<p>hugoblank, thank you! Still hard to believe!</p>
<p>lioness4 - I posted the following in another thread, before I read your post or FC’s response. I think this may provide you with another anecdote to help you understand Tulane. </p>
<p>My daughter is a Freshman at Tulane. Her story and academic credentials are very similar to yours. She initially applied on the last possible date because Tulane offered a free application. She was intrigued by Tulane because it has an Historical Preservation Program in the School of Architecture. She also applied, and was accepted, to a number of other schools. She knew very little about New Orleans. In fact, I believe my daughter is the first person to attend Tulane from our area. After receiving her acceptance and merit award, we decided to look into Tulane a little closer. We attended the Tulane Orange County local Presentation (which still involved a bit of a drive because no representative came to our area), and we went to the Honors Weekend in New Orleans. She also visited with a couple of alumni here in Southern California. After visiting Tulane and speaking with former students, she realized that Tulane was where she wanted to attend. Like you, our family could not afford to send my daughter to Tulane based solely on the initial merit award (although quite generous). We spoke to a financial aid counselor and we learned that Tulane has a number of options available to make it more affordable for prospective students. You will also note from the numerous CC posts, and from the Tulane website, Tulane offers a number of full tuition scholarships. In summary, although my daughter did not initially consider Tulane, after learning more about the school, she realized that it was the best possible place for her. Because Tulane also made it financially possible for her to attend, she entered the School of Architecture this Fall. When we visited her on Parents Day a few weeks ago, she told us how happy she was to see us, but she made it known that she was glad we came to her because she absolutely loves Tulane and New Orleans and wanted to share her new home with us. Make no mistake, my daughter has never worked so hard in school (which is saying a lot because she had a boatload of AP classes in HS along with a bunch of ECs), but she is enjoying Tulane a great deal and is extremely happy with her decision. Even Hurricane Isaac, which hit New Orleans her first week of school, was an adventure. Based upon the other schools you are considering, I think you should definitely investigate Tulane before making your decision. I think you will find yourself seriously considering attending.</p>
<p>I would also add that I have summed up Tulane’s approach as follows: which I believe to be a great marketing approach - Attract highly qualified, motivated students with free applications, admit those who show an interest, offer them a nice financial aid package, let them experience Tulane and New Orleans, work hard in school and instill the importance of community service, send them off to enjoy successful careers, have them send as much money as possible back to Tulane so they can attract even more high quality individuals to attend. I think this has approved to be a recipe for success.</p>
<p>Lioness – Tulane strategically uses merit aid awards to attract strong students who might otherwise enroll elsewhere. Other schools that use (or at least used to use) that playbook include USC, Carnegie Mellon, Washington University in St. Louis, NYU, Syracuse, Boston College and Boston University. It is a very effective way to improve the academic quality of your enrolled students.</p>
<p>According to the NY Times database, 33% of TU freshmen got merit awards which averaged $20k; USC is 24% averaging $19k; Univ of Miami (which overlaps a lot with TU in admissions) is 24% averaging $23k.</p>
<p>northwesty - great info, thanks. Guess I was wrong about the average award not being published anywhere.</p>
<p>I was aware that merit awards were available at most of those schools, but do you know how many require no separate application the way Tulane does it? I know Miami does it the same way, but WUSTL, for example, I thought only had merit scholarships if you applied for them in addition to your admittance application.</p>
<p>Hey guys. Has anyone from Northern Va heard anything yet? I applied 2 weeks ago and haven’t heard anything.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info! Son was very flattered initially but it wore off a bit when he found out all the kids he knows who applied were also offered awards. I wonder if it ever works against school because of that… In the end, Tulane has always been a draw for him so it really is all upside.</p>
<p>Finally got the good news tonight that my D2 was accepted. She applied on 9/27 and has been waiting a long time! Wishing good luck to all the rest who are waiting, I hope y’all get good news this week.</p>
<p>What time did your D2 find out mumof2?</p>
<p>Hey mumof2, that’s great! How did she react?</p>
<p>Thanks, FC. And thank you for all your advice with D1 and D2, much appreciated.
