<p>Hi guys, I know demonstrated interest is a very important factor in the admission at Tulane. That being said, I have showed a lot of interest, including visiting the school, going to the Tulane Comes to You, writing a killer Why Tulane essay, and keeping in touch with the admissions counselor from my area. I was deferred SCEA, and am waiting for a response. I have a lot of extracurriculars and service. My weakness, however, is my GPA of 3.3 (private school, unweighted) and test score of around 1750. I was wondering if there was any possibility of me being accepted or am I shooting too high? </p>
<p>As Yogi Berra said, " It ain’t over til it’s over " Think positively, but do have another plan in place if this one doesn’t work out. </p>
<p>According to the data Tulane provides in the Common Data Set, Demonstrated interest is not “Very Important”, it is only “Considered”. The “Very Important” factors are Rigor, GPA, Test Scores, and Class Rank. “Important” factors are Essay, Recommendations, and Character/Personal Qualities.</p>
<p>I understand they say that in their response on the CDS, @BobWallace, but empirical results over the last 3 years says otherwise. To be fair, it is usually the students that have really high stats that seem to be using Tulane as a safety that need to show a lot of interest if they really want to go to Tulane, but even so Tulane seems to take this kind of interest into significant account in most cases.</p>
<p>@ThingsWeLost - You are right that your stats make you a borderline candidate and so Tulane is no doubt waiting to see how this class is shaping up in terms of enrollment before deciding on your candidacy. That doesn’t just mean stats, but also whatever other assets you might bring to the school. That is, of course, impossible to predict. So while there is nothing wrong with shooting a little high (I definitely don’t think you were wrong to reach for Tulane, everyone should have a couple of reaches they apply to and Tulane was a reasonable one for you. Duke, for example, would not have been), as DebmomNY says hopefully you have applied to schools that are more solidly in your range. You probably already have a couple of acceptances, yes?</p>
<p>Just toured Tulane last week. At the info session, the admissions rep made it quite clear that demonstrated interest is extremely important to them. </p>
<p>What did you think of your visit overall, Chardo?</p>
<p>Let’s see. Our tour guide kept getting interrupted by other students saying hello to him. Three different students yelled at us to “just come here, it’s awesome”. We ran into two students from our home town (small world), both praised the school. I have toured a lot of schools, and that kind of happiness is unusual. It was also 75 degrees in February. What’s not to like?</p>
<p>LOL, that is so true. 75 in Feb is a very nice treat, especially now. I bet you are not so happy to be back in the cold weather.</p>
<p>Of all the things that people say about their visits to Tulane, the one I think I hear more than any other is some variation of "Three different students yelled at us to ‘just come here, it’s awesome’ ". That and how friendly and helpful random students are and, as you say, how happy they seem. Says a lot about the school, I think.</p>
<p>If Tulane is not honest in their CDS responses, that is a shame.</p>
<p>Oh for goodness sake, @BobWallace. That is really nitpicking. First of all, it is just our impression that it is important. Perhaps within the admissions office itself they are looking at it from a different perspective. Second, it isn’t like those are exact, quantitative terms. And perhaps most importantly, as I mentioned there is no doubt that it is somewhat situational. For students that are highly likely, based on historical trends, to be using Tulane as a “safety”, it is very important that students who really want Tulane demonstrate interest so Tulane doesn’t put them in the “wrong” pile. For students where Tulane is a reach school, it is probably far less important that they demonstrate interest to the extent of the first category of student I mentioned. It would be obvious to Tulane that they would (on the whole) love to get accepted and attend. Still, it is always better to show interest to the extent possible. It never hurts. Now how does the CDS allow for those kinds of distinctions?? It’s a tool that has several flaws. To disparage Tulane based on that is rather silly.</p>
<p>I would even go further to say that Tulane is demonstrably more honest in their reporting than some very well known schools. The CDS instructions clearly say that average GPA and GPA tiers should be reported based on an unweighted, 4.0 scale. Tulane does this. Yet UVA, UCLA and several others I have looked at recently refuse to adjust their reporting and instead continue to report weighted GPA’s. Now when those averages turn out to be over a 4.0 it is obvious, but how are we supposed to tell about a school that reports, say, a 3.85? There are several where I am exceedingly confident that there is no way that is the UW, adjusted average for their students. It would put them above schools like Princeton, and I can promise you for these schools I am talking about it is impossible.</p>
<p>But even in cases like this I am not sure I would call these schools dishonest as much as I would lazy. I am sure they just don’t want to go to the trouble to recalculate these GPA’s. But that is a more serious issue for people that are comparing schools but might not be aware of these problems than something as subjective as categorizing and trying to semi-quantify how important “showing interest” is, especially since it might not be the same for every application.</p>
<p>It is not my intent to disparage Tulane. From your more detailed description, it sounds like “Considered” is actually correct in the Tulane CDS, and that those calling it “Very Important” are simply engaging in fanciful exaggeration.</p>
<p>
Fair enough</p>
<p>
Well, no. I think, based on observing the results of hundreds of applications and what students did or didn’t do, plus knowing their stats, it really does depend on each application and each applicant. For some it definitely, no question is “Very Important” and for others probably it is only “Considered”, paling in comparative importance to their stats, course rigor, etc. Personally overall I would have though “Important” would have been the best description, but like I said it is hardly a scientific valuation.</p>
<p>Edit - Another way to put it, I suppose, is that I can see situations where, when trying to decide between a group of similar students for offers of admission, demonstrated interest could easily be a determining factor, or at least now a “Very Important” one. So not doing what you can to demonstrate interest could be a big mistake. On the other hand, if a student got into Tulane fairly easily based on all the other factors, then demonstrated interest just went way down in value. I have seen cases like that as well. So how does the CDS take a factor that isn’t used consistently in weight into account? It doesn’t. Tulane decided to average it out as “Considered”. It seems heavier than that to me, but again, just an outside opinion.</p>
<p>I’ve got to back fc up on this business of reporting GPAs. It is no help whatsoever when schools report weighted GPAs. It tells us zip. If their people don’t know why it tells us zip then they shouldn’t be AOs. It borders on the dishonest. We ought to make a list of schools that do this on the College Search and Selection Forum and see if we cannot get them to change. Would that be the right forum for such a list/pressure?</p>