I wonder if Tulane’s admissions review and no charge application is all intended to manage their acceptance rates down. Seemed like a waste of time/monty for my daughter to Apply/Visit Tulane. She was waitlisted yesterday, She applied early action and was deferred to the regular admission date. She always like NOLA but had not visited Tulane, so we understood. In February she visited the school and wrote a letter of continued interest. Weighted GPA 4.6, SAT 1430, and was accepted to Michigan and Boston College. What gives?
I wouldn’t call it a sham. I do think that EA applicants that had not visited may have been at a disadvantage during the EA round. Then, maybe with the ED1 and ED2 acceptances along with the EA acceptances, there was little room for EA deferrals/RD acceptances. My son was accepted EA and had not visited but had been to 2 events in our area and emailed his admissions counselor right after applying. Being male may have helped since Tulane is 41/59 M/F. Not sure. I am sorry that your daughter did not get the result she was hoping for. It’s been a tough process for sure.
We received several mailings from UChicago and their application was free if you apply for financial aid. I’m sure that has helped drive their numbers way up, too.
Best of luck.
I am really sorry your D didn’t get in. My own D had good friends who did not get in either, but did get into other
great schools.
However, I am so confused why so many people who didn’t get into Tulane actually call their process a sham? I think if anything, they are trying hard not to over-enroll as they have for the past few years. If you look at other schools on the CC threads - people are blaming the school’s process for not getting in - University of Miami and American University CC site come to mind, but there are many others. This is not unique to Tulane except for the free application. My D got TONS of mailers from Vandy - but we weren’t calling them a sham for trying to advertise to a broad base of students. Are people calling Harvard and Yale a sham? Tons of very well qualified students are denied admission.
I just hate to discourage others reading these threads for next year to no apply to Tulane. My D and I scoured these threads and I asked a ton of questions. After a lot of discussion, my D applied, and she showed the love and she’s going and is thrilled. And it seems all these talks of a “sham” are really discounting all the students who actually did get in and are going. But if she didn’t get information or write a great “Why Tulane” essay or visit or do regional visits, talk to the AO, etc. then she wouldn’t have gotten in. So you DO need to do the legwork and hope it works out. It’s not a waste of time. It’s like applying to a job with a great resume - it takes time - but you don’t necessarily get the job.
Good luck to your D - looks like she has some great options.
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It’s not a sham. If you really think it is, then every other college is running a similar sham. We got many mailings from Stanford and Yale. UChicago even sent us a t-shirt and a free application waiver. However we all knew that my DS didn’t have a shot at getting into any of those schools. ND sent us more mailings than Tulane and DS was in the upper 25% of the applicant pool there, expressed a lot of interest to AO and did a visit, but he got deferred EA and eventually waitlisted. No ill will towards ND though, they just had too many qualified applicants and he didn’t make the cut.
All schools employ admissions directors that have multiple goals which include recruiting the best class, and at the same time making their stats look good. That may seem like a sham to some, but parents and students are feeding into that by being obsessed with rankings.
I doubt it’s a sham. I had a 3.2 GPA with a 32 ACT, and I was accepted EA without having visited or showing relatively any interest. Went to their visit at my school and that was it. Tulane just goes hard with the mailings. Even after getting accepted, I get lots of big envelopes with the same accepted brochure in each one, just with different photos as the cover. The bottom line is that Tulane wants the kids who want Tulane. If you kill it in your why Tulane essay and have clear passions for what you want to do there, chances are you’ll get in. If they don’t think you really want to go, they won’t accept you no matter how high your scores are.
What happened was that Tulane misjudged its yield the past two years and over-enrolled their classes. They had to pare it down this year, thereby putting tremendous emphasis on subjective factors such as diversity of experience and demonstrated interest. Tulane zealously guards its sky high “happy students” and quality of life" rankings and wants to keep them high by taking only students who are thrilled to be there and not students who will be lamenting that they are not elsewhere from the get go. The upshot is that unsuccessful applicants should not feel it is a reflection on them in the vast majority of cases – you can see the amazing stats and ECs of many who were denied. No need to resort to name calling and other pejorative assertions. If your daughter keeps her chin up she will wind up happy and successful. Best of luck to her!
