<p>I attended an accepted students admissions reception last night. I did not get the opportunity to ask the rep what she feels will happen as a result of the loss of the engineering program in terms of future prestige. Tulane has definitly regained their appeal in my eyes but will going to Tulane be a mistake because they will lose prestige in the future?</p>
<p>I think the school will gain prestige if anything. After Katrina, the number of applicants went way up with all the media attention. Now, the school has the opportunity to rebuild the city. This publicity and this task will probably increase the school's prestige.</p>
<p>if u got your information about apps going up from the school i dont know how credible it is, tulane wont say their apps went down</p>
<p>well i mean they can't lie... but at the same time, i think just about every school is now claiming to have the "most apps in history" so i dont think that shows much about any added prestige or selectivity-esp if the increase is relatively proportional to other schools in its range/caliber... as far as losing the engineering school, i think the idea was that tulane didn't have that great an engineering school to start w/ (in comparison to schools it competes with)... im sure having an engineering program is quite expensive, and i think tulane decided to stick with its strongest programs and shift their assets/resources in a different direction... at the same time, no one will know what the "future prestige" of the university will be until they find out who accepted their offer of admission-at that point i think you could come to a conclusion on what effect the media attention/cutting of engineering/re-structuring of the school had on the reputation and prestige of tulane</p>
<p>Tulane now has a College of Science and Engineering, which will include their very highly ranked Biomed Engineering and Chem E departments along with the sciences. I won't comment on the validity of "prestige" as a reason to choose a school, but it would be my guess that eliminating some Engineering majors will not hurt them (even tho my S is one of the "eliminateds.")</p>
<p>Their restructuring was done under the guidance of an Advisory Committee including such people as the Presidents of Princeton and Johns Hopkins. Their students attended many of the top schools in the country this fall and did well. These things will help their reputation (call it "prestige" if you want), I think.</p>
<p>Their yield this year is the big question. I don't doubt their app numbers; so a lot hinges on their yield and we won't know it until May or so. They did a fabulous job of selling their diaspora students on coming back this spring (~90% returned); now they are working on selling the potential freshmen and their parents.</p>
<p>Having been back in January with my S, I can tell you it is an exciting place. And from what my S says, the kids are loving it. He has many transfer apps out there, because his major was eliminated, but he is loving Tulane so much that he is thinking of changing major and staying. And he is one of their "top" students - DSA, Honors etc.
FWIW.</p>
<p>I don't doubt that their acceptance rates went down. I mean they sent out more of those "Personal Application" e-mails. Practically everyone in my high school got one including underclassmen. So tons of people applied that didn't even plan on attending. It was sort of a sneaky way to make sure that their admission rates would go down.</p>
<p>From what I have read, around 6,000 of the 21,000 applications were never completed. So, the stats change drastically depending on whether they are a percentage of the 21,000 or of the 16,000 completed.</p>
<p>I think the easy email applications will create a lot of incomplete applications. It's so easy to get started and then change your mind.</p>
<p>Seems especially this year that their decisions/ awards are really numbers driven and while that may be a necessity under their circumstances it doesn't seem like it is the best indication of quality students. I mean yes important but as some of the other schools say they may want the kids who also have made lemonade with their lemons.</p>
<p>the real indicator is going to be the yield- what% of kids decided to accept the offer of admission-that will be a much stronger rep of the "future prestige"</p>
<p>I was reading through this forum and it would seem that there is alot of mis-information being said. Yes, Tulane's applications reached an all time high, however Tulane is only accepting 1400 students (down from 1600) this year. The reason, the quality of the applicants has decreases substancially. Even with this decrease in acceptances it will not be meeting the same level as previous classes. </p>
