Anyone else still waiting to hear back on either DHS or PTA? As noted above, my D was informed she did not get DHS, but has not heard back on PTA yet.
@obfromjersey, it appears that all of the winners of both DHS and PT were notified on February 1. I think you would be justified in calling/emailing your admissions counselor to ask.
@obfromjersey @Labmama My kid never got a response to DHS - was deferred EA then accepted last week. No email, no update to portal. DHS application info still showing.
I think it might be helpful for Class of 2024 students and parents to have some insights on the DHS and PTA scholarships, so here are some thoughts from the parent of a kid who didn’t get one. I should preface this post with a note that it is absolutely not my intent to take away from this year’s winners in any way; I am sure they are all amazing and deserving of the awards.
If you/your kid is thinking of applying to Tulane, you should realize that the odds of getting one of these scholarships are overwhelmingly against you. We naively thought D had an excellent chance, and she applied to Tulane based on that. For reference, her stats: 4.0 UW GPA (4.5W); rank, top 3/300, good chance she will be valedictorian; most rigorous curriculum; SAT: 1540, ECs that demonstrate extreme dedication and passion for what she loves, including a ton of community service related to this interest. Multiple leadership positions (Band first chair and section leader, NHS, FHS, mu alpha theta etc….). She’s a gifted writer (okay, this is my opinion, but she’s also received numerous writing awards), and she wrote strong, unique and interesting essays for the PTA. Her DHS was good, but honestly I thought the PTA was a winner.
She was accepted to Tulane EA with honors and a $30k merit scholarship. After she was accepted, she was invited to apply to the Tulane Pathway to Medicine, which is not advertised anywhere and is by invitation only. Also lots of snail mail, emails etc. inviting her to various events. We were sold.
We scoured these threads prior to my daughter’s application to Tulane, and based on history, it seemed like it was worthwhile for her to apply. There are many historical posts about kids WITHOUT top stats who got DHS and PTA awards. On YouTube, you can find DHS winners—some very cool presentations, for sure, but many winners were not earth-shattering. In the past, Tulane made a big deal about announcing winners, and sent out UPS packages, usually preceded by a social media post that they were coming. Historically, I believe there were 100-150 combined awards.
This year has been very different. Tulane has been silent about these two full tuition scholarships. They did announce that they were cutting back on merit aid, but did not specifically state that there would be fewer DHS or PTA scholarships awarded. I don’t know if that is the case or not, but they certainly are not talking up these opportunities anymore. I have not seen the stats for kids who got the awards this year, so it’s anyone’s guess as to whether they were all “high stats” kids.
Our situation is similar to many families on these threads whose EFC has nothing to do with their reality; our EFC exceeds my annual salary by $7,000. We qualify for zero need-based aid, because apparently Tulane thinks we are wealthy. This is pure speculation on my part….but I can’t help but wonder if D was eliminated from consideration for DHS/PTA because Tulane thinks we can afford to send her with the merit scholarship they awarded her (they did offer an additional $1000 when she was rejected from PTA). Unfortunately, the merit scholarship they offered doesn’t come close to making it affordable for us.
It has been very sad to give up this dream. Hopefully this post will help a future family. If you can’t afford a minimum of $45-50K per year for Tulane, it might not be worth it to apply, even for a very high-stats kid with great ECs. As someone else on these threads said, the pain of being accepted and not being able to go is much, much worse than the pain of being rejected for admission. I feel like a failure as a parent for encouraging her to apply—it was not realistic, and I should have been prepared for this outcome. A very painful lesson learned.
Best wishes to all, and sincere congratulations to the winners.
@Labmama Did you fill out the FAFSA and CSS profile? If so, I recommend you reach out to the financial aid officer and explain your family’s financial situation and that you need additional need-based aid (you will need to specify how much) on top of the merit aid in order to attend. If you let them know that if you receive X amount in need based aid on top of the merit aid you already receive, then your D would be willing to commit on the spot (but only say if true). Sometimes doing this will get a second review (like an appeal) and may enable you to get enough additional aid in order to attend.
Totally agree with @trackmbe3 that a professional judgment request is appropriate if there are financial circumstances not be in considered. The 31K merit will ‘help” lower a 75K COA, but its still a big bite. In past years some students have been able to stack merit money and the community service scholarship to reach merit $ covering full tuition.
Thanks @trackmbe3–we did reach out to FA and they re-evaluated FAFSA and CSS, still a “no.” Our transportation costs will be high, so unless I win the lottery, it’s not an option for us, especially since D has a full tuition scholarship elsewhere. We are still waiting on other RD results, hopefully there will be some other attractive offers.
Hi @Labmama, I know this is all hard right now and I agree being accepted and not able to go is harder than a rejection. I thought I’d share some of what I know (particularly DHS) that might fill in the blanks for you and help others.
