<p>Many of you here had two or more acceptance letters when you got into Tulane. So there could be someone, somewhere, that turned down other highly selective schools in order to attend Tulane.</p>
<p>My son turned down a couple of other comparable schools for Tulane. He also withdrew from a couple of waitlists because he liked Tulane. The schools he turned down were Northeastern U in Boston and Oxford College (a\k\a Emory’s back door).</p>
<p>S2 turned down Occidental College (scholarship), University of Denver (scholarship), University of Washington, UC Santa Barbara, UC San Diego (Honors), UC Berkeley, and University of Southern California (scholarship) for Tulane in 2010.</p>
<p>@idad Did S2 have a scholarship at Tulane?</p>
<p>My D turned down WUSTL and Dartmouth as well as several other schools.</p>
<p>My son’s #1 was Tulane and he applied SCEA. He applied to a handful of other schools as that is the “thing” to do at Exeter.</p>
<p>He was accepted at:
Loyola of New Orleans
Howard
Chapman
American U in Paris
U Maine</p>
<p>Rejected at:
Pepperdine
Dartmouth
American U in DC</p>
<p>S2 chose Tulane and turned down Brandeis, Emory, USC, U of Miami and U of Florida. Received no rejections.</p>
<p>D accepted at St. Clara U; University of San Diego, Baylor, Trinity U.; TCU Honors; Alabama Honors…and Tulane…all with large merit scholarships…no rejections…it was just love at first sight with New Orleans…</p>
<p>I didn’t mention that my D also was accepted everywhere she applied. She had no interest in applying to Harvard, Yale or Princeton even though she had the stats. I wanted her to apply to Harvard just to see if she would get accepted, but no dice. She is far more practical-minded than I am.</p>
<p>My S turned down the University of Virginia, the College of William & Mary, the College of Charleston, the University of Georgia and Wake Forest University for Tulane.</p>
<p>S was accepted to Wisconsin, PSU, Northeastern, got $$ from Miami, Delaware and UConn (honors). He was not rejected from anywhere but was wait listed: Lehigh, Michigan and Richmond. He did not follow up w/any of those schools + had himself removed from the wait list once he decided on Tulane. All is good in the world!</p>
<p>Well, since others offered more comprehensive responses, I will add to my earlier e mail that my son was rejected by Vanderbilt and waitlisted at U of Chicago, William & Mary and, inexplicably, at U of Richmond (a school he was led to believe would be a safety).</p>
<p>So many schools, including Tulane, are now trying to “profile” students that are likely to be using them as a “safety” and rejecting them. It makes them look more selective. Of course I can’t say for sure Richmond is doing this, but given their typical stats and seeing both you and Bloomy citing them, it seems likely.</p>
<p>My son was accepted at Tulane, U Miami, U Florida Gainsville, U Maryland, U Delaware.
Rejected at Emory, UNC and U Texas.
Top two all along were Tulane and Miami. Very happy with his choice.</p>
<p>My son was accepted at (Incl. Tulane - Honors) Santa Clara, SMU (Honors), UC Irvine (Honors), Cal Poly SLO. He was waitlisted at WUSTL and turned down by Rice, Northwestern & UC LA/Berkeley.</p>
<p>Daughter turned down Rice, Tufts, Penn, UVA, Pitt, Emory, U. of Rochester and Case Western (Rochester, Case, Pitt with $$) for Tulane; denied by Yale. </p>
<p>During a visit to Tulane for admitted students, we met a number of students who’d already decided on Tulane and were turning down Berkeley, WUSTL, Penn, NC-CH, UVA, Tufts, Harvard, Rice, Emory, USC, Brandeis, CMU, Barnard and MIT. Many of these students (and their parents, I suspect) decided largely on the basis of Tulane’s generous merit awards, for which they were extremely grateful.</p>
<p>Catria: S2 does have a scholarship from Tulane, but as noted earlier, he had generous offers from elsewhere as well. Though we appreciate the scholarships, S2 was in a position to choose his school without that really being factor.</p>
<p>Question for our resident expert (you know who you are): Tulane seems to be unusually generous with merit scholarships. Many students get them, and the amounts per student are significant. It’s a clever strategy, of course, to attract students. Is it me, or does Tulane do this more than comparable schools? And, if so, how does it afford it? Tulane has a large scholarship, but most assuredly not one of the largest. Yet, schools with far larger endowments are comparatively stingy with merit aid. Thoughts?</p>
<p>I think that Tulane is indeed one of the most generous with merit aid among highly selective universities, if not the most. It isn’t directly related to the size of the endowment, since these scholarships are essentially discounts off of the sticker price, rather than hard dollars being handed to someone. True, to some extent it is lost income from those who would pay sticker or closer to it than this discounted price, but many of these students would get at least some of those dollars anyway in need-based aid. So the impact isn’t quite as dramatic as it might seem at first. Still, in the end it does impact operating capital.</p>
<p>I believe the main motivation, in combination with the quick offer of admission many of these students receive, is to really grab the attention of very highly qualified students that were not really considering Tulane all that strongly. Once students that were otherwise only thinking Ivy, Duke, Chicago, etc. take a deeper look at Tulane, and especially if it motivates them to visit, they often end up choosing it. Immediately after Katrina this became exceedingly important, but the strategy has worked so well it continues.</p>
<p>As far as other schools, some like Miami (FL) are similar, but again you are correct that schools like Northwestern, Duke and many others do not offer any or a very small number of merit scholarships, and of course the Ivies pretty much don’t either. They have focused their efforts on need-based aid, either exclusively or very heavily. I can only surmise that they feel their brand names are sufficiently elite that students that can afford full tuition will choose them anyway over schools that offer substantial discounts on tuition. Sometimes they are right, sometimes they are wrong, as demonstrated by the number of great students that choose Tulane due at least in part based on the money. These other schools don’t really suffer, as the supply of these high level students is sufficiently great that this model is sustainable. I think where Tulane really “steals” students is in the upper-middle class area. Lots of these families cannot really afford full tuition at these private schools, but don’t get a lot of need-based aid either.</p>
<p>I guess you could say the market has evolved to fill the different preferences. At the same time, there is also nothing wrong with picking a school that one feels represents a better value. I have said numerous times in the past that a college education is not really that different than buying a car. Any good one will get you from A to B in a perfectly acceptable fashion. But the experience you have in that car will certainly vary, and if you can afford a super luxury one, then great. If instead you want or need to get a car of similar quality that is less expensive, then that is great as well. Obviously a key difference is that car dealers don’t screen you to accept you into their dealership, except for ability to pay. If you have the money to buy a Rolls then you always can. But just because you have the money for Harvard (or Tulane) doesn’t mean you will always be able to “buy” it. Maybe if you can donate enough for a new building, but obviously that is exceedingly rare, relatively speaking.</p>
<p>So a long-winded answer to your question. That’s my take on it anyway. I hope it makes sense.</p>
<p>Thanks so much; FC! Your answer makes perfect sense on many levels, including folks like us.</p>