<p>Also, the loss of the other engineering programs is a huge hit to the school. Including cutting departments in engineering that made money while keeping some that lost it. Tulane has recently had the largest de-tenuring of faculty of any University in the history of the USA. 45 professors have left since the announcement of the Renewal Plan that were not fired directly and that number is a month old. That number is also from the COO of the University so anyone who thinks it is wrong is sadly mistaken. </p>
<p>Newcomb, the 1st degree granting university in the USA is now closed, and as a result, students and alumni are currently sueing the school. The college is not on the upswing at all.</p>
<p>The faculty do not trust the administration and the student body is still fairly apathetic (in typical tulane style). Don't get me wrong, I'm a student at Tulane and a Junior at that but sadly this is not the University it once was....and this is not the university I applied to years ago. </p>
<p>If anyone wants to argue any of this I can direct them to all the documentation to back up it all. I'm sorry to say Tulane is going to be in for a nasty next few years.</p>
<p>You can see the anger when you read the daily jolt forum. Disregard the idiots that are continual grousers. I think that there is a serious transition time that is going to take place. I have read alot about all you have said and my Mom is a Newcomb alum. The question I also have is how do the students in general feel? Are they generally angry or generally making lemonade with the lemons. How about the faculty feel that are still there? There seems to be many students who are generally ****ed with Tulane and lots who are saying that well it still is a fun place. No doubt the engineering people are angry and the Newcomb alums/students too. I have no comment on the engineering as that is a real mess but eliminating Newcomb is a ceremonial and basically historically significant thing not a functional thing.</p>
<p>I usually stay away from topics based on the CC obsession with prestige but I need to say that JMC's post is replete with misinformation and half-truths.</p>
<p>My dd is a freshman and her overall experience has been a good one. Tulane seems to be full of talented and caring students, many of them working on Katrina relief. I have to go to work but if I get a chance later I will try to go through JMC's post topic by topic</p>
<p>Disagree with JMc's post if you like. It's everyone's right. I'm glad all are having a great frosh year at Tulane. However, the detenuring and the protests to the administration on behalf of the fired profs by AAUP is very real and the lawsuit is real indeed.</p>
<p>No one doubts that there are special kids at Tulane. There will be kids who attend there next year because that's where they would rather be than anywhere else. But, as I said on an earlier post. They need to have the unvarnished facts before the decision is made. If, after reviewing the information from AAUP and the Newcomb closing, they decide everything they want is at Tulane, then they will have made a good decision. I just advocate being an informed consumer regardless of the school in question.</p>
<p>as posted before, getting "rid" of Newcomb college has no negative effect on the college itself (I don't see the pt of the distinction between tulane and newcomb but I guess thats me-and the university now as well)... in fact, the previous system had been notorious for being an administrative nightmare, and the framework for the new university system will be much more efficient/effective than the former... id like to see the data on exactly how "profitable" the engineering program was... seeing that I dont have that data myself I dont want to make any false assertions, but logic would dictate that if the program was making money it would NOT have been cut... im willing to bet that the people making these decisions (head of princeton/harvard etc) wouldnt have just mindlessly cut a program that was going to be a major factor in the future plans of the university, which it apparently was not. I feel bad for the students whose majors were cut, but at the same time there needs to be more of an objective approach to the input here... no one posting has any real clue of the selectivity, the rationale for cutting programs, or anything else about the school beyond what has been released publicly by the university... everything else is just a matter of personal opinion, and prospective students should not give any credibilty to some of the "theories" that are posted</p>
<p>Yep, I agree with dipset above. I have continually read both the angry posts (not on this forum but on a Tulane one) and the people who really still feel like it is a great place with an opportunity to see the University be a catalyst for change as well as a phoenix from the ashes thing. I agree that the engineering couldn't have been arbitrarily sacked and yet those students sadly were in a bind. While my Mom (Newcomb alum) said she was sad that the Newcomb legacy would be swallowed up, she agreed that it was a necessity from the dual administration costs etc. So that still leaves me with the question of how the academic "feel" is and how the professors are taking all this and their attitudes. Many places say that there are many job hunting. I felt really bad about the tenured profs. But all said and done there had/has to be major changes to put it together again and tough decisions aren't always popular ones.</p>
