<p>Are scholarships and financial aid hard to come by at Tulane? I've read that they do give generously; however, I'm not exceptionally poor, nor am I exceedingly intelligent. I do believe I will be able to get in, but will it be possible for me to get a scholarship or financial aid? It's my number one choice but financially out of my league.
Any input?</p>
<p>Well, post your stats and we might be able to give more input. GPA (UW), class rank if you know it, number of AP courses and those you anticipate taking next year, SAT and/or ACT scores, and you might as well throw in your EC’s. These are all things that affect merit scholarships. Need based goes pretty much off your financials, so nothing anyone here can tell you would help. The forms say what they say and the calculations based on those financial forms are what they are. The variation there appears to be that the better student you are, the more of that FA money you get in grants and not loans. But people do get surprised at the financial aid available, even when you are not “exceptionally poor”. After all, without merit or need based aid, Tulane is exceptionally expensive! Fortunately you heard right, Tulane is generous with scholarships.</p>
<p>Fallenchemist:
GPA (UW): 3.9
AP: 2 this year, 3 next year (APUSH, APlang, APenv, APgov, APecon)
ACT: 32</p>
<p>Hi,
My DS was offered $29,000 per year in merit $ at Tulane. He was also offered a full-ride, plus laptop, book money, and travel home money at University of Central Florida. I realize UCF does not have the name recognition that Tulane does, but is the name recognition worth graduating with a $50,000 or more loan to pay back?
Any opinions?
thanks!</p>
<p>$29K/yr? What scholarship was that?</p>
<p>gtchartland - IMO, I would never recommend taking on that kind of debt for any school, even Harvard. However, getting merit aid does not mean you won’t get need-based aid, if you qualify. Need-based aid is not usually all loans, so you will want to see what kind of package Tulane offers, assuming you applied for it.</p>
<p>Like jym, I am unfamiliar with any scholarship that is $29,000. Did you mean $25,000?</p>
<p>CollegeHopeful,</p>
<p>I think those stats would get you a merit scholarship to Tulane. Not knowing how your ACT split, you might try again to see of you can improve a bit - it could be a pretty good return on the cost of taking the test…</p>
<p>LOL, I got caught up in answering gtchartland and forgot to reply to the OP.</p>
<p>collegehopeful - 3.9 UW, 5 AP’s and 32 ACT is pretty strong. Very likely you would get a good merit offer, I would guess $20,000+. Parent9 is right, since you cannot raise the GPA much as it is nearly perfect, getting the ACT up a point or two would increase the chances for the top award of $25,000, and put you in the running for the DHS (full tuition) if you wanted to apply for that. Again, EC’s and service do make a difference in these awards, but chances are this is what you are looking at.</p>
<p>Also, if you make NMF you get $2,000/year as well.</p>
<p>I had that $29,000 wrong.</p>
<p>He has a Presidential Scholar Award $25,000.00</p>
<p>plus $2,000 National Merit. So $27,000.</p>
<p>The rest they offered were loans and a work-study. </p>
<p>Thanks for your input!</p>
<p>My son is graduating this year from Tulane. He got a Presidential Scholar Award, which was about $23,000 when he started. They have upped his grants every year so that his loans have actually decreased and he gets a near full ride on tuition. Our income is also lower than when he started. His ACT was 34 and his GPA was about 3.8 UW. He had several AP courses, and was also on Varsity Baseball and in his school’s band and jazz band.</p>
<p>He found out he missed out on the Dean’s Scholarship by only 5 places, but he says he is glad he did not get it, because it is hard to maintain a 3.5 GPA at Tulane if you aren’t a natural born genius. Apparently several kids with the DS award end up losing it or have issues because of the grades pressure. An A is hard to come by at Tulane unless you really work hard. He found that out his first year! </p>
<p>He has done well at Tulane and is waiting to hear from law schools, including Tulane; he just got his first acceptance to U of Houston Law School (1st tier school). I think the reputation of Tulane is excellent; although a full ride with a laptop and travel money is a tough offer to turn down. I think, gtcharland, it depends on what field your son wants to go into - how much will the name on the diploma matter? With today’s job prospects, debt is a serious issue to take on. I would have him talk to professionals in the field he is interested in. For example, for my son, a good GPA and solid scores on the LSATs were probably more important than the name on the diploma. That said, however, I think some schools recognize that it may be harder to earn an A at a school like Tulane than at some less rigorous schools.</p>
<p>Collegehopeful-
Just for reference, I have a 32 ACT and 3.8 GPA (not too spectacular) and I received 20k merit and invitation to the honors college.</p>
<p>With a 3.9 UW GPA, 2140 SAT, IB Diploma Candidate, I was initially offered a $22,000/year merit scholarship. When I got my FA last week, there was another $11,400/year in grants, and TONS in work/loans (enough to bring the total COA to around $11,500/year, but I don’t plan to take out loans). I assume I would also receive the $2,000 if I listed Tulane as my first choice for NMF. Our income is around $75,000. I found their aid (both merit and need-based) to be very generous but not quite the best offer I’ve gotten so far. Hope that helps!</p>
<p>I am wondering, since there seems to be people starting to hear about need based financial aid, when should the rest of us hear?</p>
<p>Last year it all rolled out over about a 2-3 week period. You should know soon.</p>