<p>My D is in the same situation. She applied EA & would fall into the “top scores & resume” category - 2270 SAT, strong leadership & EC’s. We visited the school & she applied for the PTA.</p>
<p>She was deferred initially. After we picked our jaws off the ground, we did a little research & saw that Tulane does not like it if they sense that they are your safety. That makes perfect sense to me & I have no problem with that approach.</p>
<p>However, after the deferral she communicated with her admissions rep to verify her true interest. We have not heard a peep - nothing about admissions, scholarships, PTA denial or anything.</p>
<p>She has since been accepted to WashU STL & Emory, among others. We don’t qualify for any need-based aid so a decent Tulane scholarship might have tipped the scales that way. I guess we’ll never know.</p>
<p>New Orleans - I have visited many times & still love you. Tulane…not so much.</p>
<p>It’s not April 1 yet, @bigdadreed. Congrats on those great acceptances though. Is Tulane still under consideration if they were to award her a $30K scholarship? Otherwise, is she leaning towards WUSTL, Emory or one of the other schools?</p>
<p>I honestly think that she is feeling dissed by Tulane given the lack of news & the imminent Scholar days (or whatever the proper name is). She would be thrilled to go to either WashU or Emory. We’re still sorting it out between those 2, a couple of lower profile options with scholarships attached & a couple of possibillities still pending acceptance. She has a brother 4 years behind her so we are looking at 8 consecutive years of college.</p>
<p>This has been my first college rodeo & has been quite a learning experience!</p>
<p>Same situation here, no news at all. I’d hate to think that he wasted his effort on the DHS and that it wasn’t even reviewed. Would at least expect a “thanks but no thanks” email of some sort. I’m sorry but now this is bordering on (no nice word for it). Hate to think he was part of some big enrollment stats game, especially given the weekly solicitation to apply etc., but it is looking more likely.</p>
<p>Sorry to hear there are so many others in a similar situation. D just got accepted to UC Davis in her preferred major, so she now has a couple of really good options. Will hear soon from several other UCs as well as some private schools. We have one college visit booked for late March and are starting to plan two more.</p>
<p>@bigdadreed, how far away do you live from Tulane? Unless it is a less than a few hour drive, I would think the fact that you visited would make them feel you are genuinely interested (unless D told them they were a safety - something I doubt). Did your D fill out the “optional” Why Tulane essay? Mine put a lot of thought into hers, thoroughly researched the school and classes, and really got excited about attending. She was so interested she completed her PTA application after hearing about her deferral.</p>
<p>I’m sure you know that the rigorous study of winemaking is called enology, with the root being ‘enol’, the term for an alkene with a hydroxyl group attached to one of the carbon atoms involved in the double bond.</p>
<p>I do know what an enol is of course (they are tautomers of ketones and aldehydes), but I have always seen the field of winemaking called oenology (pronounced the same way) from the Greek oinos or oenos, which, no surprise, means wine. I don’t know if enology has become the accepted Anglicized version, but that is not true to the root of the word which really has nothing to do with enols. Although most certainly there are aldehydes and ketones in wines! LOL, sorry to be so pedantic, but I have been a reader of Wine Spectator for many years. UC Davis is, obviously, well suited geographically to be a center for this course of study and research, being close to Napa and Sonoma. Sorry, didn’t mean to take the thread off track.</p>
<p>LOL, well maybe if she goes there I will need to audit a class or two. My D, however, does not drink and has no interest in doing so at this time. Her focus is on neurology and eventually researching treatments for different neurological disorders. Hope this makes sense as I am typing this after drinking two large crimson-colored enological samples.</p>
<p>Oenological, oenological!!! LOL. Just out of curiosity did she apply to UC Irvine? My info might be out of date in this instance but at one time and perhaps still they had some top neuro people.</p>
<p>Very interesting article, dolphnlvr6! I find it interesting that many say, Tulane invited my kid to apply for free! The truth is there is no application fee at Tulane for anyone! </p>
<p>The University of Pittsburgh has been sending my son almost daily emails exhorting him to apply – no essay, “priority” consideration for merit scholarship and honors program, and a decision within three weeks. Their final final admission deadline is today, so it looks like today’s is the last email.</p>
<p>Pitt is a solid school and the kids who go there tend to be really happy. I find it almost sad that they make themselves appear so desperate. Tulane was on my son’s college list even before the priority application letter arrived. But when he applied EA with very solid stats and then got deferred his reaction did include some comments as to why would they try to ‘recruit’ him, just to dis’ him. So I’m not so sure altogether as to the wisdom of all of this stuff that many schools send out to the kids. However, my guess is that there are a lot of kids/families who are not as well-informed as the group here on CC, and there probably are some kids who find out about a school that might otherwise not be on their radar.</p>
<p>And while we’re on the subject, son #2 who is a sophomore (Class of 2016) scored very well on the PSAT (practice for the practice test). So far he’s received letters from 58 different colleges (several that I’ve never heard of, which I would not have thought possible). Some schools have already sent more than one letter. And he’s a sophomore!! </p>
<p>The world of university marketing is something people just don’t think about or see until they are in that position. I was no different. As you say, Asleep, I was stunned at the volume of solicitations and how prestigious some of the schools were. For my D we even got a letter from Harvard encouraging her to apply. Now we all know Harvard doesn’t need to boost apps. But it is still smart on their part to take that slice that score in the 99th percentile on the exams and remind them to think about their school.</p>
<p>I know a lot of people think schools do it to boost their USNWR report score by having a lower acceptance rate, but that only counts for 1.5% of the total score so it really doesn’t move the needle. Given what these marketing efforts cost (buying the lists, creating and printing the materials, postage, then processing the higher volume that results) I sure wouldn’t think that would be enough of a reason.</p>
