends this Sunday. I am hoping that the admissions team all had a great time at Mardi Gras and they come back to work in a happy mood, ready to admit all of the deferred EA applicants who haven’t heard. </p>
<p>Have a great weekend everyone!</p>
<p>P.S. njl1022, you make some great points about the admissions process that I agree with seeing as we are stuck in the same boat. I keep telling myself that in terms of admissions Tulane has been doing this for a while and the process must obviously work for them. I also tell myself that the PTA is a new award and they are working the kinks out. Having never been to NO, perhaps it is simply a function of the environment? When I vacation in Hawaii it always takes a day or two to adjust to Hawaiian time. Everything moves slowly there and taking time to “stop and smell the roses” is engrained in everyone’s blood. Perhaps NO residents, living in such a festive city, have the same way of life so a rolling acceptance is comes natural? I keep telling myself that we will have our answer in the next few weeks. My D is busy enough with school that the time is flying by for her. Her uptight dad wishes the decision would come sooner. Oh well…</p>
<p>There is definitely some truth that things move a little more slowly in NOLA, especially in the summer (big surprise!). I don’t think that is true of admissions during the busy season, I think it is just the nature of the process Tulane has chosen. You are right, SoCalDad, this methodology has worked extremely well for Tulane, at least since Katrina. That of course doesn’t mean it is etched in stone, things change. Some external to the university such as number of students applying to colleges in any given year, and some internal goals and strategies. So who knows about the future.</p>
<p>While I know that the admissions office was closed Monday and Tuesday for Mardi Gras, I will tell you that our admissions rep was here in NY on Wednesday doing a “Tulane Comes To You” presentation. I’m not sure how long she will be up here but I do know that these presentations are happening around the country for those students who have been admitted. This is just to say that admissions has many facets, they are not just reading applications.</p>
<p>@fallenchemist - still no word on D’s application or PTA application. Do you think there is any value having her email her admissions office one final time stating interest? Or have they basically made most of their decisions already?</p>
<p>I just saw your earlier comment to njl1022 where you wrote “I know Tulane does it [rolling admissions] because it is extremely effective in getting students that otherwise wouldn’t have given Tulane as much consideration to look at it more in depth and often come visit while they await the decisions from these other schools. Especially those that get high $$ scholarships.” Based on this, it sounds like my D’s (and njl1022’s son) chances of the PTA or a significant merit award are pretty slim since the special weekends are in full swing and we have not been invited to come visit. </p>
<p>The traffic on this thread has also slowed tremendously, as if most have moved on.</p>
<p>Optimism is starting to fade…</p>
<p>@njl1022, any word on your son’s app?</p>
<p>@SoCalDad14 - I do think contact with admissions can’t hurt at this stage. It is very hard to say what is happening with her application, but I rather share your fading optimism, at least for high $$ scholarships. Last year and in other years people certainly have been offered admission in the last couple of weeks before the April 1 deadline. I don’t know for sure if they have awarded all the PTAs, but I suspect so. But if she hasn’t gotten an email saying that she didn’t get it, it makes me wonder. I think all she can do is write to her admissions officer and say that she is still very interested in attending Tulane.</p>
<p>So have any students been rejected from the regular decision round thus far?</p>
<p>That’s a good question. As far as I know, denial (I prefer that term to rejection. No one should ever feel rejected by a college) and wait list decisions have always been sent out towards the very end, maybe the last week of March.</p>
<p>Related but a bit off topic, I know there have been threads on the general forums in the past about the best and worst “no” letters. Apparently Stanford’s letter was so good one year that many students found it more uplifting than some acceptances they got, lol.</p>
<p>@SoCalDad14 no, like you there is no change on my son’s Gibson page. And I agree with @fallenchemist, I have no hope for the PTA. Unless Tulane, Like Miami, has one final scholarship weekend for regular decision applicants. I don’t know if they do, I haven’t checked because I’m pretty sure he’s not getting anything or even getting in.</p>
<p>@SoCalDad14, my daughter’s situation seemed very similar to yours. She checked Gibson a couple days ago and her status had changed from deferred to something like "complete, under consideration.’ I feel like she may still be admitted, but without a significant scholarship it’s just not economically feasible. I have the slightest bit of hope that there could be a nice financial aid package, but the gap is huge and we are middle class. Her stats are very good, but not in the “super good” range. My greatest fear is that she poured her soul into a DHS project that was never viewed by anyone because she didn’t have “super stats.” She didn’t realize the process going in. Wish I’d read this thread last September.</p>
<p>@BFSH83 I feel your pain. My son does have great stats (2270 SAT’s 5.3 weighted GPA and tons of AP’s) is most likely being ignored by this school because they think his stats are too good to come there!! It’s just absurd!! You should see the kids accepted by Tulane instead of him in my town!! And none of those kids are going either!! Good luck to that school and its “enrollment management” escapades.</p>