<p>Benetode,
Can you clarify what you mean by saying that Tulane hasn’t done the Focus Louisiana program in 10 years? It looks to be alive and well. It is described on TUs website here [Tulane</a> Admission: Louisiana Applicants](<a href=“http://admission.tulane.edu/apply/louisiana.php]Tulane”>http://admission.tulane.edu/apply/louisiana.php) and sounds pretty active and available. I would think if it wasn’t offered, they wouldn’t have this link, description and visitation weekends for the program
I agree that the relationship with NOLA and the rest of the state is important, and I am not suggesting that it be discontinued. I am, however, in agreement that raising the standards a little bit for the 12.5% (not 10%) of the class that is coming from instate is not unreasonable. If the requirements were a minimum of a 29 ACT and/or 1950 SAT (not a huge jump), this could improve Tulane’s stats a bit and perhaps continue to increase the retention and graduation rate with the stronger caliber of students thay have been admitting in recent years. </p>
<p>I think that Benetode is right-- raise the requirements and simultaneously raise some scholarship $$ and the students will continue to apply. As an aside, that legislative scholarship has alwasys seemed a little unusual to me, but yes Louisiana politics is … well Louisiana politics.</p>
<p>And the Brochure I found for the Clss of 2007 freshman shows an average ACT of 28 and SAT of 1940 (range 1840-2050). However, that suggests that on a 1600 scale the avg would have been only about 1293, which seems low according to the table in post #9, even taking Katrina into consideration.</p>
<p>@SabrinaFairchild - Tell us what we can do to convince you that Tulane is the right choice! LOL, actually I thought you had already decided on USC. So now I am curious, what is making you waver?</p>
<p>3 more things to consider regarding the Louisiana program:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>I mentioned the fact that Duke has a similar program, but if you think about the number of exceptional State Schools (Berkeley comes to mind) that have different standards for in-state versus out of state applicants, this is truly not a big deal.</p></li>
<li><p>I’m willing to bet that the average Ivy skews their numbers just as much admitting legacy applicants.</p></li>
<li><p>I’m also willing to bet that the Louisiana program pays great dividends to Tulane. I suspect these students are more active than the average in the Alumni Associations, probably give more than the average, support the sports programs, and eventually become the source of a larger percentage of the internships and job opportunities for current Tulane students.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>What I had intended to type was that the Focus Louisiana program is relatively new, i.e. less than 10 years old. When I had applied to Tulane in the late 90’s it did not exist. At the time they had problems attracting in state Louisiana students. Sorry for the confusion.</p>
<p>Hi Scorpio - I don’t think #2 is as true as it was years ago. Certainly for very wealthy donors and others of exceptional prestige, I am sure there is a bending of the curve. But simply being a legacy at an Ivy doesn’t seem to help so much any longer for the student that isn’t up to standards. At least that seems to be the general consensus from what I hear from alums and their children.</p>
<p>I completely agree with #3, and in general these students become the leaders in the state political, business and professional arenas. That has to pay off for Tulane in so many ways, and in fact has over the years. There are even a few lawsuits from disgruntled “others” to prove it!</p>
<p>I agree with your points, Scorpio, and having more alums closer by might also possibly help attendance at sporting events too!! That would be nice!! </p>
<p>But there is a difference between being able to be accepted into a school, and being able to cut it and stay in school. If students cant keep up a minimum GPA some will lose scholarship $ and may not be able to afford to stay. Others may have trouble with the academic demands of the school and may drop out. TU has noticed a significant improvement in retention rates with the academically stronger classes in recent years. It would be great if TU has more state alums, and perhaps bringing in slightly stronger students to begin with can actually help in the long run, if more graduate and give back to the university in the many ways described above.</p>
<p>From what I’ve heard Tulane and USC are probably even for academics… and I’m in Tulane Honors which is a really good program. The FA is similar for both schools. I haven’t visited Tulane but am going to an orientation in June, so I think seeing the campus and New Orleans will help me make up my mind.
At Tulane I would major in theatre, which is what I want to major in. I didn’t apply to theatre at USC because I thought I’d get rejected if I did, since so many apply to theatre at USC… so if I go to USC I have to try to transfer into theatre.
