<p>I don't know why. Maybe I'm just insensitive. Though, usually I'm pretty sensitive. Huh. I just can't get worked up about "the plight" of these students. They've been treated very well, IMO!</p>
<p>coureur, regarding your recent post:
I do not think that the 2 situations are parallel. (Non-traumatized high school seniors & jrs. visiting the H campus, versus displaced admitted students to another U in "emergency" mode.) I think most college-age students would respond positively to the latter group. (Reinforcing my earlier comment about this doesn't elevate H or its students to any greater stature than dozens of other 4-yr institutions who have done similarly.)</p>
<p>Anyway, I'm glad to see the thread continuing along the more important debate of rights vs. privileges or rights vs. rights, etc.</p>
<p>"mini, you might want to know a little more about these things before you make such statements.'</p>
<p>I KNOW because T. has made a big public relations push about taking the several thousand students in from other campuses that they never had before. Many students who previously lived in off-campus residences next to the campus as well as some on-campus ones are now going to be housed on cruise ships. Hundreds of the displaced Xavier students, the vast bulk of whom are pre-med or pre-pharmacy will be accommodated in Tulane lab space - and I hardly think Tulane was underenrolled in that department to begin with. The athletics department is undergoing a wholesale re-examination, and 15 of the hundred staff have already been let go. Several faculty have already voiced concern that their research is in jeopardy because of the requirement that they teach the extra summer term. The Regional Humanities Center is shut down.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, To quote further from the Times-Picayune:
"It's not yet clear when hundreds of medical school students, who moved en masse to Baylor University in Texas, will return to New Orleans, or when the Tulane University Hospital and Clinic, now run by a health care company, will reopen."</p>
<p>It's a tough time down there, and the Tulane President deserves nothing but huge congratulations and thanks not just for what he is doing to restore Tulane, but his commitment to New Orleans and the entire area educational community. But these commitments are not those the students made to "in principle" when they agreed to return. (It seems, however, that most of the students are going to return in any case - and I imagine the educational experience of helping to rebuild an entire city while receiving a first-rate education is something no American university would be able to match.)</p>
<p>(But, no, I can't get much worked up over the plight of the T.H. students either.)</p>
<p>Although it (currently) only involves five kids at H there is a bigger story here. A "Gentlemen's Agreement" is just that. What does it teach the student body if H yields to pressure to let them stay? Gentlemen's Agreements be damned? If the kids don't want to go back to Tulane then they should withdraw from Tulane and go from there. Maybe they can go home, attend the local CC and then reapply at another college. (Sorry but these kids and their sense of entitlement in the face of generosity is starting to irk me the more I think about it!) I think what Mom60's child did (withdraw from T and choose another school they were accepted to) was exactly what kids who do not want to return to Tulane should do.</p>
<p>I was curious about whether Harvard admitted students from other NOLA schools besides Tulane. Here is an article from the Crimson from September 21, which mentions students from Loyola and Xavier as well:</p>
<p>
[quote]
More Katrina Students To Enroll
College opens its doors to 36 displaced students and organizes relief efforts
Published On 9/21/2005 12:00:00 AM
By JOSHUA P. ROGERS
Crimson Staff Writer</p>
<p>The College announced yesterday that is has accepted 36 visiting students for the semester from schools shut down by Hurricane Katrina, 11 more students than Dean of the Faculty William C. Kirby initially said the College would admit on Sept. 2.</p>
<p>All but two of the 36 visiting students from Gulf Coast universities have accepted the offer of on-campus housing, Dean of the College Benedict H. Gross 71 wrote in an e-mail yesterday.</p>
<p>With the exception of 10 visiting freshmen, who live in the yard, all on-campus visiting students are living in Claverly Hall and Apley Court, in rooms that were initially closed at the end of last semester due to noise concerns from the adjacent Hasty Pudding construction site.</p>
<p>Gross e-mail said that the newly-reopened rooms were equipped with luxuries foreign to the average Harvard studentlike air conditioning, new mattresses, and rented linensin preparation for their tenants. Residents of the newly-opened rooms are affiliated with either Lowell or Adams Houses, while the two students residing off-campus are affiliated with Dudley House.</p>
<p>In his e-mail, Gross also commended the Office of Undergraduate Admissions for quickly processing visiting student applications, which were accepted until Sept. 16.</p>
<p>Kirby wrote in his e-mail to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences community on Sept. 2 that the undergraduate admissions office would work with high-school seniors from the Gulf Coast whose academic records may be difficult to obtain.</p>
<p>We have been in touch with a number of people around the Gulf Coast and we have assured them that we are prepared to be very flexible and accommodating, Harvard College Director of Admissions Marlyn McGrath Lewis 71-73 said yesterday.</p>