DHS awarded 60 applicants this year out of about 1000 applicants. That was stated in our letter. The chance of winning if you apply is about 10%. Tulane has been pretty open in saying that while having high stats is not mandatory, most of the winners were high stats. I would imagine that based on the time and effort it takes to put together a DHS project, most with lower stats are not going to bother. 60 appears to be a lower number in years’ past since I believe I read on this board that 75 or more were awarded in previous years.
The DHS project is not just about the video, and not everyone posted their video on YouTube. I agree some videos were great and some were ‘meh’, but there was an essay component that weighed equally (possibly more), as well as a teacher recommendation, and the application itself. My point is the video was one small component, and without seeing the other pieces of their application it’s hard for us to say who was more deserving.
PTA I’m going to have make assumptions about, so don’t take this as fact. Last year there were 3000 PTA applicants according to someone on this board. More people are willing to write essays than try to undertake a creative project. Assuming that 60 PTA scholarships were awarded as well, your chances of winning are only 2%. Like DHS, I’m going to assume that most of the applicants were high stats.
I don’t think Tulane has been silent about the scholarships. They are not making a big deal about the UPS mailing “packages” because almost everyone was notified by email before the packages arrived. The actual package with the fat UPS envelope was just a pleather portfolio thing with the exact same letter inside that was emailed to the student. I know my kid was bombarded with emails about applying, and they also talked a lot about it during his visit.
Our EFC showed we could very clearly afford Tulane on paper (it was not even close), therefore I don’t believe your daughter was eliminated because they thought she didn’t need merit.
I learned that looking at previous stats and threads can give you a false sense of security when it comes to being accepted, getting scholarship money, etc. This class has a couple things working against them --1) A larger group of higher stats kids applying to more and more colleges; 2) Colleges openly saying they are going to shifting their merit funds to truly need based and under represented. These factors has made it really tough on the class of 2023. I agree with you that when kids begin the college search, there needs to be very clear, concrete rules given or kids w.r.t. affordability and money. We cannot assume we’ll get certain amounts in merit based on previous history. My son’s original college application list had 12 schools on it, but after we went through the money exercise, he only ended up applying to five because some of them we were not going be able to afford and did not appear to give generous merit.
I hope this answers some of the “what if” questions. Honestly I don’t think you did anything wrong with encouraging her to apply since it’s a free application. She had just as good a shot as everyone else at getting PTA or DHS, but a 10% and 2% chance of winning are not likely odds by any means, so it comes down to setting expectations before they get too emotionally attached to the school.
Thank you @AH1310, and congratulations on the DHS! My post was intended to hopefully help someone else avoid my mistakes (i.e. unrealistic expectations—totally on me). It’s really hard to walk away from what Tulane is offering, but we can’t justify taking on that amount of debt; there will be plenty of debt to pay for med school. Honestly I’m taking it harder than my kid; she’s already moved on. Best wishes to you and your family!
My only concern for kids who are making undergrad decisions based on the fact that they plan on going to med school is that the vast majority of them don’t. They all think they want to until they get their butt kicked by Cell and Molecular Bio, Organic Chem or one of the other weed-out courses and plans change in a jiffy. Hopefully those kids land in a spot that is a good overall fit for them and not just a choice made based on economics and looming med school expense that never materializes.
Totally agree with you @pishicaca. That would be me almost 30 years ago. However in my case it wasn’t Organic that kicked my butt, it was entry level Chemistry 101 
… Since I had few options to switch to other majors based on a lower GPA and programs that usually required direct admit or a 3.5 GPA, I had to switch schools.
Finances need to come into the mix, because depending on what you switch into, you’ll either need post-graduate funds (masters in Public Health, PA, Nursing, etc.), or you make a big switch like I did into business and tech, which in that case you have to spend extra money on make up classes. The ability to easily switch majors and areas of concentration should be another consideration when selecting a college. To your point, the primary criteria is that student has to be happy and comfortable, and feels the college is a good fit overall.
My kid still has not gotten a decision on DHS….is there anyone else who applied and has not gotten a response either way?
@TimeTraveler28 My D had not received a response for the PTA (she was notified on the portal that she did not receive the DHS). She emailed her admissions counselor for clarification and he informed her that all PTA recipients had been notified, which meant she had not been selected. I am not sure if it is the same for DHS, so it may be worth a inquiry to confirm.
@obfromjersey Thanks for your reply. I will have my child do that. We understand if they’ve all been awarded, but l do object to leaving a kid hanging with no response either way. I don’t understand how they can acknowledge receipt of the application and all the required documents but not send an email or update the portal. Very confused by every part of the Tulane experience so far.
EA D accepted Dec 20th. Notified on Feb 5th, did not get DHS or PT scholarships. No merit either. Unless something late breaks, Tulane is a no for D unless there is late breaking news!
My D received the DHS and the Community Service scholarship. The Weatherhead Community Service Fellowship just came out on March 8.