<p>"To give further evidence of your depth of thought, use the box on the next page to explore an issue, idea,
academic area of interest or cause about which you feel strongly, and accompany this with a 250- to 500-word
written commentary. While your project should reveal something you are passionate about, you should not be
the project’s main focus or subject."</p>
<p>How do I put anything into the box they provide for me in the next page? Also how do I attach my commentary and send it to them electronically?</p>
<p>Look on youtube, they have tons of examples for this scholarship. It seems most people in recent years have done some type of video (not necessary- just the trend right now) and send it via email link or on a thumb drive in the mail. Don’t forget to write something.</p>
<p>Good luck - having a blank box to work with is harder than it looks!</p>
<p>First, despite the fact that I have pointed it out on here for several years now, that 100 on the page in the Financial Aid section of the Tulane web site is now incorrect. For about 6-7 years it has been 75, which is what admissions has. I thought someone from Tulane would see that and get it fixed, but I guess not. I will take it upon myself to talk to Financial Aid. As to why it changed to 75, I am guessing. But I think the DHS awards are funded from the investment gains of a donation (or series of donations?) that were made to Tulane and earmarked for this specific purpose. I also think, but am not sure (lots of ifs, I know) that all or part of a $30 million donation by David Filo, a Tulane grad and co-founder of Yahoo, goes towards this. So I am guessing yet again that the reason they reduced the number from 100 to 75 around 2008 is because that is the year, of course, that everything collapsed, and since then interest rates and overall investment returns are not at the levels before that. Obviously if I am right about where the money comes from, they want to leave the principle untouched.</p>
<p>Second, and to your question (finally!!!), what I do know is that it is the other way around from what you are thinking. 75 are awarded and it is their estimate that 30-50% will actually take the award, and that is what they budget for. In my D’s year, I think there were 34. Every year I get asked if Tulane goes back and awards the DHS to someone else once they learn a winner has decided not to attend. The answer, of course, is no. Not only because, as I just said, the declination was already figured in, but also because that isn’t in the nature of winning such a scholarship. There was one year they awarded some “runners-up” awards, maybe 3 years ago? Some amount higher than the Presidential but not full tuition. But I have not seen that since.</p>
<p>Simple question, long answer. Hope that is OK.</p>
<p>Are the Dean, PTA, Stamps recipients predominantly from out-of-state, since there is a slate of large awards (e.g. Hainkel, legislative, mayoral scholarships) for LA residents? </p>
<p>Out of curiosity, since LA is notorious for corruption, do the legislators mostly give their scholarship nomination to each other’s relatives?</p>
Well, just by the sheer numbers they are predominantly from OOS. Are they disproportionately not given to LA residents because of all those other available scholarships? That I do not know.</p>
<p>
You have asked a question that would make a wonderful one hour lecture. And it is actually very timely as there were a number of fairly recent (Spring?) articles in the local papers, especially the Advocate, calling for even more reform (see below to explain the word “more”) or even their elimination.</p>
<p>Anyway, the short answer is no, that kind of corruption was legislated out back in the '90’s I believe it was. Most weren’t doing it, but it did happen of course, back when it was only unethical and not illegal. But since then there are strict rules against any family member and some other connections getting the scholarships, and that would be from any legislator, to exactly prevent “swapping” them. In fact, I think they are only allowed to give the scholarship to someone in their district, so they couldn’t swap them anyway, or give them away to get other favors. I would have to double check that. As I understand it, a number of the legislators leave it to Tulane to make the choice. Citing privacy laws, a lot of the information is still unobtainable, but it is audited to insure that relatives are not the recipients of the scholarships. So barring even deeper corruption, it seems to be on a pretty decent plane. And given the scrutiny they have received, there is little reason to believe anything very untoward is going on.</p>
<p>One recent development regarding the DHS: My son (a freshman DHS recipient) is friends with 2 other DHS recipients in his dorm and one of them recently received an email indicating that they were picked as a recipient of a new scholarship specification associated with David Filo (Yahoo founder and Tulane Computer Eng graduate) who has given something along the lines of 30 million dollars to Tulane toward scholarship. The email was sort of confusing, but sounded like is was sort of a specific subgroup of the DHS winners for the freshman class. The email also specifically detailed that while the specification would not translate to additional monies (from the traditional DHS), but there would be some sort of demarcation on transcripts to reflect this status. Also they were invited to attend a party (presumably with Mr. Filo present?) after the start of the second semester. Will be interesting to see if there are any other perks.</p>
<p>The same thing happened to my D her 2nd year, except the scholarship wasn’t associated with David Filo but instead a longtime Tulane family (Selber) that owned the biggest department store in Shreveport before it was bought by one of the big chains. His wife graduated from Newcomb in the 1920’s I think it was. The award was named after her, the Frances Dreyfuss Selber Scholarship, even though he graduated from Tulane as well, I think. What is a hoot is that the Newcomb Archives actually had valentine cards she designed while at Newcomb, and they are still in the collection. So I think what happens here is that Tulane chooses certain DHS (and now maybe PTA?) winners to receive named endowed scholarships after the first year of their DHS. As you say, it doesn’t result in additional money, but it is nice to be able to put on the resume both lines:</p>
<p>“Awarded Dean’s Honor Scholarship”
“Awarded David Filo Engineering Scholarship”</p>
<p>As far as the party, my D was invited to that as well so I think it is a general party for all winners of named, endowed scholarships. Perhaps Mr. Filo will be there, but I wouldn’t count on it. What is generally expected (and they will get a note suggesting this) is that the student write a letter to the person or family that is responsible for the endowment and express their gratitude.</p>
<p>Also I’d make sure to follow up a week after to make sure it has been received, i sent mine by mail and come decision time discovered that Tulane had never gotten it…</p>
<p>That is excellent advice, @texasteen. I have always tried to encourage people to send it by some method that has proof of delivery. I didn’t really mention it this year because everyone was asking about electronic submission. Still, your advice is spot on that when everyone returns to work January 5, it would be a good idea to confirm that they have all materials submitted.</p>