Questions re: fit for various academic areas, DHS & Stamps?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Tulane University
1

Hi, all!

My son is a rising junior, and we’re deciding which campuses to visit. We’re a donut hole family with an income that’s just barely six digits. The bump in income happened two months ago, and prior to that we were Blue & Gold eligible at the UCs. Now we’re not, and it changes a LOT of things. For example, Pomona is off the table entirely because they are meets-full-need / nothing in merit. The UCs are only possible with a combo of a Regents scholarship plus living at home. In short, we can’t afford to let let S fall in love with Tulane if it’s financially unrealistic.

Our previous EFC ($5-6k) was do-able; the new one ($16k or so) is nowhere near do-able. In order for Tulane to be a realistic option, we need to bring our out of pocket cost down to 8k or less, so full tuition plus. This would mean something like the PT or DHS supplemented with outside scholarships or possibly the Stamps. (With only 5 spots, we know nobody, no matter how accomplished, can count on the Stamps - or the DHS / PT for that matter.)

S has pre-med aspirations, so we are trying to avoid loans.

Here are S’s programmatic interests:

  • pre-med (yes, we know it’s not a major)
  • drama / theatre - at the hobby / extracurricular level. Could be a possible minor but not a career interest.
  • biology / neuroscience / cognitive science / BME - areas for a possible major
  • psychology / brain & behavior focus - possible major, a different take on the above
  • communications / professional writing that includes genre fiction / new media - possible minor or double major

Any info regarding programs / opportunities in these areas would be very welcome. :slight_smile:

OK, now for estimated stats.

GPA: 4.5, give or take a tenth
probable NMF / National Hispanic Recognition Scholar
7 APs with a mix of 4s and 5s
45+ semester hours of community college credit with a 4.0 GPA (mostly CA IGETC, Japanese and the EMT stuff - we know it won’t all transfer)
EMT certification, including ambulance driver training
7 years CERT volunteer (CERT = Community Emergency Response Team)
5 years volunteering at the local zoo
5 years drama club/Thespian, 4 years Anime Club with leadership, 4 years Writer’s Society with leadership, 2 years Science Fiction club (new club because we moved between soph & junior year)

Right now, we are focusing almost exclusively on the big NMF schools - OU, UNM, UT Dallas, Michigan State, UAH. S has lived in CA all of his life and would like to go someplace “new and different.” New and different, eh? NOLA will be a darn sight more enjoyable than Michigan State for a warm weather kid. :wink:

Tulane is the only private school on our list right now, and any input would be a huge help in deciding whether or not we should visit, both from a $$$ standpoint and based on not encouraging to love a school that’s not affordable.

Many thanks in advance for everyone’s assistance!

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@DiotimaDM

That’s a strong resume, and Tulane has excellent programs in all the areas he is considering. Just for fun, since writing is a possible direction, look at http://www2.tulane.edu/liberal-arts/cpsp.cfm and https://www2.tulane.edu/advising/prehealth/academic/creative-premedical-scholars-program.cfm.

One thing that is missing in your post but crucial to estimating his chances for a top merit award is his SAT or ACT score. Without that anything said would be meaningless. If he is scheduled to take it soon, perhaps it is better to revisit the question with that piece of data filled in.

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Thanks, @fallenchemist! We’ll have test scores soon. Indicators so far suggest they’ll be on par with the rest of his data.

Re: writing - We’re hoping for a writing program that does not look down on genre fiction. Many do. It’s not a deal breaker since that kind of learning is easy to obtain through specialized workshops, but it would be nice to have.

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Re: CPSP - I’ve been reading up on it, and it sounds amazing. Would be a great fit for S. The only downside is that Tulane’s med school tuition is sky high, and while there are tons of advantages to a no-MCAT admit, no MCAT also means he can’t apply elsewhere to find a lower cost program. We’ll save that problem for another day, though. :wink: For now, he’s just focusing on prepping for the SAT / ACT.

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@DiotimaDM

My D was a double major at Tulane, with one of them being English plus the creative writing emphasis. She is really into science fiction and related genres, which I suspect might be the kind of thing you are talking about. She only found a prof or two that also enjoyed that genre, and there were some that were a bit disparaging about such a choice for creative writing. But they were extremely fair and did not grade her down in the least (all A’s in those courses and she graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa). She found them very willing to engage in friendly debate over the merits of various genres. She doesn’t back down easily. :slight_smile: So there is at least that very recent experience she had. She graduated 2 years ago. BTW, she did her honors thesis on aspects of Chinese science fiction, China Studies being her other major.

6

Once you know his SAT or ACT score, you’ll be in a much better position to know if you have a shot at large merit money. If funding visits is an issue, and it can get expensive, you may want to hold off until you know where he might stand a chance of a large merit award. My experience with merit money for two D’s, is you want to be in the top 25% quartile of standardized test scores, which you can tell from published stats, but you really want to be in the upper half of that top 25%. Use standardized test scores, not GPA, to predict merit. I think all of this applies to the PT or DHS at Tulane and can be used to see if he’ll be in the running. Based on her stats, D1 was in the running for PT/DHS, got DHS, now attends, and loves it.

As an aside, if you’re visiting Tulane, you may also want to check out Rhodes (Memphis) and/or University of Alabama. All very different, but they are all good with merit awards. Both are half day drives away.

Final advice, visit schools when they’re in session if at all possible, and don’t bother with summer visits.

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Thanks, @Bigmacattack! :slight_smile: