@collegemom9 Then what about the many many very talented kids who took the few minutes a week to show it was important and worth it and were still deferred… EDI EDI EDIII or a revamp of the EA process is needed for this to be a fair process for both sides.
@aurora2016 the only applicants that I know that were deferred from Tulane who had top stats were ones that didn’t demonstrate interest. Regardless, it is what it is. Schools like Tulane and Michigan will likely continue to defer students that they feel won’t attend. And I can’t say I disagree with them.
Same thing very year. People who had no plan to attend and demonstrate little to no interest but apply anyway (why do that???) come to bash the school that didn’t jump at the chance to offer admission. Shame on the school for wanting to populate their campus with students who actually want to be there!
As in a professional setting, at competitive schools admission is just as much about who you know as what you know. So if you didn’t take the time and energy to ensure that your admissions rep knew who you are, why should you stand out from those who did?
It’s not all about stats…there are stories behind the numbers that make the difference.
It’s tough for kids with really high stats who DID demonstrate interest but were still deferred presumably based on the assumption Tulane is a safety school for them when really, even if they might have applied to an Ivy or two those schools are extreme long shots for pretty much anyone, and the interest in attending Tulane is really genuine and sincere. Frustrating…
@collegemom9 Congratulations to your child on the acceptance to Tulane.
My child has very high stats and was deferred without having visited (we live more than 1500 miles away and could not afford to go). But my child did spend a lot of time doing the things you suggested and did attend a local admissions program, stayed after to meet and speak with the regional counselor, emailed that person, opened and clicked on links in email received, spent a lot of time on the website and participated in online admissions chats. This child also completed the optional essay and submitted an arts supplement as well as the separate scholarship applications (DH/PT). I think that should have demonstrated enough interest.
Thank heavens this is the last of my four kids to go through this process. It has changed substantially since the oldest applied 12 years ago, and not for the better. I’m sure we are not alone in our need for merit scholarships to make college affordable and my child could not possibly commit to an ED application without knowing that outcome upfront. It is truly a shame that Tulane and the other colleges that use ED don’t seem to understand that for many applicants, applying EA instead of ED has nothing to do with interest and everything to do with realities of needing to pay for college.
Congratulations to all those who were accepted. To those deferred, I wish you all the best as you figure out your next steps and hope you have good news soon.
I just want to address a few comments here. I have a son who attends u of Michigan and while it has the big sports atmosphere he told me very few kids especially girls actually go to the games. They all tailgate however and use home games as huge excuse to binge drink. There is huge amounts of drinking associated with big tailgates FYI. In terms of crime -that’s equivalent of people not sending their kids to northwestern because Chicago has huge murder rate but northwestern is situated away from the crime ridden areas but still within the Chicagoland area. Tulane is in the safest part of new orieans in the upscale garden district and most kids will tell you they stick around campus or the vicinity and don’t frequent the French quarter or the seedier neighborhoods. The female/ male ratio is a little skewed but if you look at many colleges there are more females than males attending college and this is a national trend. I did hear they are working on balancing the class better in terms of gender so I would expect to see things even out more. I also think there are many benefits of attending a smaller private college versus a large university in terms of class size, resources etc. Not every kid can thrive at huge universities with 100’s of kids in lecture halls etc. just pointing these things out having a child in both a big 10 and smaller private. There are trade offs for sure.
My heart breaks for the high stats kids that were deferred and really tried to demonstrate interest. My daughter was accepted EA (GPA 4.4, SAT 1540, IB diploma candidate). We did not visit, but we traveled to a college fair explicitly to meet the Tulane rep, and she sent a few follow-up emails. She also submitted every “optional” item possible (why Tulane essay, DHS, PT, and an arts supplement), and she had an interview that was fine but nothing earth-shattering. That being said, I think that maybe what tipped the scales in her favor was expressing an interest in a specific program at Tulane (creative premedical scholars). I think there are not a lot of students currently taking advantage of this program, so maybe she fits a particular slot they want to fill, and her acceptance was about more than just high stats + demonstrated interest. I think that could be true for others…at least I really hope these decisions are about more than clicking on links and liking social media posts.
I am deferred even though I met the area rep at a college fair
@Labmama I’m OOS and I have very similar stats (1540 sat, 4.7 Weighted, full IB) and submitted DHS, PT, why tulane). My why tulane essay was all about the Creative PreMed scholars program 
sad i was deferred
My son was accepted but without any merit scholarship. Although he has double-legacy parents, not to mention another 5 (yes, 5) relatives who went to Tulane, he will unfortunately not be able to attend. He’s perfectly fine with that, and surprisingly, so are we (his parents). My wife and I were fortunate enough to have attended Tulane and through the school’s generosity, we were able to graduate with a manageable amount of school loans. I think we’ve done fairly well for ourselves, but the “reward” for our accomplishments is that we’ve now a full pay family that has priced our son out of most private schools. So even though he’s qualified, he can’t go. He’s luckily been admitted to several other good schools that have lower tuition, including direct admit to the business programs at Ohio State, Indiana, Miami Ohio, etc., so he has really good options. It’s just too bad that Tulane can’t be one of them. Congrats to everyone who has been accepted.
