Have visited both. They are both nice campuses in great cities. Tulane feels less southern. Tulane will cost 1/2 of what Vanderbilt will cost. Will major in business at Tulane, economics at Vanderbilt. Tulane appeared to be friendlier and less serious. Will take more of my AP credits. Vanderbilt was smaller and probably more intellectual . Concerned about job placement at graduation. Also concerned about grade deflation at Vanderbilt. The $$ is there for either school. Any advice?
So give or take a few dollars, Vanderbilt will cost you $35K more per year than Tulane. Let’s even say it is $30,000 because for my point it doesn’t really matter. IMO no school is worth $120,000-$140,000 more to attend, unless your family is in that top 1% people talk about and the money is, essentially, pocket change. Just being affordable isn’t enough in my mind, it has to be nearly trivial money. And I say that not because I like Tulane so much. In fact, I am usually telling people that got into Tulane and have to spend $35,000 like you but also got into another program full ride or at least with far less cost than Tulane that they should pick the other program. And that other program isn’t usually as close in quality to Tulane as Tulane is to Vanderbilt.
For one thing, I would point out that you are in the Honors Program, I would assume from that scholarship and the fact that you got into Vandy. So you will be in the dorm with people that have stats very much the same as those at the very top schools, and care about academics. Second, Tulane might not feel as southern, and in many ways NOLA isn’t classically southern, but it is completely unique and wonderful. As is Nashville, but not like NOLA.
Attaining your first job is more on you than your school no matter where you go. But having said that, both schools provide great services in helping students prepare to the max. I will point out that in addition to the job help every school gives, Tulane business school sponsors trips every year to NYC, Houston, Chicago, and I think one more place for students to expand their job prospects. Not to mention that if you keep your eyes and ears open, NOLA is one of the leading conference centers in the country, and most conferences have a job information aspect to them. They will often let students have access for free one day of the conference, or at highly discounted prices. Oh, and Tulane is in the process of redoing their student services and putting them all under one roof in a dedicated building, thanks to a $5 million donation from an alum. So from the day you start at Tulane (or even before, actually) until the day they “hand you off” to alumni relations, Tulane will offer a very complete array of services and it will be easy to find them.
So bottom line, to me, is that unless that money really is trivial to your family, it seems to me the only logical choice is Tulane. Heck, ask them to put that $35,000 each year into an investment account and make it a graduation present to you! Kidding, but I think you would be very happy at Tulane. The B School is great with some super innovative programs, and that is another area of expansion. They are just getting underway with a $35,000,000 expansion of the business school.
Let us know what you decide and why, if you would.
Wow, two great schools that you like, and one is $35,000 cheaper per year? I think they are pretty comparable intellectually, probably, although you have visited both, so I guess you would know. But, on the other hand, my kid is on the waitlist at Tulane, so, choose VANDY!!! 
We live in Nashville so we made our daughter do the Vanderbilt tour even though she wanted to go to college literally anywhere except Tennessee. Our impression is like yours that the universities are pretty similar despite Vanderbilt’s slightly higher ranking. Tulane seems more geographically diverse and to have more religious diversity than Vanderbilt which, I think, gives Tulane a more sophisticated or maybe national vibe, I guess. We also felt Vanderbilt seemed more southern. The main difference to my daughter and us are the cities. Nashville is a nice city and is making strides downtown, but New Orleans is just a lot more cosmopolitan and has a more progressive feel to it. When you walk off campus at Vanderbilt you are in the land of strip malls and national chain restaurants. It looks like New Orleans has hundreds, (maybe thousands?) of local restaurants with its own delicious food and culture. Sadly, Nashville is famous for "hot chicken’ and “meat and threes.” We noticed St Charles avenue has nice bike lanes and a beautiful park and zoo right across from Tulane. Nashville is trying to get more pedestrian friendly and does have some great greenways, just none of them are near Vanderbilt. Vandy is in a very congested high traffic area that is just not very attractive. Centennial Park just can’t compare to Audubon park and the West End area of Nashville is just not comparable to Uptown New Orleans. Tulane is surrounded by beautiful neighborhoods with giant oak trees vs a concrete jungle. Now, if you like country music Nashville is the better city. It makes my daughter want to gag, but that is just a personal preference, like universities. On the other hand, one thing we love about Nashville is the proximity to the mountains. We like to hike and boat and you can literally be in the mountains in 2.5 hours or on a lake swimming or boating in Nashville in minutes. With the streetcar system and bike lanes, New Orleans appears to have much better public transportation for carless freshman. Anyway, just my opinion, but New Orleans seems a lot more intriguing as place to go to college for 4 years than Nashville. Nashville and really probably every US city except maybe New York City seem bland compared to New Orleans. Already, many of my daughter’s friends that are going to be attending other universities have asked her when they can come and visit. Two of them are on the Tulane waitlist and hope to get accepted. Oh, and when we visited New Orleans in February it was 75 degrees, sunny and beautiful. Nashville was cold and rainy. So New Orleans has better weather too. It is still cold and rainy in Nashville.