She said that she checked around 3 PM today -still said application complete. Then she checked again about 7:45 and she was accepted! She was in a car (fortunately not driving) and she screamed so loud that the driver almost had an accident. Her best friend (who was accepted last week) was in the car with her too. Then she texted me a photo of her acceptance. Very exciting night.</p>
<p>Great story! Especially since they didn’t crash, lol. And that’s cool that she was with her best friend that was also accepted. What are the odds they will both attend, do you think?</p>
<p>I’m so happy for you and your daughter - congratulations on her acceptance! My husband and D are flying down to TU this weekend for a visit. Very anxious to see how she likes it.</p>
<p>exlawyermom - we got the acceptance letter last weekend. It was a general acceptance letter to the University with a merit$ award. No specific mention of Architecture.</p>
<p>2asmom, thanks for the info. Are you going to call about arch acceptance? I can’t imagine they wouldn’t be accepted for arch, but confirmation would be nice.</p>
<p>We are waiting anxiously for EA application news! May I ask what your daughter’s SAT and ACT scores were for a comparison to my daughter’s. Thank you!</p>
<p>“I was aware that merit awards were available at most of those schools, but do you know how many require no separate application the way Tulane does it? I know Miami does it the same way, but WUSTL, for example, I thought only had merit scholarships if you applied for them in addition to your admittance application.”</p>
<p>FC – That is standard operating procedure for any school that has merit aid as a significant component of its “enrollment management” practices. That kind of merit aid is really more “differential pricing strategy” than scholarship. </p>
<p>Boston College was the pioneer of this and WUSTL was also big into this. But now that those schools have landed where they wanted to be in the USNWR rankings, they no longer hand out nearly as much merit money as they used to. USC has done this to improve its ranking by 25 spots, but they still do a lot of merit money. They must be shooting to crack the top 20.</p>
<p>“Thanks for the info! Son was very flattered initially but it wore off a bit when he found out all the kids he knows who applied were also offered awards. I wonder if it ever works against school because of that… In the end, Tulane has always been a draw for him so it really is all upside.”</p>
<p>Lioness – Your kid should still be flattered. TU only accepts about 25% of its applicants. 33% of the kids who ENROLL have merit awards. So that would imply only 8% of applicants get an award.</p>
<p>Since the purpose of the merit award is to increase the chances that a particular student will enroll, one could assume that the awardees actually enroll at a higher rate than non-awardees. So the percentage of applicants getting awards could be significantly lower than that 8% guess.</p>
<p>lovethosechips, 2050 SAT, 3.7 GPA, strong extracurriculars (in and out of school)in theater, fine art and creative writing, pres NHS, newspaper editor. I am hoping for your good news!</p>
<p>Are there any international students that heard back ?</p>
<p>Congratulations to everyone that has been accepted. I have missed quite a few. I am very happy for all of you.
Everyone that is still waiting -hang in there! My DD has decided Tulane is too far and she wants a big 10 school after obsessing for months over Tulane. I am hoping she is just saying this as a protective mechanism since she hasn’t gotten any news yet-FC, unfortunately your theory of kids getting in early and seeing themselves at that school seems too true. She is now picturing herself at the schools she has received acceptances to. She is not a risk taker and doesn’t like rejection ( who does?) so I am still hopeful that she will get in and that she will want to go to Tulane. Everything works out the way it’s supposed to. Maybe she won’t get in and this is the way it was supposed to be. Only time will tell. In the meantime, I am still cautiously optimistic and using all my will power to not discuss the pros of Tulane and how much she loved it. (Hence, my long, wordy, drawn out post. Sorry to all the bored readers.)</p>
<p>Again, good luck to all that are waiting and maybe the good news will come today. I have to say it was exciting to see what a Tulane acceptance looks like. ( I can’t remember who posted the link but thank you.)</p>