Tulane and Michigan have been two of my top choice schools since my sophomore year. While I was recently admitted to both, (I was originally provided with a 27k/yr scholarship from Tulane with admission into the Honors Program) I just heard that I was chosen as a recipient of the Tulane Dean’s Honor scholarship, which completely covers the cost of tuition. I love both schools, but I feel like Michigan is a better school with a better academic reputation around the nation and the world- although I feel like the Tulane offer is hard to refuse to say the least. When compared side-by-side, Tulane would come down to about 16k/yr now while Michigan would be 60k/yr yet I’m completely torn. I understand that Tulane is still a competitive school but due to their recent Early Decision option, I also feel like there are many students attending with lower statistics. I worked hard all throughout high school and by attending Michigan, I feel like all of my hard work would pay off but the Tulane offer is hard for refuse. Any guidance or thoughts are appreciated!
I would say to go to Tulane. I’m not sure why you think Michigan is so much better. If you go by USNews rankings, Michigan is 27 and Tulane is 39. That is not a huge difference. I’m not sure why ED would change that. Many selective schools have ED options. The $ difference is huge. Are your parents so rich that $44k per year means nothing to them?
Take the Tulane DHS. The stats for the two schools are very similar (Tulane ACT 30-33 and Michigan ACT 29-33). Yes, Michigan is ranked 12 spots higher, but USNWR loves to sell magazines, so it changes the rankings yearly, and who knows where the two schools will wind up a few years down the road? If there was something specific about Michigan that you loved, and 44K was nothing to your parents, then I’d certainly say go to Michigan. Absent those conditions the reasoning you gave above seems to favor the Tulane Dean’s Honor Scholarship. (No small achievement, so congrats!)
Congrats. This should be a really easy decision. Enjoy Tulane. No significant difference to justify the price difference.
I agree. Easy decision. Go to Tulane and enjoy NOLA.
That’s a huge price difference - Tulane seems like the obvious choice between the two imho.
My younger daughter passed up the Ivy league for Tulane, and none of us regret that decision. Sure, a scholarship helped with that, but she loves it there. Frankly, I think if you asked 100 people whether Michigan or Tulane was a better school, you’d get 98 shoulder shrugs and the other 2 would be alums of one school or the other.
(same test using Princeton, Harvard, Yale, etc, would be a different matter)
Ken
I know a young man with high stats who also passed up other schools for the DHS at Tulane. He has had a great experience. And NOLA is a wonderful city!
OP, it depends on a) what you are studying , b) what your family can afford and c) what your education plans are after undergrad.
If your family can easily afford either, and could also afford to put you through grad or professional school, go where you want.
If your family is middle class or very value conscious, look at the value of your perspective programs. If you are studying business, nursing or engineering, Michigan is superior to Tulane. If you are studying something else, probably not so much. If you are planning to go to graduate school, your grad degree matters a lot more than your undergrad. So I would lean toward Tulane. It would be hard to justify the $180,000 extra cost at Michigan.
We have members of our family who have attended both Michigan and Tulane for both undergrad and grad school. All had great experiences.
I don’t agree with @kencc83 , Michigan has a much better overall reputation. In the QS world rankings Michigan is 23, (#1 public university), Tulane is 351-400.
I would carefully check the terms of your scholarship too.
One of the problems with using rankings is that there are so many of them, and they focus on different criteria, and have different biases. I’ve never heard of the QS world rankings, but I suppose they’re featured prominently in the U Michigan literature. That ranking puts U Michigan above Duke! and Brown!, really? And Yale at 15 & UMich at 23, really? It’s a bit disingenuous to cite this particular ranking.
USNWR seems to be the most universally used ranking, and it puts UM at 27 and Tulane at 39, which seems closer to reality. Now, with all due respect to those 12 positions in the ranking, I think that most people wouldn’t differentiate much between the two, outside of Michigan or Tulane grads. This is just my opinion.
Ken
Congratulations and another vote for Tulane!
You got into your two top choices and one of them gave you a full tuition scholarship and a spot in the honors program.Unless money absolutely grows on trees for your family I can’t see where UM is worth that huge price differential. Both schools offer great experiences and both can get you wherever you want to go in life. And FWIW my D’s close friend went to Tulane and loved it (she had a guaranteed transfer into Cornell for sophomore year and chose to stay at Tulane – no regrets).
“Frankly, I think if you asked 100 people whether Michigan or Tulane was a better school, you’d get 98 shoulder shrugs and the other 2 would be alums of one school or the other.”
What 100 people are you referring to? The US News and World Report, which you seem to admire, asked hundreds of university presidents to rate peer institutions, and according to them, Michigan is significantly better than Tulane. Michigan’s average rating was 4.4/5.0, compared to Tulane’s 3.4/5.0. Other universities that received average ratings of 4.4 like Michigan include Brown and Duke, ironically, the two universities you seem to think are better than Michigan. Other universities with similar ratings include Carnegie Mellon, Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Northwestern, Penn, UCLA, UVa. Tulane is a very good university, but it is not a peer university.
I do not think one needs to downplay the difference in quality between Michigan and Tulane in order to make a strong case in favor of Tulane. No matter how much better Michigan happens to be, there is no way it is $180,000 better…unless one comes from a wealth family, in which case, financial considerations are moot.
NJDad68, according to its latest Common Data Set, Tulane’s mid 50% ACT range is 29-32, not 30-33. That’s not significant, but I like data to be listed accurately. Michigan’s mid 50% ACT range was indeed 29-33 for the same period. Tulane’s mid 50% SAT range was 1240-1410, while Michigan’s was 1290-1500. The average cumulative high school GPA for incoming freshmen at Tulane was 3.5, while it was 3.85 for students at Michigan. The difference in their respective student bodies are similar and therefore negligible.
http://www2.tulane.edu/oair/upload/CDS_2015-2016-Final.pdf
http://obp.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/pubdata/cds/cds_2015-2016_umaa.pdf
Another vote for Tulane. The difference in prestige and student body is negligible while the difference in cost is significant. Save your money for grad school.
I am not an alum of either school, but I’m originally from Michigan (the state) so I’m well aware of U of M’s reputation.
Re: ED and lower statistics - do you have any data supporting your feeling that ED has caused Tulane’s stats to decrease? You may want to probe this feeling a bit. Many very prestigious schools, including some ranked higher than Michigan, also have ED / EA/ SCEA. You’re coming close to suggesting that Tulane (and all those alleged lower stats ED admits) might be beneath you. Is this an accurate representation of your thoughts?
Congrats on winning the DHS, btw! That’s a great scholarship.
GPA isn’t a good metric, it’s not leveled across schools, states, etc., and then you have the weighted/unweighted factor. UC Irvine (39) reports a GPA of ~4.07 (range 3.93-4.22) - kids mostly from CA with HS’s that give higher GPAs. Similarly, U-Michigan draws mostly from Michigan, so the GPA will be skewed to however Michigan schools tend to see GPA and couldn’t really be used to compare with a school that draws from a different geography.
And this is just part of the problem with rankings, statistics, etc… ACT & SAT scores are a useful metric, and there is some differences reflected there in the students, and this tends to align with USNWR rankings for these 2 schools, that was my basic point. However, outside of the high reputation schools - Harvard/Princeton/Yale/Stanford/MIT/Ivy’s - that everyone knows are the top schools, I simply don’t think that 12 places is all that significant. I’m not picking on Michigan, I simply think it’s not that significant (outside of Michigan, apparently).
Ken
@Shmoo41 Forgot to add - if you haven’t visited either school, go visit. You don’t mention your home state, but if you’re not accustomed to long, cold, snowy winters, try to visit U of M in January or February.
Please do not take on 250K in life crippling debt for Michigan.
It was 65 degrees in Ann Abor today.
^^Yes, a complete anomaly, but in any event I don’t think weather is a great reason to choose - or not - a particular school unless there are health reasons to do so or strong feelings expressed by the student about weather. The OP has not returned, but it seems like perceived prestige, rather than weather, is the concern here.
Tulane. Duh.