<p>Here’s another data point for FC:</p>
<p>Daughter was accepted 11/28 (applied 10/29, app not marked complete untill 11/27 b/c they took a month to match up her school forms - had to call twice). Awarded $25k and honors.</p>
<p>Stats: ACT 31; UW GPA 3.9, WTD 4.2; 12 AP/IB’s, 8 honors, estimate top 4% of class</p>
<p>Competitive northern VA public.</p>
<p>Activities/Awards: High School state champ in her sport, named “Player of the Year” by the Washington Post, team captain 2 yrs, MVP 3 years, practices 25 hours/wk at her club team, works 10-15 hours/wk at a gym. Also plays a second varsity sport. NHS. A couple clubs. </p>
<p>I would agree that AP’s seem to weigh heavily in the awarding of $$.</p>
<p>Forgot to mention she did show some interest (just emailed her regional person once), did a decent job on the “why tulane” (nothing special, though), and had some service hours - nothing notable.</p>
<p>Nova2nola—would you say your demographics are upper middle class and is she public or private h.s.? Forgive me for being nosey, just wondering if they are indeed using some of the enrollment techniques prescribed in the article northwesty posted above…</p>
<p>Might be interesting to see if merit awards correlate to whether the app indicated whether the student intended to apply for need based aid or not.</p>
<p>FC and I have discussed this via PM in regards to my daughter because she was so surprised when she started seeing people with the same or lesser stats getting other award amounts. </p>
<p>She was accepted EA with $20k scholarship from the free “short” application Tulane sent her. No visit or other contact with the college before applying, good Why Tulane? essay, attends highly competitive public HS that does not rank, 93/100 GPA UW, 97/100 W, 32 ACT, ALL classes except Gym and Music were honors all four years, 6APs - 4’s or 5’s on all, 2 dual-enrollment courses, NHS, SHS, TriM, Thespian Honor Society, All State musician, volunteer at homeless shelter, plays 14+ instruments, two school orchestras, concert band, choir, pit orchestra, school Quizbowl State champion team… you get the picture. </p>
<p>Oh, and her two main instruments are double bass and TUBA. Ya can’t have an orchestra or band without "em!</p>
<p>By last year’s posts, you would have expected her to get the Presidential Award and Honors Program. She didn’t. We aren’t sneezing at the $20k Academic, but it isn’t what you would expect.</p>
<p>According to Naviance, since 2010 the acceptance rates were:
Class Apply Admit<br>
2013 5 1
2012 3 3
2011 3 3
2010 5 4 </p>
<p>Every now and then colleges need to mix it up, it seems. It looks like this may be the year for Tulane…</p>
<p>FC clearly knows a lot more about the history of these things, but as someone whose daughter got zero merit, I don’t think you should be worrying about the $20k. The credentials are quite impressive, but to my eyes, right in the range of a lot of folks who are getting all range of admission and merit awards, both better and worse. Your case doesn’t seem out of the ordinary, at least with regard to this year.</p>
<p>I guess you missed the part where we said we weren’t sneezing at it… just adding to the data, Popofsenior. My point was, compared to past years, her stats would have lined up more clearly with a different level of award. This year, they do not. </p>
<p>But thanks, we think she’s fairly impressive too. Guess we’ll keep her ;)</p>
<p>The difference this year is that there is nothing between $8K and $20K. The award increments between $20K and $25K are tiny compared to the huge difference between $8K and $20 or nothing and $8K. Hmmm, interesting.</p>
<p>Alexmariejp: Now I know why they were cheap with us. Our naviance shows that between 2009 and 2012 our school had 74 applications to Tulane. Tulane accepted 44 students from our HS and 3 attended.</p>
<p>kelijake - We are middle class ($150k annual income). I think the app would have indicated that her father is employed and I am not (homemaker). She did not receive the special personalized app from Tulane (or if she did, she missed it - applied on the website). So don’t know if that made her seem more “interested”, since she actually had to click on the website and fill in her own name - sooo much extra work - lol!!! She attends a well-respected public. When she applied, she actually had very little interest in the school (I made her apply in hopes that she would get an acceptance to balance out the rejection she will soon be getting from an ED Ivy), but it is now in her top 2 - and I am liking it as well.</p>
<p>It is interesting trying to crack this code - I’m sure there is a method to the madness, and it’s possible it varies a little depending on geography or something. But strength of schedule does seem to factor in quite a bit. I wonder if applicants whose schools do not allow them to take many AP’s are hurt by this (even though I know the policy would be indicated on the school’s profile). Hmmm… Maybe Tulane is trying to weed out the “partiers” by taking kids who have buried themselves in AP’s.</p>
<p>Oh, and can’t remember if there was a box to check if you’d be applying for aid, but if there was, she checked it!</p>
