<p>I have a friend in Rhode Island who is trying to decide between Tufts and Tulane. He says Tulane is the "Ivy of the South" so he is leaning toward Tulane. I tell him he could stay closer to home and do just as well going to Tufts. He is concerned about the prestige factor if he turned down Tulane. What would you guys do?</p>
<p>Tulane is a good school, but is far from the “Ivy of the South”. There are many other significantly more selective/prestigious schools in the south such as Vanderbilt, Duke, UNC, Rice, and others.<br>
The two schools are VERY different, though. Aside from the obvious differences of outside of Boston vs New Orleans, the social scene, academics, lifestyle, etc. is all different. No one here can tell him which one is better for him, but if the only reason that he wants to go to Tulane is that its the “Ivy of the South” then he’s got the wrong reasons.</p>
<p>Yeah, that’s just. . . strange. LOTS of southern schools have a better reputation than Tulane. hebrewhammer listed most of the best ones, but also William and Mary, Emory, Davidson, Wake Forest, UVa, UT Austin, Georgia Institute of Technology, Washington and Lee, University of Richmond. . .</p>
<p>Tulane is more on par with Sewanee, the University of Florida, University of Miami, or University of Maryland College Park. A fine school, but nowhere near the best in the south and certainly nowhere near as highly-regarded as Tufts. Tulane’s average SAT is a 1365. Last year Tufts tied Cornell as the 15th most selective school in the country.</p>
<p>Now I’m all about fit. I don’t think prestige is all that important, and if your friend thinks he’d be happier and learn more at Tulane he should go. But if it’s prestige he’s worried about, someone needs to disabuse him of the notion that Tulane is a highly-regarded school. It’s not. As far as reputation is concerned, turning down Tufts for Tulane would be a bewildering move at best.</p>
<p>I’m honestly curious - who in the world told him that Tulane was the Ivy of the South?<br>
I googled “ivy of the south tulane” and got [this</a> gem](<a href=“Unavailable”>Unavailable) as well as the Wikipedia page about Tulane’s effort in the 60s to create a southern Ivy League-style athletic conference between itself, Southern Methodist, Duke, and Rice. That was just going to be an athletic arrangement, and besides it never actually happened.</p>
<p>For the record though, the Ivy League itself is an athletic arangement. It’s no different than the Big 10, Pac 10, SAC, ect. The point of the Magnolia League was to help Tulane (who had previously been in the SEC and is now Conf USA) win in football. Note the problems that Vandy has had by not leaving the SEC. While the Ivy League is certainly the most prestige-affiliated athletic conference, it is just that, an athletic conference. There are many schools like Stanford, MIT, UChicago, ect. that are much better than certain ‘ivies’ in many disciplines. It is only on forums like CC that people consider the Ivy League ALWAYS better than the rest. </p>
<p>Also, Harry is just messing with another poster on CC. He’s just causing problems. Or rather, waiting to cause problems. :)</p>
<p>Tulane is a good school with a lot of history and a good amount of national respect, as is Tufts. Schools like Vandy, Emory, Rice are always regarded more highly by the powers that be than Tulane but Tulane is not that far behind. </p>
<p>Frankly, you can get a great education at any school in the SEC, though some are ‘better’ than others. Any perception otherwise is coming from someone who has no knowledge of the South.</p>
<p>By the way, both Tufts and Tulane have a mean ACT of 31. I’m not sure how you could argue one is more selective than the other. They seem to be good peers to me. Last year Tulane accepted 27%, while this year it’s 22%. That’s pretty selective.</p>
<p>Acceptance rates tell only a small part of the story. Tufts’ applicant pool is probably overall stronger than Tulane’s. The kids from my community who go to Tulane could not in their wildest dreams have gotten into Tufts.
