<p>Is it easier to get accepted single choice than it is early action? Or is it too risky? Also, when is the earliest you can apply (i know it's not exactly rolling, but i know of people who heard back in october)</p>
<p>hopefully fallenchemist will post, but I don’t think that the numbers for this year are out yet (and this is the first year of SCEA)…</p>
<p>Well, the theory certainly would have SCEA improving your chances over EA. There is no reason for Tulane to offer SCEA if its purpose isn’t to factor in the high interest SCEA shows into their decision whether to admit or not. Personally I am not a fan of the SCEA, but I don’t see any risk at all. Why do you think there might be risk?</p>
<p>I think you can apply starting as early as September, probably right after Labor Day. While Tulane has never officially said they are rolling admissions as far as I know, in practice that is exactly what they are early in the process, with a few exceptions. But as it gets towards late October and beyond, they will put off RD apps in favor of EA apps because the volume has been so high. As you may have seen on other threads, that definitely happened this year. There were applicants that couldn’t understand why they hadn’t heard back from Tulane only to find out they had accidentally marked their app RD instead of EA, and got put in a different pile.</p>
<p>To rodney’s point, they have not posted any numbers yet, and won’t until May, and I don’t know if they will break it down along SCEA vs. EA vs. RD for public consumption.</p>
<p>I think the biggest thing is applying really early…it seems to increase your chances dramatically.</p>
<p>fallenchemist - the risk to SCEA is the inability to apply EA to other schools. Even if you apply ED to one school, you still have the option of sending out as many EA applications as you like to your safety schools. What I did not like with SCEA at Tulane this year is that the decisions were not prompt. We had students who applied in October and did not get results until December. If they were deferred, they had missed out on applying EA to any other schools and had to do everything RD - those students are now very stressed out. I think SCEA would be ok if Tulane delivered on it’s promise of a quick turnaround, but that was not what we experienced this year.</p>
<p>juniorgirl1, my daugthter applied EA and she sent in her app. as soon as it was available online (which I think was late August). She did not do SCEA and indicated several other schools that she was applying to, but it was clear from her personal statement that she was very interested in Tulane and given her ECs (lots of Comm. Service, president of her service club, etc), I’m sure that Tulane could see she would be a good fit. Her acceptance letter is dated October 2, 2009 but she was able to log on and check the website a few days before that. I think that we actually knew by her birthday (Sept. 30) that she was in. My advice would be for everybody to apply EA. I see no disadvantages to it whatsoever (although Fallenchemist may be able to shed some light on that). The on-line application is about as easy as they come and there is no application fee. I can’t tell you how nice it has been to basically know from the beginning of my daughter’s senior year that she had been accepted at an excellent school like Tulane, especially since it really was her first choice. It came down to Tulane and UNC Chapel Hill and I must confess, when she got accepted to Carolina, I think that she waivered for a second, but she knows that Tulane is where she wants to be. She hit that Carolina “decline acceptance” button 3 days after she was accepted and hasn’t looked back. But, even if Tulane hadn’t been her first choice, it would still have been nice to know she was going somewhere. As I said, she did not apply SCEA and heard back pronto. The longer you wait to apply, the more applications they receive. So, I say go for it. No risk involved whatsoever.</p>
<p>rockvillemom, SCEA at Tulane is not binding, so you can still apply to other schools ED. The only advantage that I can see is that if it is absolutely your first choice, it lets Tulane know that. But, even if you apply SCEA and are accepted, it still isn’t binding and there is no reason to not apply to other schools EA. I don’t think that the turnaround time of 6-8 weeks is really unreasonable. By the time students applied in October, Tulane may have already received 15,000 applications and all of them had to be processed and looked over. There was no reason that students couldn’t apply EA to other schools regardless of whether or not they were going to hear back from Tulane before December. My daughter applied to Carolina EA, non-binding, and the deadline was mid-October. It sounds to me like the stressed-out students should have applied EA to other schools regardless of whether or not they had heard back from Tulane.</p>
<p>cmb: SCEA at Tulane may not be binding, but you cannot apply to any other school either ED or EA (someone posted this on another thread yesterday)…it is exactly like other SCEA programs in that regard. No other ED/No other EA apps allowed…</p>
<p>and given rockvillemom’s experience, I would strongly recommend avoiding SCEA at Tulane at all costs</p>
<p>You cannot apply to any other school ea or ed. The following is from the Tulane Admission’s site:</p>
<p>“The Single Choice Early Action Plan is also designed for students who wish to complete the application process early in their senior year. By applying Single Choice, however, students are letting Tulane know that Tulane is currently their first choice institution, and they are not applying to any other schools early (either through early decision or early action).”</p>
<p>tx gabby for the post…</p>
<p>Ah, I understand now. Thanks for clearing that up. I would definitely say apply EA then because it seems like a win/win proposition. Probably best to do it asap, though. Seems like the closer it gets to the EA deadline, the longer the response time may be.</p>
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<p>OK, but I don’t consider that a “risk” since they make it so clear in the rules. I consider it a knowing decision by the student. It isn’t like they lose the ability to apply to those other schools totally, it just gets delayed. Potentially it doesn’t even get delayed if they get the SCEA app in early and Tulane responds promptly (more on that in a minute). In other words, I wouldn’t use SCEA unless I was absolutely sure Tulane was my first choice AND I had reason to think that conveying that message would improve my chances of being accepted because I was borderline on stats. After all, someone that has stats that put them at the top of the typical Tulane class would not need that extra “check mark” with the admissions committee. I suppose if one believes that they defer Ivy quality candidates to keep their stats up, then it might help that person also. In the end, I am not sure SCEA accomplishes what Tulane hopes it might because of these kinds of confusions and doubts. I tend to agree that EA is a better option for most students. I would, however, point out that Yale uses SCEA also and I don’t believe students hear back faster than they do from Tulane. While obviously the admissions stats for Yale and Tulane are quite different, I don’t see in principle how these situations differ.</p>
<p>I do, however, totally agree with you that if they are going to have such an option they have an obligation to turn the app around in 2-3 weeks. Sometimes, though, high schools are slow to get transcripts to the universities or other things are missing from the file through no fault of Tulane. Not saying that was the case with your example, Tulane screws up too. But it happens both ways, and the story always comes out that so-and-so school “lost my app” or “took forever”. Just saying.</p>
<p>I did apply SCEA since it was my first choice and wanted that fact to be known. I applied early, on or about September 8th. I received my decision on October 15th, which still gave me time to apply ED/EA to any of the other schools I was interested in if the need arose. In retrospect, I don’t know that I would do it again or recommend anyone to apply SCEA. At the time my heart was set on Tulane, and I would do anything to procure a spot in the class of 2014.</p>
<p>^^gabby: you make a very good point; we have no idea where you live, but the majority of students cannot get an app out with transcripts and recs by September 8th and therefore, get a response before ED/EA apps can go out…</p>
<p>if you can do that in your part of the country/from your school, that’s great and if Tulane can turn it around, that’s great as well…otherwise, hmmmmmm</p>
<p>my issue with SCEA has always been the fact that given it is NOT binding, it tells Tulane that they are your first love, but does not really give Tulane incentive to accept you because it doesn’t protect their yield…Tulane can take or leave SCEA candidates and it won’t really affect their bottom line…it would behoove them, for enrollment management, to have some sort of binding acceptance…at least then, they will know a little about what their class will look like, and then students will have a better sense of communicating what Tulane means to them in the admission process…</p>