In your shoes I’m picking Tulane, and I’m not a huge fan of NOLA.
$35K per year (or anywhere near that amount) is a huge price difference.
I would throw San Fran in there. Love that city too. Maybe Chicago, as being somewhat like NYC but not quite. Still, a lot of theater and a lot of other stuff.
The interesting thing to me is that SF doesn’t have a major private university like NYC, Chicago, New Orleans, Nashville Dallas, Houston, St. Louis, Miami, Boston. Oh, Boston. That is another pretty great city for attending college. But back to SF, Stanford isn’t terribly far away, but it isn’t accessible like a lot of these other schools are to their cities.
As far as the mountains go, I will have you know that there is a dirt mound in one of the parks that is 6 feet high, which I think is officially the highest “natural” point in NOLA. So there are too mountains!!
Tulane seems like the better pick under the circumstances, especially if you are in the Honors Program.
That’s great. We somehow missed the dirt mound. I am not sure why it hasn’t made it to the top 100 reasons to attend Tulane. We do like San Francisco, Chicago and Miami as well. We visited Boston and Harvard on our school tours and my daughter just didn’t want to apply, but not because she probably would have been denied she just didn’t want to deal with the snow and cold of Boston. Harvard was surprisingly underwhelming. Maybe because we expected so much, but the campus was not great and our student tour guide seemed bored. We loved Stanford and the students seemed very happy, but my daughter felt the odds of getting in were so slim as to not be worth the effort. I didn’t encourage her to apply to Stanford since it would have cost over 60,000 a year. Tulane is pretty ideal with the merit aid. Thanks for all the helpful posts fallenchemist.
@question18 Since you say that at Tulane you would be a business major and at Vandy an economics major I suggest you look at the courses in each. My daughters friends who are in the business school at Tulane take classes in accounting, marketing and finance. I wonder if an economics major at Vandy would be as well rounded in business? Just another way to look at your choices. You are lucky because you have 2 wonderful choices. Good luck!
That’s a great suggestion by @DebmomNY and I would add that I suspect, but do not know for sure, that it would be easier to minor in Econ or even double major at Tulane, than it would be to take many business classes at Vandy. That is because the way Tulane is structured, you were accepted into both the A.B. Freeman School of Business and the School of Liberal Arts, which contains Econ as a major. For that matter, you were also accepted into the School of Science and Engineering, the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, and the School of Architecture. That is one of the unique things about Tulane is that you are accepted to Newcomb-Tulane College and all 5 of its undergrad schools, which makes it very easy to double major and change majors.
@X22011: “We somehow missed the dirt mound.” I think @fallenchemist is referring to Monkey Hill in Audubon Park, which I was told was built during the Great Depression so that the children of NOLA would be able to see what a hill looked like.
Cal/Berkeley is across the bay bridge from SF. Not too terribly hard to get to on BART.
I’ll quote myself with emphasis to my point.
The reason that is an important distinction, now more than ever, is that UCB is harder than ever for anyone but Californians and the very rich to afford, since they are doing away (or have done away) with financial aid for OOS students. Which is really tough because OOS cost of attendance is about the same as going to Tulane, Vandy, etc.
Vandy might have a small edge in rep due to the USNews ranking, and Nashville is a cool city, but in no way is it worth $140k more.
If you like Tulane, I think you should choose it.
Just mentioning a good university near SF. The California public schools are no longer offering merit $ to OOS students, but the price is comparable to what the OP is facing as full pay for Vandy. The schools are also both academically strong.
Too late to edit the typo - meant to say that CA was phasing out need based aid- did not mean to say merit aid. http://www.dailycal.org/2015/11/23/to-fund-enrollment-boost-uc-will-phase-out-out-of-state-financial-aid/. My point was that the COA is parallel for the OP looking at full pay at vandy.
fallenchemist’s point about professional conferences is an excellent one, and one I hadn’t really thought of. I know tht NOLA is one of the few cities (Washington DC and Chicago being the others) where the size and price of the conference center, plus transportation access and lots of nearby hotels and food in various price ranges makes it ideal to hold a conference there. There are always lots of other conferences in town when we are there. And he is absolutely right - there are usually low fees for students, and any student that makes the effort to go to the conference and ask questions of the professionals, even if just at the vendor booths, will be remembered and thought of more highly once job search time comes around.
Tulane.
The National Association of School Psychologists just held their annual convention in NOLA-- right after MartI gras! Great timing for those who attended ( DS knew several who did).
Tulane still seems kind of expensive, any other options?