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<p>For sure. This is clearly a dynamic process being run by people that have years of experience doing it, think about it 24/7 (or thereabouts), attend conferences where they compare notes with their peers, and have to balance numerous interests while trying to achieve a variety of targets. Certainly one major factor that could have led to some of these changes is the size of the last 3 classes. Last year they didn’t change merit policy at all (I am quite confident), wanted to have a class size of 1450-1500, and ended up at 1650 again! In talking with various people in the administration from time to time, while it wasn’t something I directly asked, I never got the impression they are trying to “tamp down” the percentage of students from the Northeast. But certainly maintaining geographic diversity is always a goal. Which leads me to another potential factor, they are getting more students from areas like China than in the past, and likely that will increase with some of the relationships they have forged with universities there, the Dali Lama as commencement speaker notwithstanding. I believe these students are nearly always full pay, but that could just be ignorance on my part.</p>
<p>I guess my point is there are a lot of moving parts, and all we can do is assess the changes as we see them occur. As someone said (was it me?), it is what it is.</p>
<p>I forgot to mention the over-subscribed freshman class. That definitely could be a factor at work.</p>
<p>In recovering from Katrina, TU went all out to get kids to apply. For several years, TU got more apps (like 45,000) than any other college in the US. But they had a very low yield rate on acceptances. Beginning in 2010, TU started to try to get its pipeline under control – fewer apps but higher yield.</p>
<p>For the current freshman class, apps went down but yield turned out to be higher than expected. They had a very selective incoming class, but were scrambling to find enough dorm beds. Could be a result of several years of good press making Tulane a hot school. Also could be the result (in this economy) of more parents hunting out colleges where they think their kid could get a deal. But TU did too good a job enrolling good students. </p>
<p>So it could be that this year (i) TU thinks it can get a good class while handing out less merit aid than before, (ii) TU is targeting merit money at higher stats than before (last year’s ACT 31 is this year’s 32), or (iii) TU is now able to target characteristics beyond stats.</p>
<p>“Maybe Tulane is trying to weed out the “partiers” by taking kids who have buried themselves in AP’s.”</p>
<p>You could be on to something. TU’s biggest drag in the USNWR game is retention/graduation rates. Even accounting for some Katrina hangover, TU (while not bad) is not as good on this metric as schools ranked above it.</p>
<p>Very selective schools have very high grad/retention in part because they intake really good students (the kind that are going to graduate no matter what the school does with them).</p>
<p>A+ rigor transcript and B+ test scores probably graduates at a higher rate B+ transcript with A+ scores.</p>
<p>Plausible?</p>
<p>Very plausible. Scott Cowen has focused on retention rates in several talks. Higher stats do lead to higher retention, experience shows, but I also like the thinking that lots of AP courses indicates more diligence and discipline in academics.</p>
<p>FYI northwesty, Tulane got more apps than any other private college and more than almost everyone else, but I think UCLA actually got more every year.</p>
<p>FC–when you say Tulane got more apps than any other private, I’m assuming you mean for this admission cycle?</p>
<p>“but I also like the thinking that lots of AP courses indicates more diligence and discipline in academics.”</p>
<p>I’ve heard many times that the transcript is the single best predictor of college success. Very selective schools usually take the kid who performs Monday-Friday over the one who just does well on one or two Saturdays. </p>
<p>Apps in the 9/10 cycle were 44,000. 37.5 in 10/11. Don’t know what apps were for 11/12. 12/13 obviously still in process.</p>
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Sorry, no. No idea what this year will turn out to be for Tulane or others. I think the peak of 44,000 was for the freshman class that started in 2010. But it dropped a fair amount the next year to about 36,000 when they added the “Why Tulane” question. Of course, they may have also scaled back on direct mailings, other marketing because of the desire to have a smaller incoming class (didn’t work, lol). Not sure about that though.</p>
<p>Is there a thread for deferred EA applicants? Really confused and disappointed for my son! He just found out, and we are trying to figure this out…thanks anyone!</p>
<p>Just to help out the algorithm–2 students from my son’s school have been accepted–and their credentials are quite lower than his. Huh?</p>
<p>Not yet! Go ahead and start one. I suggest you post stats and background, and what was done to show interest. These are usually visiting campus or a local session, doing the “Why Tulane” statement, applied EA or SCEA, or communicating with your admissions officer at Tulane. At least one of those things, although just applying EA and none of the others probably wouldn’t be enough. My guess is that your son did not complete the statement, and hasn’t communicated with anyone at Tulane. But that is obviously just a guess.</p>