<p>I applied EA and was deferred. I thought of Tulane as a safety, but now with news of my deferral, I'm pretty nervous about the rest of the schools I applied to.</p>
<p>African American female
competitive private HS
most rigorous courseload
3.3 UW (strong upward trend, I had a 4.0 junior year)
CR 800 M 660 W 770 (1460/2230)
SAT II Lit-730 U.S.-770
National Merit Commended
National Achievement Semifinalist(only one at my HS)
AP Scholar with Distinction(only one at my HS)
APs: US-5 Lang-5 Gov-5 Psych-5
ECs: owner/founder of a small business, leadership position in a local non-profit, class officer, 400+ hours of service</p>
<p>Any advice as to what I can do to improve my chances of being admitted? I really didn't see this coming :/</p>
<p>At first I thought it was a mistake, but then I saw one of your old threads that says that basically your junior year was your only good year, although it was perfect (congrats!). So I think that Tulane is probably just waiting to see your first semester grades to make sure things are staying on track. After all, look at it from their perspective. You have 4 semesters that were less than adequate, and 2 that are spectacular. They need to see one more to be sure, I’ll bet you just about anything. Of course those SAT’s are smoking hot, as are your AP scores. I wouldn’t worry too much.</p>
<p>However, if you want to improve your chances as much as possible, after you know Tulane has your first semester grades (assuming they are great again) write your adcom a nice e-mail expressing your strong interest in Tulane. The problem is you don’t really have a strong interest it seems, so you will have to handle that as you see fit. My guess is you will get into Williams and Dartmouth both because of your improving grades (they will see your first semester grades before making a decision, right?), your SAT’s, your AP’s and your EC’s plus being an URM. So Tulane will probably be a moot point. I am guessing based on your other posts those are 2 schools that you applied to.</p>
<p>ansley - It’s possible you’re a victim of application proliferation madness. Tulane gets 40,000 applications for <2000 freshman slots. Trying to make “fair” decisions under those conditions is futile. </p>
<p>I agree with fallenchemist. If you want to attend Tulane then you need to let Tulane know that in no uncertain terms. If on the other hand you weren’t really interested in Tulane, then give Tulane admissions props. (And you might want to pass along to your academic peers that it’s chancy to choose a school with a 15% acceptance rate as a safety.) </p>
<p>Finally, if you’re worried about not having a safety, you still time to find and apply to one. It’s my feeling you won’t need it, but if it makes you feel less stressed then by all means do the application.</p>
<p>Good advice NewHope, wouldn’t hurt for her to apply to a true “safety”. Just to be clear, the acceptance rate is about 26% (which is still pretty low compared to many other schools) and it is the yield (the percentage of those accepted that actually matriculate) is about 15%. And to make the application numbers even more dramatic this year, a recent letter from an adcom said applications were running 10% ahead of last year, which would put it at 44,000 and the number of slots is 1500-1600. I think if it gets much bigger than that there would be a housing problem. Maybe after the new dorm is finished they will increase the class size 100-150.</p>
<p>Wow, I had no idea Tulane was so competitive. Meh, I guess this was just a slap in the face…Oh, well, I’ll probably shoot my admission counselor an email</p>
<p>And as far as the whole ‘interest’ thing goes, I actually wrote my personal statement about my love of culture and then cited different attractions around the Tulane campus(parks, restaurants, etc.) that I would hope to frequent as a student…but yeah, I dunno, I guess they didn’t like it.</p>
<p>ansley - I’d be inclined to call your deferral a “wake up call” rather than a slap. But that’s just me. If you’re interested in attending Tulane then the deferral presents an opportunity to make sure Tulane is aware of that interest. Life is full of unforeseen difficulties. A lot of success in life is dependent on overcoming initial disappointment. Bonne chance!</p>
<p>Just my first impression… your essay seemed to be about your impression of New Orleans, not so much Tulane. Tulane is big on public service, and you have 400 hours… why didn’t you put that in your personal statement?</p>
<p>I think it’s all about the mid year grades. If those are in line with your junior year, you will be accepted. You don’t have to say here, but did you offer an explanation in your app for the lower earlier grades?</p>