<p>jym ... I like one of your thoughts especially. Having your son do it. BUT I would NOT allow him to email it. This calls for a real conversation, imo. Lot's of good can come from that. Show the admissions folks someone's serious about TU and courageous enuff to ask.</p>
<p>Email is too impersonal for something this personal. And whatever you do, don't allow him to text them! Email is a close 2nd in the category of inapporpriateness, imo. If it's important, it merits a personal call. If it's not. Let it go.</p>
<p>whistlepig-
There is a big college fair at my s's school this weekend, and then the Tulane local presentation next week (he will be attending both). My thought was that if he sent an email asking if he might be considered for the fast track app, he can then follow it up with a personal conversation with the rep when the rep is here in town. I would hope that the admiss ofc would forward his email to the rep, which would then perhaps ring familiar to the rep when my s approaches him about it.</p>
<p>DSA=Distinguished Scholars Award
DHS=Deans Honor Scholarship</p>
<p>The former is about half of expenses or $22k/yr for four years. The latter is full tuition. You have to apply earlier and do the little project to get a shot at the latter. If you don't decide to apply early enough--by mid-December (unfortunately, my son didn't decide to apply until he received the personal app in January back when that's when they sent them out, I guess), you can't get the DHS. There are other requirements, which you can see on the finaid site at Tulane. Check them out. It's quite worthwhile, as expensive as the school is without them.</p>
<p>So does it help to apply earlier rather than later when using the personal app since it admits on a rolling basis? Or does it not matter? I don't know if this has been asked already, sorry.</p>
<p>On the paper copy of the personal app there is a spot for a "personal statement" to be 250-500 words. It is not an essay per se, but anything you want to write to let the adcom people know more about you than just stats.</p>
<p>You can ALWAYS send additional materials. Just make sure your name and the number Tulane has assigned you are each page of the document and ask them to add it to your admissions file.</p>
<p>I think you can write more than 500 words in the space provided online. I'm not sure where the computer cuts you off, but I know a friend who checked with the Admissions Office and they said he could put more than 500 words if he wished.</p>
<p>I was sent the personal app last fall when i was doing my college apps...and I applied on the whim and I had never heard of Tulane before and didn't really want to go to colege in the south. but..I sent in one of my UMichigan essays. and got in 3 weeks later and I somehow ended up in Tulane a year later. </p>
<p>so I think ya'll should apply...even if you have no intention of going to tulane now...It's only like 2 pgs anyway:)</p>
<p>seniors - feel free to send me a PM if you have any questions about tulane</p>
<p>My daughter is now a freshman and received the DHS. When I attended the breakfast for the DHS scholars they mentioned that the "projects" varied greatly amongst applicants. I know in my daughter's case she used the "box" as a frame and drew a picture depicting important things that are in her life and make her who she is... this of course along with the written commentary requested with the project. </p>
<p>On the scholarship form they mention: "Rather than sending a three-dimensional project, we suggest that you send CD-ROMs, DVDs,
electronic files, photocopies, slides, photographs or videotapes of your work, augmented by a written description" </p>
<p>It really is your chance to creatively express yourself and what about you makes you unique or interesting as an individual.. ie, do you paint? write and/or perform music, create movies, work on photography, build webpages?
I would imagine anything you can think of that can be expressed in 2 dimensional format would be acceptable...</p>
<p>btw, someones asked about the follow-up phone calls after the apps were e-sent ... the calls come from a marketing firm hired by Tulane, not the admissions veep or staffers. This is of course legitimate if a non-traditional. But of course, Katrina was sorta outta the norm as well. I think it's pretty creative and agressive, all TU is doing to use this potential disaster to reposition itself, a trick that is VERY difficult to pull-off in higher ed, especially in the absence of a generation or 2 of time.</p>
<p>All it really says is that TU might be a very intriguing place to consider IF one is interested in a place on the move. Of course there are scads of campuses hide-bound to their ruts of the past ion or so, scared to death of anything new. </p>
<p>It seems to me that the resurrection plan holds enormous potential for transforming TU from a good Southern U that's lived on a modest reputation while trying to make the world think it's something much more ... to an institution that has taken the opportunity provided through disaster to make itself into a genuinely premier undergraduate university that is perceived as such by a community beyond its own alumni and faculty.</p>
<p>Shame on TU if it simply falls back into its same old rut, minus a few engineering and grad programs.</p>
<p>Whistle Pig - That would be great if that was what was happening and if there is a market out there for non "hide-bound to their ruts of the past" schools out there. It does not look like there is such a market and it does not really look like what Dr Cowen is doing is really transformative.</p>
<p>Tulane's reputation was more than modest pre-katrina. It is and was a much better school than its ranking would indicate. Its main marketing problem was that it was far from the largest markets for expensive private university educations which are mainly in the NE, west coast, and a few major metropolitan areas in the Great Lakes region. Post-katrina those marketing woes have increased do to fears about safety in NOLA, both from crime and natural disaster. To add to that problem Dr Cowen who is from the NE himself has crafted a plan for the school that has made it even less "Southern" than it was and therefor even less attractive to his regional customers who BTW are in the midst of a tremendous economic boom.</p>
<p>My feeling is that Dr Cowen has never really embraced his regional market the way he has embraced the city of New Orleans. Right now the South is both the most economically vibrant and socially conservative region in the country. That social conservatism has both a good and bad side. I am not going to write a treatise on that history but suffice to say that closing down a 100+ year old Newcomb Colleg and Engineering school didn't do anything to help the marketability of this school in the region and neither of those moves saved any significant chunk of money. In fact they probably cost money in both the short and long term.</p>
<p>I will come back to this in a little bit - right now I have to finish watch the Tulane LSU football game and it is a doozy.</p>
<p>HL, it often seems as if our sons go to entirely different schools. Your view of what's happening at Tulane seems to be that it's become very limited, especially in terms of science and engineering. I'm getting e-mails from a son who is now a triple major submitting a grant proposal for robotics research as a third-year student and working with professors who seem genuinely interested in letting him do research with them. That's a level of involvement I never had the chance at at UF, for certain, and I didn't expect it for my son at this stage. I'm delighted.</p>
<p>I wonder whether it's possible that you're still reacting to the sad losses immediately after the storm to the exclusion of really seeing the opportunities that exist for students who go after them now in the sciences. They are there, and many of them might be there because of departments interacting in way they didn't before. That's something one prof mentioned to me last year. Of course, who knows how it would have been if Katrina hadn't happened? I wish it hadn't. But I just wonder whether you're seeing what's there for those who take advantage of what the school has to offer NOW.</p>
<p>Tulane was never the Vanderbilt it wished it were (let alone Rice or Duke.) Think SMU and wish it well in its efforts to get back there. It's important for the city and, one would hope, to its administrators and alumni. Faculty and staff can leave; the degree goes on forever.</p>