<p>northwesty - Not surprisingly I agree with most of what you say. However, the statement “If kids leave and don’t graduate, then something must not be working at a school.” It only shows they did not graduate from that school, which I am sure is what you meant. It was a bit ambiguous, at least to me. But I just don’t agree that kids leaving a school means that the school is doing something wrong or differently than other schools. There are numerous potential factors that influence a student staying or leaving, and many of them have little to do with the “quality” of the school itself.</p>
<p>BTW, Tulane has had retention rates of 91%, 91% and 90% for the last three years. And as I stated earlier, I am sure their goal is to get to that 95% or so level. I think because of some of the factors mentioned, it will be tough, but 93% would be great.</p>
<p>I also wonder how you come up with the statement “TU punches 10-20 slots above its rating in terms of admissions selectivity.” Could you explain?</p>
<p>Oh, right, OK. I totally misread that. Yes, that is true. A couple of years ago someone on here did an analysis that showed Tulane was somewhere between #28-32 in terms of average test scores for the incoming class. The scores have gone up both years since then, but I don’t know if other schools have improved similarly.</p>
<p>“But I just don’t agree that kids leaving a school means that the school is doing something wrong or differently than other schools. There are numerous potential factors that influence a student staying or leaving, and many of them have little to do with the “quality” of the school itself.”</p>
<p>FC – that is what I meant by saying that grad/retention rates correlate strongly with Yale-ness. Correlation is not the same as causation, for sure. But it turns out that the highest retention rates are found at the Yale-ish schools. </p>
<p>The top ten schools for retention include 5 Ivies plus Stanford, Chicago and Amherst.</p>
<p>Thanks for clearing that up for me, I was being dense. So it looks like we agree on pretty much all points regarding this subject. I have always suspected, and I am sure others have said this, that when USNWR was first trying to do this they just kept changing the factors used and the weighting they were given until the top 10 looked pretty much like they knew the public expected. Don’t know if this is true or not, but it doesn’t matter.</p>
<p>Knowing a little bit about how lists like these are put together, I agree with most of the points already made. I like to look at Forbes, Kiplinger’s & USNWR to see where a school falls using their different weightings. Then I use the online tool from The Education Trust to compare data among selected schools. Throw in the Common Data Sets from each school, some social media, NY Times relevancy and you have a pretty good picture. Finally, you can throw out all of the above because your kid “just doesn’t feel right about it”. :-)</p>
<p>You know, the fact of the matter is most schools, and certainly all in the top 100 of USNWR (just as an easy reference) can give any student willing to put in the effort a great education. After all, they use a lot of the same books, most of the profs are quite competent in their fields, and they all have libraries and labs that will get the job done for the vast majority of students.</p>
<p>The differences come more in the other things that make up the total environment of the school. Huge school or smaller one? Big class sizes or mostly smaller ones? Weather going to drive you nuts? Lack of a team in the mix for a national championship going to make you feel like you missed out on something important? So many factors, the list could be very long and obviously very individual. But to me at least, one of the things that separates schools is the quality of your peers. As I said, you certainly can get an excellent education at your average state school, for example. But when you are most often the smartest person in the room and not challenged very often by your classmates, it is all too easy to just get by with the least amount of effort needed to get the A.</p>
<p>Fyi, here’s some comparative data on graduation and retention for TU and BC, Wake and Miami. I picked those since they are comparable to TU (mid-sized private schools with similar admissions selectivity) but ranked higher than TU by USNWR.</p>
<p>2004 data (i.e. pre-hurricane). Freshman retention – BC 95%, WF 95%, Miami 87%, TU 88%. 6 year graduation rate – BC 89%, WF 86%, Miami 73%, TU 71%.</p>
<p>2010 data (post-Katrina). Freshman retention – BC 95%, WF 95%, Miami 90%, TU 91%. 6 year graduation rate – BC 91%, WF 89%, Miami 80%, TU 70%. That 70% number shows me some Katrina impact. </p>
<p>My read is that the current TU is actually doing better at retaining/graduating today than it was prior to Katrina. It is probably comparable to Miami (allowing for Katrina data lag effects), but still behind BC and WF on this metric. Increases in selectivity today likely drive increases in retention/graduation in the future.</p>
<p>Does Tulane take essays into account for merit? My friend has a slightly higher ACT score than mine (a point), but my GPA is somewhat higher. She only got 20k, while I got 27. What could this be?</p>
<p>My school does not offer AP courses. I would say we are pretty even academically (maybe has a 3.7 to my 3.9), and it surprised me that she did not get a higher tier scholarship. My EC’s are a lot stronger, however, and it’s conceivable that my essay is, too.</p>
<p>Well, a 3.9 compared to a 3.7 is pretty significant when there are no AP courses offered at all. And you certainly could be right, the other factors might have bumped you up an extra tier besides the one extra you were likely to get. Obviously hard for us mere mortals to say for sure. But that is great that you got the top one, no doubt.</p>
<p>I have to say this forum can actually make you crazy. There are people who haven’t gotten in who have what appear to be same or better stats than those who have gotten in. There are giant merit awards to some people when others who appear as deserving get much less or none. The description of stats is meaningless… no one here sees the whole application. I think the NYT piece in July pushed Tulane way into the spotlight as it pertains to Merit Awards and that has affected the applicant pool, the awards and the entire process. This is great upside for Tulane, which is exactly what they wanted. Tulane reported that over one third of the incoming Freshman class can expect an average of $20 K in merit money, and in this economy smart college shoppers will be knocking down the door.</p>
<p>I think there is a ton of merit (no pun intended) in what you said, doingthisagain. Especially the part about not seeing the whole application. GPA alone can be misleading if it didn’t involve many AP courses, and even then we don’t know if the school even offered any or only a few.</p>
<p>I did see that NYT piece, and that is an interesting point about how it might have affected the applications this year. Would be interesting to know. Although there is no question that in this tough economy for going on 5 years now, the word was really getting around anyway. The NYT picked up on that.</p>
<p>But I guess as far as the people that “haven’t gotten in”, it isn’t that they have been declined or even deferred yet, so any comparison there is impossible to make. It could just be the order they consider the applications is somewhat random. As long as they get them done by the 15th, they have met their obligation. According to another post, in the online chat with admissions tonight they clearly stated that no message should be inferred from not having heard yet.</p>
<p>I agree that nothing should be inferred about the applicants who haven’t heard yet. I believe that most of the posters here will get positive news. Just from the bare bones stats they are on the more than likely side. In the case of my child, the stats were above many here, well below many others, but I think that they would have been worth more merit in prior years. Now that the pool has been elevated, I think it is hard to count on anything as far as merit is concerned, but there will be room for those on the lower end of the spectrum willing to pay full ticket price. I know that here in the Northeast, which makes up the majority of Tulane’s distribution, our numbers seem way up this year in applications.</p>