Back in May, I narrowed my college choice down to two choices: College of Charleston and Tulane. Tulane was always my first choice from the start, and I even applied to it ED. I was accepted as a spring scholar and was ecstatic and practically in tears because I was so excited. I applied to Cofc before I had heard back from Tulane as a backup option and had little to no interest at the time. However, when I went to Cofc for an accepted student weekend, I discovered that I really liked it, even though I went into the tour deadset on Tulane. My decision was impossible for me to make, as I settled on Tulane with only three hours before my deposit was due. I chose Tulane because I liked the suburban campus style, strength of programs, and the city of New Orleans better. I also picked Tulane because my parents convinced me that because Tulane was my first love I would probably like it better even though I was really unsure and nervous about Tulane when I made my decision. I was nervous about Tulane because of the safety of the campus, and, especially, the spring start. Iām super worried that I wonāt be able to make friends and adjust to college life by joining the community a semester late. On the other hand, I liked Charleston because they offered me a spot in the honors college, the campus and housing are awesome, and they offered me a large scholarship that would make attending Cofc half the cost of Tulane. In full honesty, I liked Cofc better when I chose Tulane but I thought that because Tulane was the one I liked better originally, it would be the better choice. Itās also worth mentioning that one of my best friends is going to Cofc and has been bugging me about my decision and telling me I should have gone there with them. While their nagging has definitely exacerbated my worries, even without their input I have been freaking out about my decision since I made it a month ago. Iāve tried talking to my parents about this but they get mad at me and dismiss it as anxiety that everyone goes through. However, these regrets feel like much more legitimate and decision altering problems. Iām really scared about making friends at Tulane and fitting in, and the financial stress it will put on my family. Iām wondering if my concerns and feelings of regret are just panic and my friend getting on my case, or legitimate fears. Iām also questioning if I should contact Cofc and try to get my spot back. Please help.
Were you accepted ED to Tulane, or deferred to RD and accepted?
Tulane is safe enough if you live on campus all four years. Donāt try to live off campus because there are a lot of burglaries in the surrounding areas. New Orleans is a fun place, and I think that is one of the reasons the students tend to be friendly and outgoing. I donāt know if it is worth the extra money to go to a higher ranked school because I donāt know if your family can handle it easily or if it will be hardship for them. Is either school better for your intended major?
Donāt let your friends make your decisions for you. If your parents can afford Tulane, I wouldnāt worry about it. You applied EA there for a reason, right?
If you applied to Tulane ED, you are obligated to attend there. Buyers remorse is not good reason to be released from the ED contract you, your Gc and parents signed. You are entering or have entered adulthood and keeping your word is an important part of your character.
If Tulane does not pan out, you can apply to transfer if your parents will support that decision
If admission has been offered for the spring term only, then ED provisions are commonly dropped.
OP applied Early Action to Tulane. I donāt know how binding that is.
If the parents wonāt pay for the other school it doesnāt matter if OP likes it better. Even if they agree to pay, there may not be spots open. OP could call the other school to ask, I suppose, but if the parents arenāt supporting the decision I donāt see how s/he will be able to make it work.
@bigchungus : Interesting location choices for collegeāCharleston, New Orleans & Williamsburg.
Based on this thread, it seems as though College of Charleston would have been a better choice due to cost, honors college admission, better dorms &, according to your preferences, a better campus.
Spring admission does make it somewhat harder to make friends & fit in. To me, first semester freshman year in the Fall is the most interesting time socially at college. Lots of excitement & anticipation in the air.
Nevertheless, New Orleans is an interesting city although dangerousāespecially if you leave the main roads.
P.S. Positives about Tulane: Lower rate of attrition, brighter students, great city & , if Jewish, a large community.
Your feeling is a really natural one! Itās been collegecollegecollege for years now- get good grades / ECs so you can get into a good college! donāt slip up now! this decision matters!
When a buying decision really matters (and choosing a college is a purchase decision), we often second guess ourselves after the event: āshould I have bought these shoes, or should I have bought the other ones that I was thinking about?ā Then a friend gets the other ones and tells us how great theirs is- and if we were unsure at the start, we might question our choice. And then we can discount the reasons we made the choice in the first place, and we donāt factor in differences between us and our friends. Or: we can remember why we made the decision for ourselves in the first place, and say āyour choice is a great choice for you / my choice is a great choice for meā.