<p>McGrath Lewis said that there is a precedent for processing applications following serious national disasters during the early admissions season, which ends Nov. 1.</p>
<p>When 9/11 occurred in New York, that was in the fall also, so we have some practice in being flexible and were not unaccustomed to being flexible when a catastrophe arrives, she said.</p>
<p>In his e-mail, Gross also commended Director of the Harvard Foundation S. Allen Counter and the four students who accompanied him to New Orleans along with doctors in order to provided medical treatment to victims of Hurricane Katrina in coordination with Southern University from Sept. 12-15.</p>
<p>Dean Kirby and Dean Gross were supportive of the project, and much of the medicine distributed was collected from Harvard University Health Services, Counter said.</p>
<p>Counter said that he and the students who helped in the recovery intend to take at least two more trips to New Orleans in October and November.</p>
<p>Gross e-mail also announced that a benefit concert for victims of the hurricane has been successfully scheduled.</p>
<p>A variety of Harvards performing arts groups will work with Sanders Theatre and the Office for the Arts to donate talent and energy to a Benefit Concert at Sanders on October 15, Gross wrote.</p>
<p>Gross also noted that students have organized peer advising for the visiting students from Tulane, Loyola, and Xavier Universities and that Phillips Brooks House Association will expand its alternative Spring Break to include travelling to the Gulf Coast to help with reconstruction.</p>
<p>Harvards Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Graduate School of Education, Law School, Business School, School of Public Health, Medical School, Divinity School, and Design School have all announced that they are accepting displaced students on a visiting basis for the semester.</p>
<p>Staff writer Joshua P. Rogers can be reached at <a href="mailto:jprogers@fas.harvard.edu">jprogers@fas.harvard.edu</a>.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>It sounds as if Tulane is way overcrowded (people living on cruise ships?) and should be glad they can lose some students. They certainly owe the students who were originally accepted real dorms and all the other facilities they advertised. If they can't give them that (and I don't say it is Tulane's fault, obviously) they shouldn't force them back.
They will just transfer out again anyway, so why go through the charade. Tulane sounds ups to its ears and doesn't need to be bothered finding housing, classes, etc. for students, then doing their transfer applications just months later, redoing sparse housing when they leave, etc. What does Tulane get out of this?</p>
<p>What Tulane gets out of this is finding out exactly which accepted students want to be there for the right reasons.</p>
<p>
[quote]
It sounds as if Tulane is way overcrowded (people living on cruise ships?) and should be glad they can lose some students.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The last worry that Tulane will have is over-enrollment. Even the most optimistic predictions would suggest that Tulane, like the city of New Orleans, will be much smaller.</p>
<p>i totally agree to the sentiments expressed here. College freshmen are adults and must know how to follow the rules even if that means giving up opportunities. No offense but i don't think those Tulane students deserve to be at Harvard. There is a significant diffference between Harvard and Tulane and the visiting students know that and i guess that's why they want to apply as transfers early. I'm kind of mad that these kids do not even GIVE a chance to Tulane. Have they ever been there? how do they know if the Tulane experience is going to be better or worse? They don't know until they go through it and they should like proper citizens following the rules. Life is a series of hello and goodbyes so at some point you r going to join and leave communities so i don't see a point in that "integrated" excuse. The students should be grateful for what opportunity they were given and should not be given opportunities that others don't have. That is simply wrong.</p>
<p>"They will just transfer out again anyway, so why go through the charade. Tulane sounds ups to its ears and doesn't need to be bothered finding housing, classes, etc. for students, then doing their transfer applications just months later, redoing sparse housing when they leave, etc. What does Tulane get out of this?"</p>
<p>Catherine, you're building a case based on faulty assumptions. The issue is not if the students attempt to transfer or not. You seem to overlook a few facts:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The students accepted to attend Tulane and you have to assume that Tulane was their first choice. When they had the opportunity, they did NOT request to withdraw from the school. The reason they did not withdraw is rather obvious. </p></li>
<li><p>The students were never admitted at Harvard as regular students. They are visiting students.</p></li>
<li><p>They agreed not to seek a transfer and agreed to return to Tulane. They are still STUDENTS of Tulane. </p></li>
<li><p>You seem to believe that the students would be accepted if they were able to apply for transfer. That is a HUGE leap of faith for statistical and academic reasons. The acceptance as visiting students is not the same as the regular admission process. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>There is no charade played here -at least by the universities. On the other hand, there are a few students trying to play an emotional card to extend their welcome. Attempting to extract an admission by using public pressure is the only charade I see.</p>