It comes down to this – with Tulane and most other universities of this caliber, they are getting far more applicants and a greater yield year over year. The had to REDUCE the number of acceptances this year because they underestimated the yield percentage, and were over capacity the last two years. The days where they had to offer incentives because of Katrina are long over. Take a look at the applicants just on this board compared to a couple of years ago. The scores, GPA, and awards are higher. The bar has been raised and these kids are applying to more schools (back in my day in the 80’s we applied to only 1 or 2 schools and usually just within our state).
Out of that huge pool of applications, there is a subset that showed “demonstrated interest” … but even that subset is way, way more than they can accept, so now they are in the driver’s seat of getting to pick who makes up their class of 2023. Many schools are under pressure to increase their % of minorities, under served areas or have clear financial need. Maybe Tulane was looking for more female STEM students, or more men from Nebraska, or a good tuba player, or a cattle rancher, etc. Those are the factors we don’t know. Some of it is luck. However I would assume that they need a certain number of people who are willing to pay full tuition and those would be your ED students.
I’m wondering if the really high stat deferrals applied to many other highly ranked schools and Tulane was aware of that. My son was accepted, 34 ACT, 3.7 UW, 4.1W GPA (13 AP classes, 2 PLTW, few ECs, but had a job and was a varsity athlete for 4 years for 1 sport). He is a first generation college student. For us, my son attended a Tulane comes to you event for our area (about 500 other students came to the same event). He did not reach out personally to the regional admissions counselor at all. We did not visit Tulane. He applied early (on August 1), and checked the portal very regularly. He did write an interesting “Why Tulane?” essay, and he opted for the alumni interview. Since he was checking the portal often, he saw the option to request the alumni interview, and replied to the invitation to schedule one right away. I know they didn’t give much time on that. His alumni interview went well, as he was matched with someone who majored in biomedical engineering at Tulane, and was now a PhD candidate at University of Chicago. My son said he had a great time at the interview and followed up with a thank you mail directly to the alumnus.
My son did not apply to any other private universities except for Tulane. They would have seen that on his ACT/SAT score reports. We were not originally going to apply for financial aid, but decided to submit the FAFSA and the CSS profile just in case. I believe all the schools can see who else is getting the FAFSA. Tulane would know that the other schools were all public universities - and that they were definitely NOT a safety choice for my son.
If they are really concerned about protecting yield, then the extremely high stat students are probably viewed with a bit more trepidation. If Tulane already saw University of Chicago, Stanford, Washington University, etc., on the FAFSA, they would likely wonder if Tulane were really the first choice school. I’ve seen a few of the deferrals mention that they were also deferred at other highly ranked colleges. One has to wonder if they are all aware exactly where the students have applied.
Several years ago, the FAFSA rules were changed so that colleges CANNOT see which other schools a student has applied to. Same goes for test score reports - colleges cannot know where else a student has applied. So for the very high flyers, Tulane may assume that they are a safety school, but they cannot know that. And demonstrated interest, not just during the application season, but specifically through the Why Tulane essay, is essential. Name people, programs, classes, and other specifics, and tie those to the student’s background and goals.
Don’t discount recommendations. If the highest flying student is not humble or kind or caring (community service is HUGE at Tulane), then he or she may simply not be a good match.
@Animom - I thought the score reports had it for sure - my son’s ACT report showed the schools printed right on it, both on the website, and the one that he got through the school. I’d assumed they were on there. The counselors advised that we list them in alphabetical order because of that. I wasn’t sure about the Fafsa or the profile.
My son’s “Why Tulane” essay was a little different. He talked about what drew him to Tulane vs. some of the other schools his classmates were choosing. He liked that the students’ passion was about community - not necessarily about personal prestige. He talked about opportunities for research and how he wanted to use his education. A lot of his response was more about feeling connected rather than specifics about academics. He doesn’t have a lot of volunteer or EC activities to speak of, though his schedule doesn’t allow a lot. He does volunteer whenever he can, but doesn’t have a huge resume like a lot of his classmates do. He’s always stuck to a few things that really matter to him. This did hurt him at other schools (Ole Miss Honors college wait listed him, for example).
Since this is my first child to go through this process, I guess we were very naive as to how this worked. He has very good scores, gpa etc (I published it upthread). He did not apply to any Ivy leagues or Stanford etc. This was not his safety school and his school counselor reccomended it as a good match for him.