That is what this is, just on a bigger scale. So: donāt spook yourself. Remember:
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Tulane is an excellent college, with lots to offer. You had a lot of reasons why you were all-in for Tulane- and those elements are still true.
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Revisit days are super-sales pitches (remember, this is a buying decision, and once a school has made an offer they want you to pick them). If you donāt love a school on revisit day the Admin office isnāt doing their job- which is to get you to want to come.
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HS friends who want you to come be with them is natural and lovely- but it is not a metric for making an objective decision about your future. A healthy level of anxiety about the unknown is not only natural, but is part of growing.
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Learning to own your choice is a good thing! and, bonus, you donāt have to own it forever. You go to Tulane, work on making friends and learning your new world. But, if, after giving it a genuine, sustained effort, itās not for you then you evaluate why itās not, identify what would be (which by then might not even be CofC) and transfer.
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About making friends: college is not HS. Expect to end up with several āpodsā of friends: the people you share housing with; the people who you do ECs with; the people in your major. There is a LOT of friend movement over the first 1.5 years. The āmy first year roommate is still my bf all these years laterā thing is definitely the exception, not the rule. Coming in a semester late means that you are arriving after the first round of āany port in a stormā acquaintances is beginning to shake out, and people are a little more relaxed about.
Finally, saying ādonāt go to Tulane b/c NO is dangerousā is like saying ādonāt go to Columbia b/c NYC is dangerousā. The actual campus community for both is nearly a world apart from the cities that they are in. Do bad things happen? of course- but pretty rarely. And if we are going to be completely blunt about it, statistically, the biggest danger to a college woman is a college man- by a long margin. And that is true at any college.
Unless one has lived in New Orleans for a period of time longer than a short vacation, the dangers on the street may not be readily apparent.
New Orleans is much more dangerous than NYC. Uptown, where Tulane is located, is especially dangerous when veering off into the side streets as Uptown was developed in a checker-board pattern of magnificent homes & servantsā dwellings. This has resulted in some of the most violent & dangerous areas being within a couple of blocks of the most beautiful homes in the Uptown area. And it has been this way for many, many decades.
ā¦and yet, Tulane students are very, very, very rarely affected by external dangers- for many, many decades. Basing this on experience of Tulane students from my generation and from my collegekidās friendsā¦Standing over my assertion that in practice, the most dangerous thing for any college woman (any college) is college men.
@Publisher I often agree with your posts and respect your opinion on many topics. But your stance on the safety of the Uptown neighborhood around Tulane is outdated. Post Katrina, the lines of neighborhood desirability/crime in New Orleans have been significantly redrawn. Gentrification abounds. Real estate values have sky rocketed. For the Uptown/Carrolton/Riverbend/Black Pearl areas this is especially true. Generally speaking, anything on the river side of Claiborne is now very suburban in feel. Commercial development along Freret, Oak and Maple Streets is boomingā¦the students have so many more options within walking distance of campus than existed just 5 years ago. North (Lakeside) of Claiborne is where the still challenged neighborhoods are, but the students have rare occasion to venture into them. Just for context, I have been a frequent visitor to New Orleans since 2002 (over 30 visits) and the last few years have been in town 3-4 times per year. I have been able to watch these changes occur myself as well as get the perspective of friends who have lived there most of their lives.
New Orleans as a city undoubtedly has its challenges, most rooted in politics and infrastructure and the many aspects of livability that they touch. But I donāt worry about my daughter in Uptown New Orleans these days any more than I would worry about her attending any school in a city. She feels completely safe and hasnāt had any issues, Uptown or in any of the other parts of the city that she and her friends and classmates explore.
@pishicaca: Thank you for posting. It has been awhile since I lived there. Continued to visit for business & pleasure, but not recently.
I wonder about public finances as LSU is certainly undergoing financial challenges. Is that occurring in New Orleans with respect to government funding for public safety ?
P.S. Just googled crime in Uptown New Orleans / Tulane University. According to many sources, it is still very dangerous.
School crime data is available here: https://ope.ed.gov/campussafety/#/
Link above shows high rate of āon-campusā rape & burglary.
āOff campusā stats are incorrect. Just use google.
Iād be surprised if the slot at CoC honors college is still open. Why slam Tulane if itās the only thing on the table? It will just make OP more nervous/upset and wonāt help.
