But OP doesn’t want to go to Tulane. Doesn’t that matter ?
Also, OP’s stats of a 3.4 GPA & a superscored 1320 SAT suggest that the College of Charleston’s Honors College may be a much better match. Plus, OP wants to attend the CofC.
And starting in the Spring of one’s freshman year is awkward & unattractive to OP.
Additionally, Tulane will put financial strain on his family.
P.S. OP: It would be helpful if you shared the COA (annual cost of attendance to you & your family including loans) for each school.
I really encourage readers & posters to reread the original post in this thread. (I have read it about 5 times.)
Tulane will cost twice as much as the College of Charleston. He wants to be in the College of Charleston’s Honors College & prefers CofC’s campus & housing.
The Honors College average SAT score is 1345. OP has a superscored 1320. What is Tulane’s average SAT score ? Just checked Tulane’s website. Average SAT score last year was estimated to be 1460–well above OP’s superscored 1320. Huge difference regarding OP’s 3.4 GPA & Tulane’s average GPA as well.
OP has stated his concerns about Tulane which seem very reasonable.
P.S. It is OP"s parents who want Tulane, not OP. His parents are caught up in perceived prestige, while OP prefers the better fit which happens to be the only affordable option.
Not only should you ignore your friends nagging in this decision, you should also ignore strangers on social media who try to shame you into attending a college you feel uncomfortable attending. It does not make you a scaredy-cat because the crime stats concern you.
Well let’s break this down a little bit. OP applied early to Tulane and got in but is having serious regrets because:
- he’s not sure if he will make friends
- he’s scared of crime
- He’s wanting to spend less money.
Honestly, I would toss aside #1. I mean, how does he know that he won’t make friends (or, conversely, will make friends at CoC.)
2 my personal opinion but that's really overstated. Berkeley, Johns Hopkins, Northeastern, Loyola of Chicago, UCLA...many colleges have crime around them....i really don't see Tulane showing up on a "most dangerous" lists and I don't hear those complaints from friends who have kids there.
3. That's legit.
I agree with @SouthernHope on this one. OP applied to Tulane ED. While not accepted ED and has a spring admit, this was OP’s #1 choice.
Hopefully this is a family who already had a cost discussion and was well aware of the COA when that ED application was submitted.
IMO, it sounds like OP is just getting nervous and CoC feels “safer” because of the honors college admit and friends in the area.
OP - It’s normal to feel nervous but don’t give up your dream school because of those fears.
@SouthernHope: OP has shared more concerns than that. For example, the Spring start is a major concern which includes social concerns.
“wanting to spend less money” is a very deceptive way of restating OP’s concern about the financial strain on his family.
Crime is a very real concern at & around Tulane.
His concerns should add that he will be well below the 25% level of his classmates’ SAT & GPA numbers.
OP also has a strong preference for College of Charleston’s Honors College, campus, housing & the prestige & affordability of having been awarded a “large scholarship”.
Tulane just isn’t a match for OP based on his academic abilities alone–especially at twice the cost of the College of Charleston.
We aren’t the ones OP has to convince.
OP, have you tried asking your parents why they like Tulane better?
Unfortunately, where you have a college campus, you are likely to find crimes of opportunity as this map illustrates:
http://publicsafety.cofc.edu/staying-safe/crime-map/index.php
So OP, please don’t let the fear of crime sway you one way or another between your two very good choices. Money and/or social factors seem much more differentiated between the two and should be more relevant when making your decision. Again…good luck!
Why are we assuming that the OP is male? Did I miss something in the posts?
Post-decision anxiety. It’s not uncommon. Of course there are arguments for going to CofC - if there weren’t the OP wouldn’t have struggled with the decision, and it’s not like it’s a bad place. Every summer there are more than a few threads running around CC with students second guessing their decision.
OP would have second guessed choice either way. Decided with three hours before deposit was due? This kid does not know how to make decisions. It’s not an easy thing for 17 and 18 year olds, but this will come with maturity. Tulane is a great school and seemed very safe when we visited a couple of years ago.
OP wrote: “I was really unsure and nervous about Tulane when I made my decision.” So not “post decision anxiety” as OP’s parents pressured the student to select Tulane.
“In full honesty, I liked CofC better when I chose Tulane…”.
Starting in the Spring & affordability / financial strain on family are issues concerning OP.
New Orleans is ranked #4 in the country for murder, and #22 for violent crime. The area around Tulane is very deceptive as it is clean & in an area of very impressive homes.
However, OP likes New Orleans more than Charleston & OP’s scholarship offer at the College of Charleston may not still be available.
@ljberkow : Based on OP’s original, and only, post in this thread, I do not agree that OP would have second guessed a decision to attend the College of Charleston Honors College on a merit scholarship since OP loved the dorms, campus, school, and normal start date better than Tulane.
I can understand one choosing a gap year over a Spring (second semester) start date. One’s first semester as a normal Fall start date can be an exciting & magical time.
