<p>The May 1st deadline is now exactly a month away. But I'm still struggling to convince my Dad to let me commit. Right now, it's between Case Western and Tulane, and I really don't like Case's atmosphere. But telling my dad I don't like the "atmosphere" isn't enough for him. He wants cold, hard facts and statistics for why I should go to Tulane. To me, academically these schools are about the same, but he doesn't see that because of the many rankings that are out there. His main 3 concerns are the NOLA environment and its safety, Tulane's academic program (particularly science and engineering), and cost, and how these 3 things compare to Case. I will later post the 3 page document I quickly wrote up and sent to him that compiled some of the info I found here on College Confidential. Please help me with any extra statistics that you can, and help me convince my dad that Tulane is a great (if not the better) school!</p>
<p>With your scholarships, aren’t the costs similar?</p>
<p>Yea, Case is 22,000, Tulane is 20,000</p>
<p>OK, so money isn’t really the issue. It is really hard to convince some people to ignore the rankings. I could rationally point out every flaw with how they try to quantify something that is inherently not quantifiable, and how the factors they chose are mostly irrelevant anyway. But it is almost an emotional thing with some, and there is little that will sway them.</p>
<p>Safety really should not be an issue. I have known literally thousands of people that have attended Tulane over the years, and hundreds in the post-Katrina era. Obviously one is my D. None have ever suffered anything serious or violent, the most that has happened to them is some petty theft. There are only a very small number of cases every year of anything more serious, and it is all published in the TUPD portion of the website. Any brief amount of study will show that Tulane is no more dangerous than any other private school in an urban setting. Here is Tulane’s report <a href=“http://tulane.edu/publicsafety/training/upload/annual-security-report.pdf[/url]”>http://tulane.edu/publicsafety/training/upload/annual-security-report.pdf</a> and here is CW’s <a href=“Public Safety | Case Western Reserve University”>Public Safety | Case Western Reserve University; Tulane reports more classifications than CW, so watch for that. For example, Tulane reports larceny (basically petty theft), while CW doesn’t report it. Burglary, which they both report, seems fairly comparable. Neither are hotbeds of crime.</p>
<p>As far as the quality of the BME department, it is excellent. The only thing I could suggest to help convince him is to have him get in touch with the department head of BME and/or the Dean of the school, Nick Alterio.</p>
<p>Perhaps you can convince him to take 30 minutes to watch this video: [Destination</a> Tulane - President Scott Cowen - YouTube](<a href=“Destination Tulane - President Scott Cowen - YouTube”>Destination Tulane - President Scott Cowen - YouTube)</p>
<p>Finally, I know it is his money but you are the one that has to attend the school and do the work. Does he really want you to go someplace you felt forced to go? I know some parents don’t look at it that way, but since the amount of money involved is similar, I cannot see making this decision for my child.</p>
<p>Thanks as always FC! You never cease to provide helpful and extensive information. I think my next course of action is getting in touch with the bme department, and perhaps my area’s admissions counselor, who is a Cleveland native, and see if she can provide more info. I actually spoke with her face to face at our area’s admitted students reception. Ill see if she can also help me out.</p>
<p>That’s a very good idea. It is too bad you cannot get President Cowen to weigh in, since he was in the CW administration for years until he became Tulane’s president. Or maybe…</p>
<p>Fallen chemist: I just watched the YouTube link you posted with President Cowen’s talk at Destination Tulane. It is really helpful and I recommend it for anyone making the decision on Tulane. We are going out for the April 6 Destination Tulane event and I only hope we are treated to meeting President Cowen. He seems like a real mensch!</p>
<p>Why don’t you ask your Dad why he thinks CWU is so much better than Tulane?</p>
<p>USNWR is 37 vs 51. Not all that different frankly. And I don’t think that “Case” is a terribly strong brand outside of the midwest region. The Huffington Post called it a school that “flies under the radar.” Isn’t that a polite way of saying “a school that no one has heard of?”</p>
<p>CWU accepts 54% of applicants. What does Dad think about that? Tulane – less than 25%.</p>
<p>ACT range – 29-33 at CWU; 29-32 at Tulane. What’s Dad looking at on that one?</p>