Daughter accepted ED1 on 11/19 with 3.5GPA 31 ACT. She had visited Wake, William & Mary, U Richmond, UVA. She absolutely loved Tulane. Tulane, in my opinion is in a transition from “great safety school option” — from ivies, or Vandy, etc… and is now a “category of one” — it is both highly selective and so unique as an institution (size, location, geographic diversity, etc) — that it can select primarily among students who are both qualified and are locked in on Tulane as their #1 choice.
I don’t think it’s a sham. The admissions office
is transparent and open about this — they make it clear early on that, after ED 1/2, the admit rates are extremely low.
The problem with making it only ED1/ED2 with better chance of admission is that it really makes it difficult for most families that cannot commit without weighing financials. ED favors the wealthy for all schools that do not meet 100% need.
That’s really a shame.
Note: My son was accepted EA at Tulane, which I think was a tougher admit than ED, but clearly much better than RD. The EA round had far more defers than the ED.
Well, that’s an excellent point. On one hand, ED makes it difficult to compare financial aid packages and on the other hand, Tulane doesn’t want to be a “safety” school.
It’s an issue for sure. But it’s not an issue specific to Tulane; it’s systemic. Hope this dilemma gets addressed.
Maybe Sham was the wrong word, but their process seems like a mind game. Who knows, maybe it was being a girl at Tulane with a higher percentage of girls, maybe where we are from in New England. My daughter had fiends accepted to Ivy’s also waitlisted at Tulane. Wish everyone luck, decision down to being a Wolverine, Hurricane, or possibly Bucknell.
@Wolfy2915 Just curious - for the friends that were admitted to Ivy’s - would have they gone to Tulane if they got admitted there? I think this is exactly what Tulane wants to avoid - being a safety to the Ivy’s vs. someone who truly is passionate about going.
Good luck to your D! She has great options.
@Wolfy2915 It’s easy to get frustrated and/or confused with how acceptances and denials go since nothing is black or white and so hard to predict. Ours did get accepted EA to Tulane, but was waitlisted from U-Miami with a 4.45 and 33 (34 superscore) and extracurriculars probably even stronger than grades. So if you’re thinking Tulane is a sham, it’s certainly not alone. These smaller private schools got around 40k apps for just over 2k spots, so they have no problem waitlisting kids that either they don’t think will accept, or won’t be a good fit. I have a very unscientific theory that the AOs at Miami and Tulane compare lists, because it seems like there were so many examples on this board that kids got accepted to Tulane and not Miami and vice versa. I’m sure it’s probably not the case and I’m likely overanalyzing, but there were so many examples I saw on this board it did get me wondering lol!
Double legacy to Tulane, 34 ACT, national awards, from Montana was waitlisted. I got into 1 Ivy League school and swept 7of the Top 10 LACs. Not to sound cocky but they are definitely messing with some number and stuff for RD applicants
@alexandra00 Would you have attended if admitted/ they likely saw you as using them as a safety.
@alexandra00 You waited to apply until RD? They could have already filled their class with qualified ED and EA applicants by that point. Why did you wait until RD and not take advantage of EA?
@TomSrOfBoston @pishicaca I didn’t realize they had EA (I only applied to 1 school EA).My grandpa (Tulane alum BS, MD, and PHD) died in November and I felt like I needed to apply. I also really thought I would like it there. I might have attended, I think I would have gone to Tulane over Carleton, NYU, and Columbia. But not over Claremont Mckenna, Bowdoin, or Wellesley.
I happened to see on the actual results thread that you applied to 31 (!) schools @alexandra00. As did many other students (so many on the same thread applying to 20+ schools). This is part of the problem IMHO - there is no way one needs to apply to so many schools (and take spots that might otherwise be offered to others), and this is contributing to the overly competitive admissions problem.