We did not visit New Orleans—we used to live there and know the city well. The rep did visit our metro area, but not at his school. The evening they visited, he had a conflict and could not attend. He had a great interview with an alumni, which my son thought was a lot of fun. He majored in the same field in which my son is interested. He has not bombarded his AO with emails, or liked any tweets.
He did not emphasize his community service (he spent 4 weeks building homes in Peru, for instance, and his high school requires a huge amount of community service) or mention all of his clubs, because he felt everyone puts the common ones (NHS etc). His Why Tulane essay was more casual. Tulane knows they are a good school; he did not feel it was necessary to name particular professors or classes. He did explain why he was interested in Tulane. I guess we, as his parents, should have been more involved in proof-reading his application. His high school emphasized it was to be done by the students, not the parents.
The deferral was a disappointment. To have his younger sibling suddenly, in the last 6 weeks, start getting Tulane letters, emails, stickers has been strange as well.
My reply disappeared.
This is our oldest child to go through the college process and we must have been quite naive. He was deferred (stats upthread).
His Why Tulane essay was very casual, emphasizing what he liked about the school, not naming particular professors or classes. Tulane already knows why they are good; he felt no need to regurgitate the info to them. He read quite a few of the admissions blog posts, had a great interview with a local alumni who majored in the field my son is interested. We did not visit New Orleans; we used to live there and know the city well.
Maybe we should have micromanaged his application to make sure he included all of his community service, clubs and the like. His high school counselor stressed how important it was for the students to start, complete and follow up on their applications. He didn’t bombard his AO with emails or like any tweets. He did not apply to Tulane as a safety school. His counselor thought it would be a good match and he agreed.
The deferral stings a little bit extra because in the last month, his younger sibling has begun to get letters, cards, stickers and emails from Tulane…
@SWestMom Your son’s stats are similar to my son’s. His why Tulane was casual and he also had somewhat limited ECs. I don’t know what he did differently. Perhaps it was a difference in the major, or that they were looking for another hook. Neither my husband nor I have college degrees, so he did have one hook as a first generation student. He attends a gifted and talented academy in a Title 1 school. He’s the first student (according to his counselor) to apply to Tulane, and that might have been a factor. Perhaps they just don’t have students from our area.
deferred
4.02W coming from a top 50 private school in CA, 32 ACT, danced in a youth company and now for a professional company, scholarships to many dance programs including American Ballet Theatre, long history of environmental-focused volunteer work, hospital PT volunteer, probably decent recs, cell & molecular biology major,
I did the “Why Tulane?” essay about a girl I met through dance that is a freshman at Tulane and research opportunities for STEM kids. Didn’t really demonstrate much interest other than writing that essay and sending one email to my regional officer. Was kind of counting on getting into Tulane since it looked like I was overqualified when compared to accepted applicants from school. Kinda mad but now I know I’m in the same boat as a lot of other highly qualified people. Can’t do much other than show interest and hope for the best.
@SWestMom – I would not overload your son’s application on clubs, community service and the like if it’s not significant, nor would I bombard them with emails. In their presentation, Jeff Schiffman made a joke about how every Tulane applicant is part of NHS and they didn’t care too much about it. He also said it was irritating to AOs to get a ton of emails that didn’t have genuine questions or questions that were answered on the website.
http://tuadmissionjeff.blogspot.com/2012/07/10-application-tips-from-experts.html
You are right, there is no point regurgitating what Tulane is good at. Also do not put “I want to attend Tulane because it was voted the #1 Party School” 
We were very lucky in that we were able to do a campus visit, and my son was selected for the Multicultural event, so he was there twice and saw the same presentation twice. In addition they held a smaller session where they practically told them what to write in the Why Tulane essay? They said do a LOT of name dropping, whether it’s older kids he knew from his high school that went to Tulane, or his experience sitting in on a class, or what he thought about his host student. Tulane really wants the “connection” to come through that there is no other school that will appeal to your child.
I would say that without a campus visit to be able to name drop, one thing that sets Tulane apart from many other schools is that you can easily change majors or dual-major between different schools. For instance there is not a separate business school that you have to apply to specifically to take those classes. You also are familiar with NO and how unique NO is than other college towns. If you used to live there, express how much he lovers NO, it’s uniqueness and why he prefers it over anything else. I’m not an admissions person, but going based on what I heard.
My son has zero, and I do mean ZERO community service hours. His EC schedule didn’t allow too much time.
His local AO visited his high school school, and he was there every day at the Multicultural event so he met my son 4-5 times. My point is there is a good deal of luck involved with this process. My son’s credentials are in line with most of the deferred and accepted kids here, and based on credentials alone, there is nothing that sets him apart.