I remain involved in this thread for two primary reasons:
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I believe OP & agree that OP’s concerns are valid &
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Academically, I fear that OP is not a match for Tulane University. With below 25% SAT & GPA, a late start (Spring start) may exacerbate the problems associated with being underqualified.
OP, in my opinion, would have a chance to flourish in the Honors College at the College of Charleston–which is OP’s first choice school & only affordable option.
@Publisher I focused more on the part about the anxiety of making friends and having a close friend attend Charlestown. I believe the anxieties are very real, but also unhealthy. I don’t know how Tulane orients these students, but I was pretty impressed with their advisory during our visit and how close they get to the students. While the concerns are valid, I’d like to think he has potential to succeed at Tulane. Nothing good comes easy, but doing well at Tulane would do wonders for the OP. He has to be up to the challenge.
My two biggest concerns here don’t relate to OP being successful at Tulane or underqualified. His 1320 might be at the 25% level of admitted students, but my guess is that it might be closer to the middle of students actually matriculating at Tulane. Tulane is a backup plan for many applying to more elite colleges. I am not a fan of these spring scholars programs. It takes a certain type of kid to do well in these situations and anxiety ridden teens may struggle with those programs. My other issue with Tulane is the temptations. They make no secret that there is a very active social life going on there. I could see falling into a trap there.
One of my daughter’s friends chose Stanford over Rice because it was a higher rated school, and everyone told her she should go there. She started regretting her choice over the summer as she felt Rice was the better fit. After she got to Stanford to start her freshman year, she didn’t like it there.By then it was too late to start Rice as a freshman, and the class was full. She took a gap year and did research in the Houston medical center. She entered Rice as a freshman this year and couldn’t be happier. This is all to illustrate that rankings aren’t everything. Go with your gut. If C of C doesn’t have room for you this year, take a gap year. You will start with all your peers at C of C. Maybe work and save some money, travel, etc.
@ljberkow , the middle 50% SAT range for Tulane’s class of '23 is 1410 -1510. ACT is 31 - 33. There are temptations at every school for those who are enticed by them. CofC would certainly have its fair share. Tulane has a reputation as a party school but how much of that is misreading their status as one of the schools with the happiest students? I like the idea of a happy student body. I think your perception is outdated.
https://admission.tulane.edu/apply/getting-into-tulane/new-class-profile
I did a bit of Googling on crime statistics at Tulane. The incidence of rape is slightly higher than Columbia and NYU and much lower than George Washington. Of course, GW is a larger school so that may account for the difference. We don’t know enough about the OP to know if he/she would be a good fit at either. Since Tulane accepted the OP, it follows that they thought he/she could be successful there. I think that there is a prestige and rigor gap between the two but if the OP finds CofC to be a better fit then that’s fine. There are many paths.
Average UW HS GPA for freshmen class at Tulane was a 3.56. Tulane is a very good school, but OP can compete and do well there, both academically and socially.
@lijberkow: 1320 SAT score is well below the 25th% at Tulane.
My concern with OP’s stats is not whether OP can do the work at Tulane, but that the College of Charleston’s Honor College seems better suited to help OP excel academically in an environment which OP prefers.
OP has many concerns including affordability.
The late start, second semester, should be enough to be a deal breaker & it is certainly a major & legitimate concern of OP.
For Class of 2022 the 25th percentile was 1340. I think we’re splitting hairs on 10 or 20 points.
In any case, it is part of the game that some of these schools like Tulane play to say the average SAT is 1400, but they don’t include the 200 “Spring Scholars” in that number. OP says is graduating from a strong high school and none of his anxieties were about the work as much as fitting in on beginning second semester. But he’ll be in the same boat with close to 200 of his fellow classmates. It’s nice that his high school friend wants him to join in at Charlestown, but sometimes it’s best to move on past high school friends. If his parents pushed him to Tulane, they know the financial situation.
Instead of a gap year, give Tulane a shot. My impression from our visit is that the administration and faculty are very supportive.
Not intending to be confrontational @ljberkow, but do you know that Tulane does not include the Spring Scholars in their stats or is this a supposition? And the assumption seems to be that if they do exclude those students from the stats that this necessarily means that the Spring Scholars are made up of lower stats kids. Maybe that is true on average, Idk, but I would not necessarily make that assumption given how many high stats kids they reject. And I agree that 20 points is splitting hairs but the difference between a 1320 and a 1410 for the class of 2023 to which the OP was admitted is significant… As I said upstream, though, I don’t think Tulane would have admitted the OP if they didn’t think the OP could thrive there.
@Temperantia wrote : “thrive there”. Disagree or OP should have been admitted beginning in the Fall. “survive there” is a bit more accurate in my opinion.
Not suggesting that Tulane academics are intense, just believe that OP will thrive in an honors college environment rather than as an off cycle admit.