<p>There’s about 25 private universities that are members of the ultra prestigious American Association of Universities. The top research universities in the country. Case is an AAU member. So is Tulane. Tulane’s Scott Cowen (who hails from Case actually) is the current president of the AAU.</p>
<p>Tell Dad he needs to do a little bit more work on this than just scanning the first page of the USNWR ranking (which is so lame). </p>
<p>If cost is the same, he should focus on where his kid is going to be happy and successful. And where he’d rather come to visit you. Cleveland vs. Nola. Seriously Dad?</p>
<p>Three page letter? I don’t think that any parent want’s a letter from the child. Sit down with Dad and explain your position. BTW the way, your final argument will be to succeed or fail on your own terms. GL</p>
<p>PREMEDGIRL, I have to agree with northwesty. As a parent, I can also echo sentiments here that it would be extremely helpful if your dad would watch the youtube video posted by FC. Even though as parents we want you to think for yourselves on this and other things, we don’t want to spend 4 years constantly worrying about your safety. We’ve worried enough already about everything. We want to have some sense that you will be in good hands and with people who truly care about your present and future. In that video, it’s pretty obvious that Tulane really cares. I don’t know much about Case, other than having had a good college friend who went to dental school there, but I recall that she didn’t seem to think that east Cleveland was any oasis from crime. I think Case is surrounded by some questionable areas that you drive through to get to campus. At any rate, you and your dad can also go online and sign up for Green Wave Patrol email updates regarding crime in the area. I subscribed to this update system last year, and have not seen one on campus incident that concerned me. There were a couple of off campus things like robbery, but that certainly happens in Cleveland as well. Our kids both went to high school in the middle of large city with infamous crime statistics, and I worried all of the time, so I understand where he is coming from completely. That video and Tulane crime stats should help ease his mind quite a bit. I’d also make sure he knows and believes that you really get it, in terms of what you need to do to stay safe. Actions have consequences - if he believes your actions will be carefully chosen, then he’ll worry less about negative consequences. Good luck!</p>
<p>sosomenza - she didn’t say 3 page letter, she said document, which I take to mean something that has facts and diagrams that support her position as she makes her arguments. Like a PowerPoint presentation but on paper.</p>
<p>Good points about safety, DKJAMEI. In addition, Tulane has guaranteed escorts both on campus (although I wonder how often people use these since the campus is very very safe, but maybe if someone is working very late in some building at the opposite end from their dorm?) and within a reasonable radius off campus. They also have Safe Ride, which has an app that tells you exactly when it will be at your stop so you can wait inside until the last second [Tulane</a> University - A Message of Welcome and Safety](<a href=“http://tulane.edu/parents/safety-2012.cfm]Tulane”>http://tulane.edu/parents/safety-2012.cfm), and a new thing called Rave Guardian that ensures TUPD will be aware of when you are supposed to arrive someplace and can call to make sure you did. [Tulane</a> University - Rave Guardian Information](<a href=“http://tulane.edu/police/guardian.cfm]Tulane”>http://tulane.edu/police/guardian.cfm) Lots of precautions to keep everyone safe.</p>
<p>As a Tulane parent, I’m pretty comfortable with the safety issue. I don’t think the high violent crime rates you see for New Orleans city-wide actually have that much impact on a kid attending Tulane’s Uptown campus.</p>
<p>I’m not familiar with where Case is located in Cleveland and the safety of its campus. But Cleveland, like New Orleans, is a top 10 U.S. city for homicide.</p>
<p>What does your Dad say about that?</p>
<p>Exactly, northwesty. This comes up all the time about certain schools, like Tulane and WUSTL. As Cowen points out in that video and any crime map clearly shows, the incidence of violent crime in the Uptown area is virtually none. The vast majority of the crime that gets all the press is in the areas north and east of the French Quarter, miles from Tulane. St. Louis is also well publicized for a high homicide rate, but that is nearly all north and east of downtown as well (just a coincidence), while WUSTL is miles west of that.</p>
<p>The moral of this story is that cities have “micro climates” when it comes to violent crime, and so generalizing the overall crime rate to a small area can lead to highly erroneous conclusions.</p>
<p>[Most</a> Dangerous Colleges ? Clery vs FBI - Business Insider](<a href=“http://www.businessinsider.com/most-dangerous-colleges--clery-vs-fbi-2012-11]Most”>Most Dangerous Colleges — Clery Vs FBI)</p>