Tulane correctly predicted that you (and so many similar applicants) would not attend, and made their decision accordingly. Tulane is not “messing with some numbers” for RD applicants, they are wisely offering admission to candidates who they think will actually attend. Anyone who is genuinely interested in Tulane will do their research and understand that applying EA and/or ED is pretty much the only way to get in.
@doglover2001 my S19 was accepted at Miami and Tulane with good stats. He is a legacy at Miami through his grandfather, so perhaps that helped a bit. I don’t think the schools share lists. I will say I was surprised that my son was offered a nice merit package from Tulane and nothing from Miami. I think that is why S19 took Miami off his “favorites” list almost immediately after his acceptance.
Tulane became a strong contender after attending an information session in our area. The admissions rep did recommend applying EA and that applicants should definitely answer the Why Tulane essay.
If a student applied to 31 schools, I find it hard to believe that student was unaware that Tulane offered EA. Less than one minute on Tulane’s Admission site provides that information.
From Tulane sources: comments in ( ) are mine.
Moving from 30 percent to 17 percent in just two years, Tulane’s acceptance rate has plummeted since 2015.
The university received 32,006 applications for Fall 2016, according to U.S. News, followed by 35,605 applications for Fall 2017 and 38,813 applications for Fall 2018.
accepting 700 fewer students, the Class of 2021 contained more students than the Class of 2020 as a result of a larger yield.
In response to these unexpected increases in yield, the school will accept 800 fewer students this year (speaking about the class of 2022), offering admission to only 6,700 students.
Admission predicts that 25-26 percent of these students will accept their offers, suggesting that the streak of broken admissions records may be coming to a close. (The 2022 yield was 29%, if I remember correctly, another record breaking year)
Statistics from the Class of 2022
Class of 2022 38,813 applications for fall 2018 — a 9 percent increase from last year. The Early Decision (ED) program also received 1,819 applications, marking a 37.5 percent increase from the 1,323 applications received in 2017.
acceptance rate was also curbed to 17 percent from 21
562 ED students
So I went to the admitted student day for Tulane in my city. The Tulane Admissions Officer said that the school prefers for the incoming class to contain between 1500 to 1700 students. I believe for the last four years, Tulane has overenrolled - over 1900 students. The acceptance rate had decreased year over year and the yield had continue to rise. So the acceptance rate is not a “sham”.
Additionally, in my state, Texas, and in my city which is a suburb of a major city, there are 8 high schools with graduating classes of over 1000 each. Texas has assured admission for Texas residents who meet certain criteria. The University of Texas, Austin had accepted those in the top 10% in 1997; due to the growth of population of Texas, only the top 6% are eligible for assured admission.
In my son’s high school, the top students had GPAs in the 4.8s and the students at bottom of the top 10% have GPAs of 4.5. I’m guessing to be in the top 6% of this year’s class, the students would to have GPAs above 4.6.
My oldest son was in the second graduating class, the Class of 2018. There was only one applicant to Tulane for the class of 2017 with one attending. For the class of 2018, there were 2 applicants with one attending. This year there were 28 applicants.
@callmom Wow! those are some very interesting stats… I haven’t done the all the research for all the stats you provided yet, but I suspect that my son’s high school profiles (in north suburban Chicago) are similar…in that the year-over-year increase in applications (and proportionate enrollments) to Tulane are close to 30%. From 2014 to 2018, the number from his high school has more than tripled from 5 to 16 (Class of ~1,000), not sure how many applied.
Similar to Texas, University of Illinois (used to be great, now just good IMHO) has had similar policies on guaranteed admission to top 10% in the past, but due to both egregious fiscal mismanagement at the state level (Illinois ranks DFL in the nation per capita) and erosion of the curriculum, I have come to question whether it’s a “deal” anymore. Never a good thing to question your state’s flagship university for value…
Bottom line, it’s getting harder and harder to get in anywhere deemed reputable, but I think Tulane is being very smart (to it’s benefit, not necessarily the applicants) about protecting their spots…