<p>nice, I just pressed the backspace button on accident and everything is erased. </p>
<p>ill just go straight through questions.</p>
<p>I am an international student so.. I dont really know anything about tulane.</p>
<p>does tulane have a good reputation?
is it safe in new oleans? no one gets killed or anything right?
is it expensive to live there?
is there any racism against asians?
are people there friendly? </p>
<p>thanks</p>
<p>Hi bat222 - I will do my best to answer your questions honestly and completely, but of course some of it involves opinion.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Tulane’s reputation is excellent, truly. I will not try and tell you that people will react to it the same way as if you said you want to Harvard, Yale, Princeton or Stanford, but over the years when I have told people that I went to Tulane they reply with a genuineness in their voice “Oh, that’s a really good school”. And I have overheard people at various times talking about where their kids are applying to school, and they have no idea I went to Tulane. They also speak very highly of it, so I think you can be sure it is well thought of. Besides all that there are the statistics of course. Tulane’s average SAT and ACT scores for the incoming class of last year would put it in the top 35-40 in the country, and this year it is expected the average for the incoming class will be significantly higher again. I don’t think the ranking systems that the magazines use are worth very much, but they put Tulane in the top 50 (and as you know there are a huge number of universities in the USA) and I suspect Tulane will move closer to the top 40 after this year. But the important thing is that at Tulane you would be going to a top level research university that is medium sized and with fellow students who are very smart also.</p></li>
<li><p>It is safe at Tulane, as long as you use common sense, like any place. The same would be true if you asked about Johns Hopkins, U of Penn, Columbia, Yale, U of Chicago, etc. The Tulane campus is in a BEAUTIFUL part of New Orleans, much nicer than the settings of the schools I mentioned above both as far as crime in the immediate area around the school and physical beauty. New Orleans itself, like most American larger cities, has some bad areas where there is violent crime. No one goes there, and you would never have reason to go there. Again, it is a matter of learning what to do and what not to do, where to go and where not to go. That will not take you long, it is pretty easy. The school takes extraordinary measures to keep students safe, and I think you can talk to any Tulane student and they will tell you they feel very safe.</p></li>
<li><p>New Orleans is not one of our more expensive cities. It is much cheaper than say, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, etc. It is fairly average as American cities go.</p></li>
<li><p>There is no institutional or pervasive racism against Asians. I went to Tulane some time ago and had many Asian friends, and I would think the Asian population at Tulane has probably increased since then. Of course people are people, and you might run into the unfortunate bigot here or there. But again, that would be true almost anywhere. I will point out that New Orleans is the most liberal and progressive city in Louisiana, and the entire state of Louisiana elected a governor whose parents were born in India. I promise you that 30 years ago nobody would have predicted that was possible. Things have come a long way. You should have no problems as long as you are a nice person and respect others like you expect to be respected.</p></li>
<li><p>This is New Orleans!! Yes, the people are generally laid-back and friendly, but again, what place has an entire population where everyone is friendly? But I think New Orleans compares favorably to any place else in this regard. As far as Tulane goes, it has a national reputation for the students being very friendly and happy. See the following, where Tulane students ranked #10 as happiest in the entire country.</p></li>
</ol>
<p><a href=“http://www.princetonreview.com/TulaneUniversity.aspx[/url]”>http://www.princetonreview.com/TulaneUniversity.aspx</a></p>
<p>I hope that helps. I can understand how intimidating it must be to think about going somewhere for 4 years that you know little about and must seem so different. I know how I would feel if I were 18 again and was thinking of going to school in Japan or Russia or whatever. But I think you will find that people will try hard to make sure you are helped as much as you need and that you will find yourself feeling comfortable very quickly. I wish you the best of luck, whatever you decide.</p>
<p>thank you so much fallenchemist…</p>
<p>I’d say fallenchemist did a wonderful job describing Tulane. The only thing I’d add is that Tulane has the most geographically diverse student population of any major US university. If you want to meet people from (alphabetically) Alabama, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Texas … Tulane is the place.</p>
<p>bat222, one thing that a lot of people don’t know about New Orleans is that while there has never been a huge Chinese population like cities on the West Coast and NY, New Orleans has a huge Vietnamese population. I went to high school in New Orleans and we had a home room that was almost all Nguyen (we had homerooms grouped alphabetically.) New Orleans also has a fairly large Indian population. There are some great Indian restaurants in the city and a ton of Vietnamese, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese restaurants. The only racial issues that I’ve ever seen in New Orleans centered around the African American population and the “White” population. Those issues really only came up in local government debates and not with the everyday folk. New Orleans is extremely international for its size. When I got my Masters at Tulane, we had about 25 international students out of 70. Most were from Asia. </p>
<p>The violence issue is simple. New Orleans’ high murder rate is a result of drug dealers shooting drug dealers. It is extremely rare for non-involved people to get attacked. These crimes typically happen in very bad areas of town that no one should ever venture into. I think New Orleans is no less safe than any other city of its size in the US.</p>
<p>New Orleans is also one of the cheapest cities of its size. Its great food is particularly cheap. A great meal can be had for $10.00 </p>
<p>My experience from Tulane in terms of people being friendly, is that the international kids are the friendliest kids on campus. I have more friends from France, South America, China, India, Taiwan, Germany, England, and Finland than I ever could have imagined. My fellow Americans and I used to go to “French Parties” to hang out and drink wine and beer. It completely changed my viewpoint on the world going to Tulane. It really did. </p>
<p>I think the rudest kids were from NY and a few other places. Most people come to Tulane because it’s different. More the 75% of the school comes from 500+ miles away. Even the New Yorkers were very nice once you get past their bravado.</p>
<p>Benetode - your post reminded me of a fellow student that was from NYC and it was just like you describe. As a first semester freshman he was always going on about how “New York has this” and “New York has that”. We all got so sick of it that we finally asked him why in the world he came to New Orleans when he was clearly living in paradise before. He got the message and was a pleasure to be with after that. Most amusing of all, he wound up staying in New Orleans after he graduated and lived there for like 10 years before taking a job elsewhere that was too good to pass up, but he said that he “hated to leave”.</p>