@bigchungus If you are sure you would make the move, and can call CoC with conviction and certainty in your voice, why donāt you call CoC and see if your spot is still available. You donāt need your parents permission to do that. If they say yes, tell them you need to confirm plans with your parents and will call them back in 24 hours. Then you can go to your parents and say, āCoCā is offering this (or not offering which may be the case) and I would rather go there. That would show maturity rather than just whining about it. Time matters, even a day, do it sooner than later (it may already be too late, but you wonāt know if you donāt call).
That is better than listening to anxiety/nervous type parents telling you all the horror stories of living attending schools in New Orleans, or NYC, or LA or any other place for that matter, which happens on here all the time. Yale is in a bad neighborhood, yet we arenāt reading stories day after day about girls being dragged off campus and disappearing. Wash U in St. Louis is surrounded by the worst that city has to offer, the list goes on and on. One of the biggest risks to you is being drunk/drugs and using bad judgement in college. But that can totally be determined by you. Every place is unsafe and you need to learn to navigate those kind of areas so you arenāt a scaredy cat grown up. So donāt go to Tulane if itās not the school for you, but you will work around the safety thing wherever you are.
OP, to me the $ aspect is the biggest consideration since there is a significant difference and you seem to not prefer one school significantly over the other. If you are still interested in CofC, give them a call regarding your spot. It canāt hurt to inquire. If they say no, then you you have an easy decision. If yes, then have a discussion with your parents, make sure you understand your obligations to Tulane based on how you applied, and revisit your decision.
Regarding the spring admit to Tulaneā¦I can understand why that might be a concern. I think Tulane does as well, and they do a pretty good job of offering programs and opportunities to the Spring Scholars to get together, feel a part of the school and, once you get to campus, get integrated and involved quickly.
You have two great choices and frankly, I think you will have a wonderful experience wherever you end up. Just as an attempt to anecdotally alleviate some of your fears through someone elseās positive experience, I can share my D18ās experience during her first year at Tulane. She is over the moon happy. The kids at Tulane tend to get involved in lots of thingsā¦they are passionate about their campus community and are doers. My D was no exception. In just her freshman year, she was able to secure a research assistant spot with a Public Health professor, audition for for and play in the orchestra, obtain an on campus job to earn extra money, be elected a Senator for both the general student government as well as the student government specific to the school of Public Health, volunteer to help a collective of Mardi Gras Indian tribes to establish a group meeting venue, and make a group of friends from literally all over the country (two of whom have already visited us in our home this summer) and I know Iām forgetting some things. She loves the flexibility Tulane provides its students to study across multiple disciplines/multiple schools at the same time. They do not limit your ability to explore disparate areas of study, which for a student with many scholastic interests but who is unsure of exactly what they want to major in, that freedom is reassuring and provides many options to find your path.
Outside of the classroom, she was able to attend Voodoo Fest and an Ed Sheeran concert at the Superdome in the fall, Jazzfest and Mardi Gras parades (which she was pleasantly surprised to see were so family and community oriented vs. the prevailing perception) in the spring, enjoy the unique culinary and musical offerings, and have an overall experience that balanced a rigorous academic schedule and environment with opportunities to enjoy one of the more unique cities in our country.
All of that to say, OP, that if you end up at Tulane, know that you have the opportunity to have one of the more unique four years of college aroundā¦you have no bad choices here! Rejoice in knowing that! I know this is a stressful time, but once you get your decision absolutely finalized, the excitement will build. So just take it one step at a time and it wonāt feel nearly so overwhelming. Good luck with your decision, and if I can answer any specific questions about Tulane that may help you in your process, please do not hesitate to reach out.
If you contact the College of Charleston, an option may be to take a gap year & start in the Fall of the next class since scholarship money is probably all committed to other students by now.
Cost of attendance is a very important factor for almost all families.
@blueskies2day : OP raised the issue regarding the safety of Tulaneās campus in the initial post which started this thread. This student has a right to know that information. Objective, reliable sources indicate that there is reason for concern.
OP wrote: āI was nervous about Tulane because of the safety of the campus, and because of the spring start.ā
OP also shared: āI am worried about the financial stress it will put on my family.ā = referring to Tulane.
OPās parents pushed Tulane even though OP preferred the college of Charleston Honors College with a merit scholarship.
You are going to COMPLETELY LOVE TULANE. Seriously, iām all-capping for good reason hereā¦kids who go there love itā¦and new orleans is magical as wellā¦you made a great choice. March into your future.