<p>OK, I'm back.</p>
<p>I don't know of any evidence one way or the other that application quality has decreased. I imagine some students who have applied who are hoping that they can get by on less impressive credentials than might have been required a year ago, and maybe they can. I imagine there are also high-caliber students who have applied out of a spirit of adventure and community service who might not even have thought of Tulane a year ago.</p>
<p>The loss of the engineering program is for sure a devastating hit to its students, faculty, and prospective students. There's no getting around that. </p>
<p>To say "Newcomb" is closed is a bit meoldramatic. Newcomb was for all intents and purposes merely an administrative entity. I have a friend who loved her Newcomb years and is a loyal alum and sad to see the name combined into the new Tulane-Newcomb College name, but recognizes the demands of post-Katrina reality.</p>
<p>(And 1st degree-granting institution in the US? Come on - Newcomb wasn't even chartered till 1886.)</p>
<p>My daughter and her friends seem positive and involved. Is there going to be a long transition? Yes, and yes, it will include protests and lawsuits. That's the Amercian way, and if CC is any kind of evidence, many Tulane students have not had to deal with much in the way of disappointment before. Some of the things my dd loved about Tulane -- the easy streetcar access to a city full of opportunity, for instance -- are just gone, probably for the duration of her college experience. Other opportunities are there instead. She will have to decide, just like any other young adult in her position, what the downsides and upsides are. Each of them has his or her own issues to contend with. But that's no reason to trash the school and its administration for making one of the most successful recoveries in NOLA so far.</p>
<p>note: streetcar should be back at the latest by next yr</p>
<p>Geena, I would never trash Tulane. I agree that they did miraculous work to put it back together in the time that they did. I guess in making my decision, I have to take all things into account and Tulane has alot of uncertainties. But for a fact, the community service aspect has actually been one of the more appealing things about it and ofcourse New Orleans and my Mom having been a "Newcomb Girl". Her words, not mine. So with all things that we consider about schools, I hate the uncertainties of Tulane. Tulane will continue I am certain ,but I will have to decide if I could make the commitment with the changes they will go through. Pre-Katrina it was definitely one of my top choices and now well who knows but no longer as high on the list. Streetcar coming back would be a GREAT thing</p>
<p>You raise an interesting set of questions, froshtobe. I don't know how I would counsel my dd if she were in high school trying to make a decision. (Not that my advice would be the deciding factor LOL). She applied to colleges basically around the perimeter of the US, and I will certainly admit that many times this year I have sighed and wondered, Oh, why couldn't her southern one have been Vanderbilt or Emory?</p>
<p>That said, I think it was the personality of Tulane that she gravitated toward, and that does seem to be intact. The laid-back good humor that we saw at their info session here last winter and that she and her dad encountered when she visited a month later has survived. She went to an intensely competitive high school and I think her radar was honing in on college environments where faculty and students alike have a more balanced approach to life. Between Mardi Gras and volunteer work in the 9th Ward, solid academics and a plethora of new people to meet, I think she's finding that at Tulane. I'm not going to gush here about how fabulous Tulane is in every respect. DD has approached it cautiously -- she seems to be virtually unique in the freshmen class in having had an absolutely wonderful experience elsewhere for first semester (it seems that many students went close to home or to their state universities and were generally disassatisfied, but we encouraged her to call all the colleges to which she'd been accepted and get out there and have a great fall) -- so the positives I have to report come out of an experience that began with much more skepticism in January than she had felt when she first arrived at Tulane in August. I think that's probably a good indication of an absence of rose-colored glasses and of a realistic assessment.</p>
<p>"(And 1st degree-granting institution in the US? Come on - Newcomb wasn't even chartered till 1886.)"</p>
<p>Not the first degree granting institution in the U.S. The first degree granting institution for WOMEN. Big difference.</p>