Tulane Personal Application

Colleges and Universities A-Z Tulane University
81

<p>"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>Do you think the plan for Tulane should be making it a stronger regional competitor? Because if so, it's already up against Duke, Vanderbilt, and Emory in that regard - and it's got a while to go to get to those levels. Wouldn't it be better to try to make it a nationally renowned university? Look at what WUSTL did - it successfully repositioned itself from "excellent university for those in the St. Louis area" to "excellent national university." And in doing so, it indeed had to make itself known to the Northeast, West Coast, etc. Wouldn't that be the ideal model for Tulane? Not trying to slice the small pie of southerners interested in elite colleges even finer?</p>

82

<p>"I believe without discounts (merit scholarships) our competitors in the region are the big state schools in Florida, Georgia, and Texas as well as Houston and SMU. In the NE the private school competition are schools like American, Syracuse, Boston University, and probably still NYU. In the Mid-West Marquette, Case Western Reserve. Out on the west coast I'm not as sure. </p>

<p>Remember when I say competition I am not talking academic quality but rather which school a full pay student would choose if he had an admission letter in his hand from both schools."</p>

<p>I'm sorry I wasn't clear. I AM talking academic quality. If Tulane is only a U of Florida / U of Georgia / SMU-level academic quality experience, then name me a single reason why someone from the NE or the Midwest should bother going. The NE has plenty of private unis to choose from and the Midwesterners have state schools that are better too.</p>

83

<p>I would conjecture that Pizzagirl's list above is pretty "accurate." In quotes of course because we all want to discuss these things in terms of precision, starting with ranikings that have virtually no substance or merit aside from boosting or diminishing egoes, killing lots of trees, and giving discussions like ours undeserved traction to run on. But we'll not change that. Nor will language ever come close to measuring quality a precise science. On its best day, its funky finger-painting type art. But we love wondering if Babe Ruth was better than Roger Maris than Barry Bonds over a career or even a season.</p>

<p>higherlead has offered an interesting insight re: the fluid faculty. Much evidence and research suggests that faculty overstate, overrate, and inflate their importance in measuring how much value really gets added to a student's experience because of their collective "quality." Still, no matter, they do play into the equation of perception of quality in a major way, and while disgruntled faculty are standard fare on many campuses and an issue to attend to, it would be significant to really know for example, the status, attritiion, etc. of the English faculty since K. Let's look at specific numbers and patterns in all departments.</p>

<p>But at the end of the day, aside from highly published minority profs and a few areas, some of which TU either never had or eliminated, highly pedigreed profs are a dime a dozen. Absolutely zero problem in hiring Ivy educated profs French, English, history, philosophy, communications, and on and on and on. So ... while it may impact momentarily, even this, and maybe especially faculty departures of senior tenured profs is a spectacular opportunity to transform an institution. </p>

<p>The bottom line in this scenario, is if there is major ground swell support (maybe that's not a good term in the aftermath of the storm?) among the various sources who provide the resources ... facilities, endowed scholarships and chairs, new and fresh facilities, etc. If so, TU will survive and thrive. If not it will remain a hopeful wannabe with a niche for being receptive to Jewish, gay, and other such populations as a private U. in the deep South. With no offense intended, not a position I'd consider notably attractive in going to or being from nor one that has much potential for promoting to higher perceptual reputational circles.</p>

84

<p>So let's shift gears and talk about quality of the student body. What other unis have comparable quality student bodies? What other unis have qualitatively similar student bodies in terms of that ineffable feel? (smart but not academically driven, nerdy, socialite, rich-kid, whatever the stereotype is) What was the stereotype of yesterday's TU student and what's today's stereotype? And what other schools competed with / had that same stereotype?</p>

85

<p>Re the 11% yield rate / waiting list from the source provided by Higherlead (thank you) - those are numbers for the Fall 2006 freshman class. The numbers for the entering class would be a yield of 18.8% (1375 entering freshmen from 7300 acceptances), and this year they stated they did not go to the wait list.</p>

86

<p>"Practically speaking, do you think they actually DID run with this club pre-Katrina? "</p>

<p>Yes. Wde were short on financial resources but very similar in other aspects. Student quality was very comparable to USC, Vandy, Emory, and Wake.</p>

87

<p>"Do you think the plan for Tulane should be making it a stronger regional competitor?"</p>

<p>You left out Wake and Rice if we are talking private schools. Did you ever drive across the South? You have any idea how far it is from Durham to NOLA? That is five major (well maybe not Wake) research universities in a geographic region that could swallow New England eight times over. What is the max distance between Ivy league schools? How many other extremely selective schools are say within an 8 hour drive of NYC? You won't make it to Dake from NOLA to Duke in 8 hours driving. </p>

<p>My guess is from a central point you could probably hit any of the 8 Ivy's in under four hours. That would get you maybe half way to Rice from Tulane.</p>

<p>When you asked me who their competition was post-katrina I wasn't talking academic but marketplace competiton. Don't for a second underestimate the academic quality of Florida or Texas or Georgia Tech, especially in their honors programs. These are extremely good schools with tremendous research facilities. When you have 50,000 students like Texas has if 10% of them are "Ivy" quality you are another Dartmouth.</p>

<p>"Academic quality" is a little nebulous anyway. The big guns at major research universities rarely teach undergrads and the big guns at LAC's don't do much research. Where you would get the best undergraduate experience depends a lot on what type of person and student you are. Frankly anybody who applies to undergraduate schools strictly based on rankings is an idiot. The problem from a marketing standpoint is the world is full of idiots with money:-) People buy the sizzle not the stake.</p>

