Hello everyone. First off, thank you for your time in reading this post, I truly appreciate it! I, like many other students, am having to choose my college soon and really need some help and input. I have done immense research on these schools and they seem to have many pros with few cons. I will be visiting Tulane and Indiana University soon and have already visited SMU. I compiled a list of the most important things I am looking for. Please feel free to respond to as little or many as you wish or even add something else I don’t list, every response is greatly appreciated!
P.S. I would like to major in Finance. Also, I am from Southern California (I don’t know if that matters).
Tulane- No scholarship
Indiana University- Direct admit to Kelley, $2000 a year
SMU- No scholarship
Money is not an issue for me too (don’t want to sound bad but I don’t want it to be a factor in what you are saying)
-School spirit (If students want to go there and if people go/support their sports teams (Mainly football and basketball. The teams don’t have to be great or anything, just if people go to support it))
-Business school (I’m aware of the rankings which matter but don’t mean much to me. I am concerned on how much/well I will learn and how I can apply it to my job)
-Reputation
-Internships/connections/jobs/alumni networking
-Food (not that important but still a factor)
-Intramural sports
-Teachers (How are they? Are they easy to reach? Are they concerned with the students or more into their own research?)
-Easy to travel around
-Social scene (easy to meet people, friendly) (I have repeatedly read that both school has very snobby and superficial kids and am wondering if this is/will be a problem) (I’m going to be realistic, I plan on partying a decent amount, which school is better for all types of partying) (I also plan to join a fraternity)
-Cost of living there
-Local area (NOLA vs. Bloomington vs. Dallas)
-Anything that you do/don’t like about the school(s)
-Overall, which school gives you a better bang for your buck
Thank you again for reading and responding. Have a wonderful day!
TL;DR: What school is better overall and what is your reasoning?
I would like to have a smaller school for the individual attention, but as I have continually heard and read, Kelley is praised for its outstanding performance. Is this really a big deal? I’m sorry I didn’t realize that I can only edit it once it appears.
Dallas is pretty barren as far as culture goes. One-on-one interaction is very important in that you’re able to bounce ideas off of an academic. Feedback from peers is valuable as well but speaking to professors is generally best as far as education goes.
In my opinion, your list of criteria is really too long. I mean, really, how important should “food” be to you? Sure, a great campus Dining Hall experience is wonderful, but you’ll likely be content whether or not the campus food service is delicious, all other things being equal. Most college Dining Hall food is unremarkable.
Get down to brass tacks; you say that you’ve done your research, so you must have an idea of what is attractive to you and what you dislike. Indiana is a large public university. Southern Methodist and Tulane are smaller and private universities. Indiana is in a rural area. Obviously SMU and Tulane are urban schools, although some might describe the SMU neighborhood as suburban.
Since you haven’t visited Tulane or IU, wait until you have and then compare. You also might get more helpful and specific feedback at that time, because like LakeWashington said, you need to narrow down your criteria list to what is really important to you.
Indiana has a beautiful campus and it’s in a great college town, but you will probably have bigger class sizes than the two other private schools. Since money is no object, I would go with SMU or Tulane. My understanding is that Tulane is very geographically diverse, meaning, kids come from all over the US. That would make for an interesting experience, imo. Find out if SMU has students from all over or mostly TX. When you visit the two schools, make sure to get lunch in a dining hall. If food is important to you, then it’s important to you. Finally, get a list of where the recent grads got hired. That’s super important. You want to know who is recruiting at each school. GL
@LakeWashington @insanedreamer I know it’s pretty long. It’s just that in many of the posts I read, OPs don’t give enough criteria for people to respond to so they don’t know what to write about exactly when responding. To ensure that people had things to write about, I gave the things I think would make the best college experience for me. I am aware a few of those items aren’t very important, (ex: food, intramural sports) but this gives people a better understanding at what I am looking for.
Right, but you need to determine what are the ~3 things that are most important to you in attending college and get as much input as you can on those.
I am a current SMU student let me know your questions. Dallas is not Barren of culture in fact it has some of the largest arts districts in the country. SMU was ranked #6 for internships by Princeton review. Football has had some rough years for support but people come but for basketball. Same is true at IU, but even better for football. Tulane Doesn’t have much support for either. The most recent SMU class was about 38% Texas ~ 600 55% out of state (with California, florida, Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Connecticut, Louisiana and Illinois being the main states students are from) and 7% international.
These are three very, very different schools. I am knowledgeable only about Tulane. It’s very hard to sum up any school in a few sentences, but here goes. The Tulane experience is very very intimately tied to the culture and community of New Orleans. Community service is required of every student in order to graduate. The food, music and many aspects of the culture of New Orleans are very unique and Tulane is always at the top of the “best cities” list of schools. The student body is the most geographically diverse in the country, with more students coming from farther than five or hundred miles away then any other school. There is a thriving social scene, but students tend to take their school work very seriously during the week and the vast majority going to graduate and professional schools. The intercollegiate athletics scene is a work in progress, and that is probably a generous way to describe it. The football team made good progress this past year, although that progress and did not show up in the win column in a tough football conference. The basketball team is disaster but, for what it’s worth, is being coached by a guy who coached a team to the NBA finals. He has his work cut out for him. And finally, last but not least, the student body is extremely well qualified. As of last year, the middle 25 to 75% ACT range was 30–33 and 60% of the student body was in the top 10% of their class. The UNSWR ranking is 39 and is poised to get back to where it used to be, the low to mid 30s. It has been deemed a “hot” school for sometime. Finance is very good at the AB Freeman School. Latin American studies thrive throughout the entire institution and its constituent schools and departments. That’s about it for Tulane. Best of luck in your search!
The following story, which will appear tonight on the CBS Evening News, sums up what it’s like to go to school in New Orleans. (http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/future-doctors-move-out-of-the-classroom-and-into-the-kitchen/)
FYI this is an old thread.
Well, the story is new! Thanks for pointing that out!