Tulane is a good school in a very unique and exciting city, but it is not comparable to Tufts in terms of academic reputation.</p>
<p>I thought Rice was considered the “Ivy of the south”… am I wrong? </p>
<p>(“Editor’s note”:Patheticaly trying to brag about it being my first choice school, although i did not get in… Oh, well, I am absolutely happy and utterly excited about Tufts now, so what the heck… “Let it be”, as the wise Beatles said.)</p>
<p>I absolutely agree that you can’t look at acceptance rates alone. Considering they have the same SAT, ACT, ect. I think you can call the two peers. Communities vary. I’m sure Notre Dame is among the top choices for some parts of the country while others would never think of going there. That being said, Tulane is definitely unique. Rankingwise, Tulane has always been hurt by its location so far away from all the big market cities (Atlanta, Boston, LA, Chicago, New York, ect.) Statistics show that is does as well as schools like UVA and Tufts. </p>
<p>For reference:</p>
<p>UVA ENROLLMENT (FALL 2008) from UVA’s website
13,762 undergraduate students
18,048 applications
6,274 offers of admission (35% admitted)
3,260 students enrolling
1280-1490 middle half of class SAT I (1385)
ACT not reported</p>
<p>Tulane ENROLLMENT (FALL 2008) from TU’s website
Applied 34,117
Admitted 27%
Enrolled 1550
SAT, Middle 50%
Composite 1880-2150 (equivalent to 1365 average)
ACT, Middle 50% Composite 28-32</p>
<p>Tulane University is also older than Rice, Emory, Vanderbilt, Duke, the US Naval Academy, Cornell, Stanford, Wash U, Northwestern, U Chicago, UC Berkley, USC, Notre Dame, Villanova, Ga Tech, and is only 15 years younger than UVA.</p>
<p>The reason I bring up UVA is simply because people that live far removed from the South have or atleast seem to have a great deal of respect for UVA. I think that is deserved. I also think you can look at the stats for ‘quality’ of student body and see that the two are the same. This is also true for Tuft’s stats compared to Tulane’s.</p>
<p>I’ve known weak students that went to Harvard and other Ivies and Ivy-caliber schools. Granted, I went to a magnet school that’s in the Top 5 in the US, so even the poor students were of high quality. All the same, many people with higher GPA’s and test scores didn’t get into their top choice school while their peers who were less qualified did.
I’ve never met anyone who went to Villanova that wasn’t a jerk, but I don’t think that has any bearing on the school. One of the smartest guys that I’ve ever met went to an SEC school and it wasn’t Vandy. But if you want to look at hard numbers, then note that Tufts and UVA, and Tulane and a lot of other schools have the same ‘quality’ students. </p>
<p>UVA doesn’t post their ACT scores. Tufts and Tulane have the SAME mean ACT of 31.</p>
<p>If REPUTATION alone, ie subjective rankings, is your main concern then you may be correct. Even though they all have the same ‘quality’ students, the reputations are going to vary from one area to the next. I would argue that in the South, very few would even consider Tufts as a college of choice. That is simply because there are equal quality/style colleges much closer to home.</p>
<p>
However UVA has top graduate school programs, and Tulane does not, which accounts for the significant difference in reputation. Moreover UVA has a national reputation while Tulane is very regional.</p>
<p>Statistics does not show that Tulane does as well as Tufts. ACT scores are skewed because few students take it, and Tufts has a middle 50% of 30-33 compared to 28-32 for Tulane. More telling is the significant difference in SAT scores, which most students take. Tufts’ mean and median are both well over 100 points above Tulane’s. Reputation wise, Tulane easily wins in the south and Tufts in the north.</p>
<p>A few points about the ACT:
Tulane has a program called Focus Louisiana that requires that Louisiana students with a certain GPA and an ACT of 28 be accepted. UVA has a similar policy for instate students. It brings down the low end of the middle 50% of the ACT scores. Tulane students from out of state actually have to have a higher ACT than the average by a fair margin to make up for the instate 28’s. Tulane can be compared to Tufts using the ACT scores.</p>
<p>The ACT is no more biased than the SAT. Actually, top students take both. One reason is that many top schools REQUIRE an ACT score, so it’s certainly not biased. The average ACT score for Tulane and Tufts is the EXACT SAME. Also, why would Tufts be at a disadvantage for the ACT but Tulane wouldn’t. Frankly, if it were that bad of an indicator of success it wouldn’t be used by Tufts. </p>