<p>I do agree there is a surface disconnect between getting a mailing like that and then getting deferred or even denied. Technically the schools are only telling you that they want to have a look at you and so will make that easier for you, not that they are promising anything. But let’s face it, no kid and most parents won’t get that message at all, just that this highly regarded school wants me/my kid. It’s the other side of this marketing coin, no question, but as the Pitt example shows the competition for the better students is, if not fierce, at least very strong.</p>
<p>You are of course 100% correct Asleep. Pitt is a very solid school that competes reasonably heavily with Tulane for students most years. It surprises me a lot that Pitt would be needing to fill the incoming class at this late stage. Full disclosure, my son is in his last semester of law school there now. He did not attend there undergrad. But because he is in a joint law-Russian Studies program, he has some view into the undergrad world there and from what he says it is quite good.</p>
<p>College marketing is very complicated in many ways. It is a rather unique product compared to most goods and services, and the dynamic between the university wanting certain students and the students having choices of universities is unlike almost anything else I can think of. And of course that dynamic changes continuously based on the selectivity of the university and the quality of the student. I rather suspect that most people that get upset about how this is done, if placed in the position of being in charge of enrollment at these schools, would end up deciding much the same way. After all, you have to get to these students with a positive message and somehow break through the clutter, all based on a few stats to guess if you are talking to the right students for your institution. It will change again over time. When this mass marketing first started, it was more effective because only a handful of schools did it. The more ubiquitous it becomes, the less effective it is. Who knows what the next steps will be. Pure social media? Back to more point-of-sale (physical presence at the high schools)? Who knows. Time will tell.</p>
<p>@debmomny. Im not sure who said anything about the free aspect of the tulane application. What I and some of the others referenced was the weekly if not daily barage of emails from Tulane asking our kids to apply. @fallenchemist. I maintain that a huge reason for the mailings is to boost application fee n come. At $80 a pop for schools like Harvard you can bet it is worth the postage and printing costs to increase application submissions. Especially if the stats don’t merit admission committee review.</p>
<p>@njl1022 - I cannot comment on the motivations of Harvard, et. al., but since the Tulane application is free that cannot be their reason. Tulane has had great success in admissions since Katrina both in number of applicants and, more importantly, the quality of applicants. The latter has led to the highest quality incoming classes (at least statistically but I think in other ways as well) in the history of the university. So from their point of view it ain’t broke. Could it be done differently so that they retain the effectiveness without people seeing it as misleading or being disappointed based on perceptions? Perhaps. I am sure they would welcome suggestions, but any such suggestion would have to be as effective.</p>
<p>D is one of those kids that is now happily attending Tulane due to those e-mails encouraging her to fill out the free application. She had no interest in Tulane, despite living in LA, but applied anyway because of the e-mails. Then she got a merit scholarship which put it on her radar, and then her financial aid package made it possible. Unfortunately, she had to visit it vicariously through us as she was out of the country, but ultimately she chose to go there. Had it not been for those e-mails, I don’t know where she would be going to college, but I do know it wouldn’t be Tulane. </p>
<p>@cyclonehome - That experience your daughter had is absolutely textbook as how Tulane hopes the process goes, except for the her being out of the country part. 1) Create awareness where none or little existed 2) Create action by making the application easy and free 3) Create interest by accepting the student early, often with a merit scholarship. Hope they visit. 4) Create excitement when the student sees the beautiful campus, the friendly students, and the integration with New Orleans. As someone else said, a streetcar ride and a campus visit took Tulane from distant 4th to 1st. I cannot even begin to guess how many times I have heard of this scenario unfolding in exactly this way.</p>
<p>So these mailings are, as I see it, part of a very deliberate plan to get good students that were previously only vaguely aware of Tulane to dig deeper and begin to picture themselves at the school. That isn’t easy. With dozens of good choices and the tendency of inertia, most students would otherwise just go with schools that have been suggested or are already known to them one way or another. To the extent some students feel misled or disappointed, that is not good but possibly unavoidable if Tulane is going to continue to reach out in a major way.</p>
<p>I’ve been watching this thread since December, and am now feeling compelled to respond. I am another deferred EA applicant who can be added to the list of those that’ve received no word on admissions, the PTA, or DHS. I honestly am not all that bothered by the ongoing wait for an admissions decision – there was no promise of word until April 1. I will say, however, it does look bad on Tulane to tell your applicants, “You’ll hear back about these scholarships by the end of February,” and yet here we are now on March 16 without any sort of “Hold on, sorry, we’re still working.” Regardless about “last year’s trend” of two PTA waves, that was not the information communicated to the applicants. Undeniably unprofessional, there’s really no way around it. </p>
<p>I would say my biggest issue with this whole process has been the underwhelming admissions representative that I was assigned to my region. I recognize that these representatives are responsible for a large number of applicants, but I think, again, it is unprofessional on Tulane’s part to have employees that only respond to their emails 50% of the time. Of the four emails I’ve sent between December and now: (1.) it took 11 days to respond to the first email I sent following my deferral (only after I emailed the general admissions office the same message indicating that I wanted to confirm that my message had gone through) (2.) no response on my second email with a few questions not answered on the website (3.) an 8 day response period for a yes or no question and finally (4.) an email sent 14 days ago, still awaiting response. </p>
<p>I understand often times students tend to believe that they are the only responsibility of their rep – I know that’s not the case and I would never expect an email back the next day. Nonetheless, running a university, in the simplest terms, is a business. I am at a loss as to why this business would not strive to have the best Public Relations department possible – they are the face of the University to applicants, and frankly, they’re not leaving a good impression. When it comes time to make my final decision, if Tulane is one of my options, this entire experience is going to weigh heavily on that decision. </p>