So on April 30 I was torn and deposited at both schools.</p>
<p>I’m worried that Tulane doesn’t have as strong of a name as USC, and also that their theatre program might not be as strong as USC’s. L.A. offers more acting oppurtunities than anywhere else… but there are oppurtunities everywhere. So I’m just waiting to see Tulane</p>
<p>Just remember it isn’t as hot most of the time when you are there for school as it will be in June! The weather is better in LA, I will have to concede that, but it will be more pleasant in NOLA most of the time when you are there than it will be when you visit.</p>
<p>Like you, I would also assume USC has a strong theater program just because of where they are, but I really don’t know that. Although interestingly Tulane had a great history of having one of the best, and had some well known actors attend, but apparently lost quite a bit of the faculty in some kind of dispute way back in the early 1970’s, or maybe it was even in the 60’s. Obviously they have rehired in the intervening years.</p>
<p>There are always two schools of thought on this. Go someplace where you are among the best and can learn from the best, or go someplace where you can have a far greater chance of being the star. Clearly in this case USC would be the former and Tulane the latter. Personally I have no opinion on this for someone that wants to do this for a career. If it were more for fun then clearly Tulane would be the choice. I can see both arguments for the career-minded student. Of course I guess one question is what happens if you get to USC and cannot transfer into the program? I think at Tulane you are pretty much guaranteed a slot.</p>
<p>I think you are right about the academics, and in Hollywood USC will of course be more known. I am sure you are correct that once you spend a couple days at Tulane you will be more able to make a choice, even if you are going in the dead of summer, lol. Best of luck either way. Let us know.</p>
<p>Dennis and Randy Quaid were Tulane alums and they did okay. USC rejected Steven Speilberg and he did okay, so it probably has something to do with talent. ;)</p>
<p>According to the Quaid bios, they didn’t go to Tulane. I think Dennis went somewhere in Texas and Randy…maybe no college? I don’t recall. But if you google famous Tulane alumni, some interesting names do come up.</p>
<p>Let’s see, they are about 150 people, or 10%, over their target number at the moment, the class (not accepted students, but students that have made deposits) has the highest average SAT and highest % of students graduating in the top 10% of their high school class of any Tulane entering class ever, the most National Merit Scholars and Finalists, at least one Presidential Scholar (for those of you not familiar with that, that is an award from the Department of Education where there are only 2 per state and 15 at large and a few others for a toal of 141 in the entire country out of 3,000,000 graduating seniors, or 0.0047%). Hmmmmmm…, this low yield is a terrible thing, I’ll tell you. Devastating. Actually I am still looking for the other edge of the sword. I guess it is a negative for people that think low yield is an indicator of something. Too bad for them they get so hung up on parameters that don’t translate into real life issues.</p>
<p>The student SAT range is quite good and getting better, which indicates the strategy is working. SAT range is much better than many many schools with better yield. Yield could dramatically be improved by accepting lower performing students. Would that be a good thing for the school? There is a reason USNWR dropped yield in it’s formula.</p>
<p>While clearly SJUHawk has only come over to the TU forum to try to stir up trouble, and his baiting comment is exaggerated for effect, I actually agree, as I have said before, that TU has done a great job of increasing applications and should now put some energy into increasing yield. It is understandable, though, that an expensive school, even with the generous FA, is just not affordable for a lot of folks, and as we have seen in other threads in this forum, some who wanted to come simply cannot afford to. I do fear that TU also has a little bit of the Tufts syndrome to deal with. However, the fact that this years acceptances are up well above expectation suggests that maybe there will be improvement in yield this year. </p>
<p>Change of subject-- when we drove into pick up DS this weekend, we passed a HUGE new cancer research/treatment facility being built downtown as a joint venture of TU med school, Ochsner Clinic, LSU Med and… Trouro, I believe). It should be great-- and state of the art. </p>
<p>I read an interesting article in “Inside Higher Ed” about strategies schools are using to increase yield. One school is sending tree saplings to all accepted students!! I’ll find and link the article. Its very interesting.</p>
<p>One of the only things you and I disagree on, jym. If Tulane is achieving and exceeding its goals for admissions, why would it worry about increasing yield? I am sure someday, IF the dynamics of the admissions situation changes, they will adjust accordingly. Also, I think the Tufts syndrome phenomenon is hugely exaggerated. When you break down the weighting that goes into the USNWR rankings for % admitted, any change one could achieve by trying to make oneself look more selective by waitlisting would be very small, like 1% of the overall ranking factors. I think what people call Tufts syndrome is more of an attempt by the various admissions offices such as Tufts, Wash U, and similar schools to try and manage the actual numbers enrolling.</p>
<p>In any case, it is interesting that Rice, Vandy, Duke and others have already gone to their wait list while Tulane is over subscribed, so to speak.</p>
<p>It is all about perspective, and image, FC. Yes, Tufts syndrome is at this point a fable, but it is negative folklore, yet it persists. It is an image thing-- and it looks bad. Sure the schools you mentioned have gone to their WL, but they also accepted far fewer students to begin with. Tulane accepts approximately 6X as many students as actually enroll, whereas Rice accepts only about 2.6X as many students as actually enroll. And as you know, even Harvard went 200 deep into its waitlist a year or 2 ago. Thats a real hard thing to predict in enrollment management. I am hopeful that the overenrollment at Tu is a sign of things to come, but I would like to see that trend continue. </p>
<p>As you know, I am not a big fan of the US News rankings. I care more about the image-- the impression people have about a school. And personally, I think this is an area Tulane could revisit, as the number of highly qualified students continue to apply to Tulane-- lets be sure they actually come!! Certainly if I had to choose, I’d pick the lower acceptance rate, but I’d like to see BOTH- the lower acceptance rate (in the low 20’s) combined with a higher yield</p>
<p>Yep, SJU is trying to cause trouble. Tulane tied for the lowest yield with 3 other schools. And rather than write something new, I’ll be copying and pasting something that SJU has already seen of mine:</p>
<p>From 2009:</p>
<p>Nebraska has a higher yield than Stanford, MIT, Yale, Princeton, Penn, and Brown. LSU has a higher yield than Dartmouth and UVA. Kansas State and Bama have higher yields than Cornell and Georgetown. All of the above mentioned schools have a higher yield than Duke and Vandy. Yield does show a portion of desirability. But it’s just a portion. It just does not show financial considerations ect. with regards to why people choose one college over another. Nor does it show what schools a school was competing with for an applicant. </p>