<p>75% of Tulane comes from more than 500 miles away so the fact that the ACT is used wouldn’t be too regionally biased. Apparently it’s widely taken. </p>
<p>I do agree that UVA has more ‘top’ Graduate programs. It also has a much better reputation at the undergrad level. My only reason for using UVA earlier is that it has SO MUCH of a better reputation despite the virtually identical student body at Tulane. Anyhow, I also agree that Tufts has a better reputation up North and vice versa.</p>
<p>I just remembered where I had last heard the name Tufts. That’s where Elaine on Seinfeld went to school. lol. I saw that episode yestersday. I’m not sure where she mentions it…anyways, I’m a seinfeld guy. :)</p>
<p>
Can I have some of that crack you’re smoking?</p>
<p>I wasn’t aware that many top schools require ACTs. Which ones? I thought that most schools require only the SAT or ACT.</p>
<p>On a different note, while I think these designations are of dubious significance, the school I have most often heard referred to as the “Ivy of the South” is Duke.</p>
<p>Tufts:
Admissions Selectivity Rating: 97
SAT:
Critical Reading Middle 50%: 670 - 750
Math Middle 50%: 670 - 750
Writing Middle 50%: 670 - 760
ACT:
ACT Middle 50%: 30 - 33
Students in Top Tenth of HS Class: 85%
Students in Top Quarter of HS Class: 98.5%</p>
<p>Tulane:
Admissions Selectivity Rating: 94
SAT:
Critical Reading Middle 50%: 630 - 720
Math Middle 50%: 620 - 700
Writing Middle 50%: 640 - 720
ACT:
ACT Middle 50%: 29 - 32
Students in Top Tenth of HS Class: 58.63%
Students in Top Quarter of HS Class: 88%</p>
<p>So, the only metric where Tulane is even close to Tufts is the ACT (conveniently the only one you considered). However, the admissions metrics alone don’t explain why US News has Tufts in the top 30 and Tulane not quite in the top 50. They weight reputation as assessed by professionals and rival educators very highly, so I think it’s safe to assume that Tufts trounced Tulane in these reputation surveys. I’ve never attended Tulane, so I can’t make any claims about the quality of the education there. But the original poster implied that Tulane had a better “prestige” factor than Tufts, and that’s just plainly false.</p>
<p>Here’s what I found in a USA Today Article: These are the percentages of kids who took the ACT vs the SAT (obviously many take both) from 2001 and 2006. You can clearly see that in the south and midwest, there is a huge emphasis on the ACT over the SAT. That is probably the source our disagreement towards which test is more common. Perhaps I misspoke (typed) when I said require, ‘prefer’ would have been better. I concede that.
Despite your belief that I “conveniently” used the ACT I used it because it was simple. When you break down the SAT into Math, Critical Reading, ect people get lost in one section vs another. Also, since they switched the SAT to 2400, it’s hard to compare across time. Furthermore the Top tenth and top quarter ect. means nothing unless you know where most kids are coming from. If it’s Choate or Andover it means more than some random urban public school. I therefore took the ACT. Apparently simplicity isn’t valued here. Anyways…here’s the data on ACT vs SAT and the source linked at the bottom. Notice states like Illinois where it’s 100% ACT vs 9% SAT. Then compare that to NY where it’s much different with a huge slant towards the SAT with 88% vs 17% ACT. I’m sure people will find fault with all of my above posted logic and below posted table but I’m simply trying to be helpful.</p>
<pre><code> SAT ACT
2001 2006 2001 2006
</code></pre>
<p>Alabama 9 9 69 79
Alaska 51 51 34 25
Arizona 34 32 28 18
Arkansas 6 5 75 75
California 51 49 12 14
Colorado 31 26 62 100
Connecticut 82 84 4 12
Delaware 67 73 4 5
D.C. 56 78 26 30
Florida 54 65 40 45
Georgia 63 70 19 30
Hawaii 52 60 19 17
Idaho 17 19 59 57
Illinois 12 9 71 100
Indiana 60 62 20 20
Iowa 5 4 67 65
Kansas 9 8 78 75
Kentucky 12 11 72 76
Louisiana 7 6 80 74
Maine 69 73 6 10
Maryland 65 70 11 12
Massachusetts 79 85 8 13
Michigan 11 10 69 67
Minnesota 9 10 66 67
Mississippi 4 4 89 93
Missouri 8 7 70 70
Montana 23 28 55 57
Nebraska 8 7 74 76
Nevada 33 40 39 27
New Hampshire 72 82 7 12
New Jersey 81 82 4 8
New Mexico 13 13 64 60
New York 77 88 14 17
North Carolina 65 71 13 14
North Dakota 4 4 80 80
Ohio 26 28 63 66
Oklahoma 8 7 71 72
Oregon 55 55 11 13