<p>So here’s a recent ranking of the top 25 most dangerous college campuses in the U.S. These, like all rankings, need to be taken with a boulder of salt. Tulane doesn’t make the list, but LSU does. USC (in south central LA) isn’t on the list, but UCLA is #1.</p>
<p>Schools in the top 25 include UCLA, Berkeley, Duke, Vandy, MIT, Yale, Harvard, Tufts, Penn, Columbia, Stanford and BC. Like politics, crime stats are all very local.</p>
<p>Really interesting!! At first I couldn’t figure out how they sorted it, until I saw their note about weighting violent crime 4:1 over property crime, which is obviously arbitrary. But it really doesn’t matter how they weight it, since violent crime is mostly what concerns parents and these schools obviously have a lot of it, relatively speaking. I am stunned that the Ivies and similar schools are so highly represented. I know because of their age many are in questionable areas, but even when they do on campus only…</p>
<p>Great find northwesty! I just wish they had listed every school in the original report so we could see where Tulane and other schools actually placed.</p>
<p>Chemist: A paper is even worse that a letter. What parent wants a powerpoint presentation? If only it was as simple as a power point presentation. Sorry Chemist, but this isn’t about numbers or graphs. It’s about human emotions. The father has needs both stated and unstated that the daughter does not realize. She must sit down with her father, listen to him, understand his side and then with love and affection explain her position. After a long talk and many tears, hopefully they will come together.</p>
<p>FC is right in my case. I have since been forced to move out (its a long complicated story–a lot having to do with his evil girlfriend) and because of that I had to set up a meeting between the two of us where we had a sit down conversation that didn’t go too well–we didn’t argue, but rather he spent the whole time giving his opinion, not really giving me a chance to speak. He is so “pro Case” and it was hard to get a word in. So at the end of the convo, I told him not to rule out Tulane, and promised to send him some facts as to why Tulane was at par with Case. Actually, many of the facts I picked up were just direct quotes from CC concerning safety and the program. I emailed him a link to the video of President Cowen after watching it myself (an excellent speech on his part btw) and he said he watched it. I also sent him my Why Tulane essay. He likes to fight with numbers and facts–he has a very mathmatical mind.</p>
<p>sosomenza - First, I was just correcting your incorrect characterization. You said letter when she never did, so you were starting from a false premise. Second, you know nothing about this young woman and her family, so to act like you have the exact right answer that is correct for all situations is simply egotistical and wrong. Personally, I might respond very well to a presentation where my child took the time to state their case in a well researched and logical manner. To me it would show maturity and their capability to support a position that they have clearly thought a lot about. In other situations it wouldn’t be as appropriate.</p>
<p>“This isn’t about numbers or graphs.” How do you know? Given the issues she said he raised, it seems to me numbers and graphs are perfectly relevant, if they can disprove some of his apparently preconceived notions. How do you know it is about any emotions? Don’t project your life onto others.</p>
<p>“After a long talk and many tears…”? You have been watching too many soap operas or something. So melodramatic and obviously shows you have a script in your mind that may or may not have any connection to her reality.</p>
<p>I think what it is is having to fight a lot of the conditioned negativity my dad has about Tulane and NOLA based on generalizations and stereotypes that are often made offhandedly by people. For example, even though Tulane has been trying to undo the party school reputation it had maintained many years ago, many old schoolers (aka parents who are not actively researching schools to the extent that the CC parents do, those who are not “up to date” with the latest facts about colleges today) still believe it is a top party school. Not all parents are like CC parents. There are a lot of misconceptions that are so deeply instilled in parents like my dad that are hard to change, including the idea that the rankings system is the end all be all of what colleges are the best, and what colleges are “meh”. Generalizations about NOLA are made ALL THE TIME by people who don’t know very much about it, and couldn’t care less about learning more. It is the repetition of statements made by people who know so little and who go off of just what they have heard from others that creates that underlying dislike for Tulane (and other schools that are not top tier, but are still pretty good).</p>