<p>I agree with those that feel that if Harvard accepted these students as spring transfers (ie. not the usual transfer process), it sends a confusing message in a myriad of ways: to past, present and future H. transfer applicants, to the students breaking their agreement with Tulane, to other Universities grappling with the same issue, to Tulane with whom Harvard had an agreement. It isn't just about the 5 students...the ripple effect is much greater.</p>
<p>The biggest issue to me is the whole concept of fit. How can Tulane students do well at Harvard?</p>
<p>"Attempting to extract an admission by using public pressure" </p>
<p>Exactly, an unfortunate precedent if H agrees to this IMO.</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>How can Tulane quality students do well at Harvard?<<</p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>The first semester grades will tell us if they can. My guess is that the Tulane kids who were accepted by Harvard as visiting students weren't slouches in the first place and that, just as many may have suspected, a number of kids could do fine at Harvard who would never have made it through the admissions gate.</p>
<p>ellemenope, I think you are absolutely right. My Ds have three friends who attended three different Ivys. All were heavily recruited for their respective sports. They were all very good students but not the academic superstars who we usually see get into HYP. Two have graduated and one is a sophomore. The two who graduated did so with top honors and the one who is a sophomore has close to a 3.8 gpa. I think people have this misconception about there being a very small percentage of kids who will do well at schools like Harvard when in truth, many can do well. I think the question "how can Tulane students do well at Harvard?" is very insulting.</p>
<p>alwaysamom, I think Tulane students can do well at Harvard. I think tens of thousands of students can do well at Harvard. I was being sarcastic. Tulane students being all spread out all over the country and doing well just shows me that fit is very overrated.</p>
<p>I believe that it has been established a long time ago that the overwhelming majority of the APPLICANTS at Harvard could do well at the school. The highest hurdle is not to graduate -even the much maligned athletes and URM are graduating at above 90%. With a single digit admission rate, the true hurdle is to gain acceptance. While it is undeniable that there must be students who would have been accepted at Harvard but attend Tulane, it seems highly doubtful that the students causing this uproar did. </p>
<p>At the end of the day, the situation is very simple. Wanna transfer to Harvard? Then, apply under the current conditions that are open to everyone. Wanna rewrite the "visiting students" rules? Ask another school!</p>
<p>dstark:</p>
<p>Fit is not just about being able to do well. It's about liking a school and thriving both socially and academically. Many many students could do extremely well at some of the colleges where they were rejected. Unfortunately, even some large state universities cannot admit all of the students who are qualified to attend and would do well there (think UCB and UCLA for instance).<br>
I am sure my S would have done very well at Stanford. But what would you have? It has no snow. :( Not a good fit. Nothing to do with how well he would do academically.</p>
<p>The story linked in the first post makes quite clear that Harvard plans to honor its agreement with Tulane and not permit the visiting students to extend their visit beyond the fall semester: </p>
<p>"Thus far, the Tulane students have written letters of appeal to University President Laurence H. Summers, Dean of the Faculty William C. Kirby, Dean of the College Benedict H. Gross 71, and Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R. Fitzsimmons 67. Hall [one of the visiting Tulane students] described the administrators responsea letter and an e-mail saying they would not be allowed to stayas 'very distant communication.'"</p>
<p>I view this as clearly the right result, as even visiting Tulane student Hall seems to recognize: </p>
<p>"'There is a policy problem with us staying any longer,' she said. 'It would be the downfall of the Tulane class of 2009. If Harvard allows us to stay, then other schools will allow us, too.'"</p>
<p>On the other theme of this thread, I'm surprised that concerneddad would use his position as a "moderator" to be so immoderate. I'm sorry that his D encountered a tour guide at Harvard that she didn't like, though responding "because I got in" to the question "why did you choose Harvard" sounds more flippant than imperious to me. And while joev may have chosen a somewhat exaggerated analogy, it hardly seems like a controversial proposition that most 18 year olds, if given the choice between Tulane and Harvard, would choose Harvard. </p>
<p>My S (now a freshman at Harvard and loving it) was quite turned off by the Harvard-bashing he encountered at a number of the other schools he visited when he was looking at colleges last year. In contrast, he found no bashing of other schools when he visited Harvard (and no imperiousness either). This was certainly a consideration in his final choice.</p>
<p>Marite, the more I watch college students, the more I come to the conclusion that fit is a very overrated idea. I think kids can do well at hundreds of schools, but what would happen to the college admission business if kids and their parents start believing this?</p>