Pennsylvania 71 74 8 9
Rhode Island 71 69 5 8
South Carolina 57 62 28 39
South Dakota 4 4 70 75
Tennessee 13 15 79 93</p>
<p>Texas 53 52 33 29
Utah 5 7 69 69
Vermont 69 67 9 19
Virginia 68 73 10 15
Washington 53 54 17 15
West Virginia 18 20 61 64
Wisconsin 6 6 68 68
Wyoming 11 10 64 71</p>
<p>Source: Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education; College Board, ACT
[All</a> four-year U.S. colleges now accept ACT test - USATODAY.com](<a href=“http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2007-03-18-life-cover-acts_N.htm]All”>http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2007-03-18-life-cover-acts_N.htm)</p>
<p>I realize it reformats this chart. The link to the article with the table is posted for that reason and since everyone here is hyper critical. </p>
<p>And by the way…Crack is Wack!</p>
<p>While I don’t consider Tulane any sort of Ivy league, Big 10, or any other athletic conference (other than Conference USA) there is a reason Tulane has in the PAST been called the “Harvard of the South.” It’s the fact that Tulane University is older than Rice, Emory, Vanderbilt, Duke, the US Naval Academy, Cornell, Stanford, Wash U, Northwestern, U Chicago, UC Berkley, USC, Notre Dame, Villanova, Ga Tech, and is only 15 years younger than UVA. It’s more so the history of the school than it is a statement of academic prestige. It’s absolutely a good school but not on par with ‘Top’ programs. It was one of the first and only law schools and schools of medicine in the South. Keep in mind, if Tulane was around when all of these others weren’t who would you consider a “southern ivy” back then? Again, I’m talking about the origins of the moniker. </p>
<p>It developed that reputation based on those things and that history. And again, I don’t consider Tulane ‘Ivy’ anything and neither does Harry Balzak. He’s trying to get a rise up out of a certain other poster. Read his other posts on other threads (the ones that CC hasn’t deleted). </p>
<p>I’m a fan of Tulane. I post a lot positively about it. I have a bias. It’s called being an alumnus. But I don’t post incorrect figures. I apparently can mistype (see above about ‘require’) though. I cite my figures/stats. I also don’t deride other schools or posters. See if you can say the same for Harry. This site’s posters are starting to wain on me.</p>
<p>
Right. . . that would further benefit Tufts. Choate and Andover, as well as the greater part of highly competitive high schools and prep schools, are located in the Northeast and send more kids to Tufts than Tulane. The Southeast is not known for harboring a large number of highly competitive prep schools, and their public schools are among the worst in the nation. </p>
<p>Tulane may have a storied history, but that has little or nothing to do with its current level of prestige. Tulane was a well-regarded university before MIT, Stanford, Duke, Rice or Cornell even existed, but that doesn’t really have any bearing on the current situation.</p>
<p>I have a bias for Tufts. That doesn’t mean I refuse to admit that certain schools are much more prestigious than my own. Claiming otherwise is just dishonest. Of course, prestige doesn’t mean you’ll get a better education - I believe quite the opposite. If you feel you enjoyed and benefited from Tulane more than you would have at another school, even if you’d gotten into Harvard then Tulane was the right choice. But that doesn’t make Tulane more prestigious than it actually is.</p>
<p>
Yes admissions councilors at top schools are so hopelessly stupid that they can’t keep track of the difference between math and english.</p>
<p>
They also don’t have the mental capacity to multiply by 2/3, or add two numbers for a score out of 1600.</p>
<p>
Schools in the South, on average, are more competitive than schools in the North, right??</p>
<p>
The Ivy League was created in 1954.</p>
<p>I don’t know which way it cuts, but current status of endowment may be more important than selectivity or “prestige” as it affects what kind of resources a university can have or attract (faculty, student programs, scholarships, facilities construction, etc). (Sorry not to supply data; I have time now to raise the question but not do the research.) Although nearly all colleges were hit by the current crisis, Tufts was especially affected has it had placed some investments with Bernie Madoff. Tulane ducked that bullet, but was hard hit by the aftermath of Katrina, including the diminution of New Orleans as an attractive site.</p>