88

<p>"Much evidence and research suggests that faculty overstate, overrate, and inflate their importance in measuring how much value really gets added to a student's experience because of their collective 'quality.'"</p>

<p>Probably true but their egos pale in comparison to university presidents and I have never heard anyone say they want to go to X University because it has the best president in the country:-)</p>

<p>Yes Whistle Pig is correct that there are a lot of good professors out there and that is why when there is attrituation at a university it is usually the best or best published folks who leave first.</p>

<p>It is also true that if you are a young and ambitious professor looking to establish a reputation then the last thing you want to do is apply to a department that has just dropped its PhD programs as Tulane just did fpr English and Economics and a slew of other departments. Try doing serious research with a heavy teaching load and no grad students.</p>

89

<p>CT2010Dad - yes the Common Data Set numbers I reference were for last year but what Tulane says and what it ultimately "officially" reports not infrequently diverge. </p>

<p>The longtime and pretty successful dean of admissions left to pursue other opportunities last summer and Dr Cowen took a personal hand in overseeing the admissions department which translated from Il Duce speak to standard English means we were going to meet our number this year if the discount rate had to go to 150%.</p>

<p>The registrar has just posted the official enrollment numbers for the Fall class. You will see from them that far and away the largest contingent 29% of the class are from the NE. In 2003 when my son arrived on campus as part of the largest and probably best credentialed class to enroll at the school about 20% of the undergraduated were from the NE.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.tulane.edu/%7Eregistra/figs/ensu/073/enftf073.shtml%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.tulane.edu/~registra/figs/ensu/073/enftf073.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

90

<p>"it is usually the best or best published folks who leave first."</p>

<p>Funny you should say that, HL. The absolute best TEACHER (literature and linguistics degrees) I ever had at UF was denied tenure because he didn't publish enough. He was gone, and that was that.</p>

91

<p>Are you asserting that when the official reports come out that we will see an 11% yield and a large number of wait list students being accepted?</p>

<p>And I didn't know you had either a degree in marketing or substantial experience in that area...or did I miss that from your earlier posts.</p>

92

<p>"When you asked me who their competition was post-katrina I wasn't talking academic but marketplace competiton. Don't for a second underestimate the academic quality of Florida or Texas or Georgia Tech, especially in their honors programs. These are extremely good schools with tremendous research facilities. When you have 50,000 students like Texas has if 10% of them are "Ivy" quality you are another Dartmouth."</p>

<p>You could say that of almost any major state uni, though ... there are always going to be a number of Ivy-quality students there who were unable to afford a Ivy-tier school. Having a small portion of your peers be Ivy-quality doesn't make a school good, though.</p>

93

<p>Are you seriously saying that UF isn't a good school?</p>

<p>I'm impressed by your standards. I'd be interested in seeing you make them explicit--or are they based on rankings?</p>

94

<p>My comment wasn't directed at UF specifically. I meant exactly what I said; at any large state uni, you'll have a number of Ivy-quality students. That doesn't translate into the experience at that school being an Ivy quality experience. That's all.</p>

95

<p>"Funny you should say that, HL. The absolute best TEACHER (literature and linguistics degrees) I ever had at UF was denied tenure because he didn't publish enough. He was gone, and that was that."</p>

<p>Yes that can be true, especially at the large research universities. A goos scholar is not necessarily a good teacher and a good teacher is not necessarily the best published member of the faculty and if you are looking for that tenure track position you pretty much have to publish.</p>

<p>I've had better instructors in community colleges than some of the more renowed profs at a tier 1 school and everyone shout consider those sorts of things when applying to schools.</p>

<p>Trust me you don't have to convince me that the rankings are over rated when applying to an undergraduate school.</p>

96

<p>Well said. Generally places like UF (and other mega versities) are not "good." They're just cheap and big. Now programs and sub units within those can be good, bad, and ugly.</p>

<p>Higherlead's point about what UF condiders "good" and what Joe Student consider "good" can and usually are worlds apart. At Penn State, during one stretch over about 10 years, about 2/3 of the "profs of the year" ... according to the students ... failed to gain tenure. Great teachers, not so great publishers. (btw, I'm not willing to equate publishing with "scholarship" as in higherlead. Tons of well published profs are absolutely bum scholars. They just know how to play that game, much of which approaches silliness. but that's for another post and day.</p>

<p>Point: UF is neither good nor bad. Trying to "rate" a U. is absolutely ridiculous. Rating the UF EE major is a different animal.</p>

<p>Conversely, the same rule does not stand for small liberal arts colleges, imo. There, the experience goes well beyond football games, hoop events, and rah rah stuff.</p>

<p>So I'll say it. UF is NOT a good school. I don't know what it is. </p>

<p>Perhaps one of the most revealing studies on all this malarkey was an honest revelation done about 20 years ago by Kenneth Mortimer, Alexander Astin, and a bunch of others ... virtually ALL of whom were at mega institutions. They confess in that report that virtually ALL learning at those places, especially among undergrads, is passive, lecturing, non-engaging. Generally, it's impossible as they are established and operated to be cost-effective, i.e. "cheap" and as such, the labor force just is not there.</p>

<p>Perhaps one of the most interesting models in higher ed is Grove City. There the general strategy is ... nice campus, small enrollment, pitch dogmatic Christianity, and don't pay your faculty squat and have very mediocre campus resources in the library. The result is ... TONS of apps from very good students whose families either see no merit in lots of Ivy League educated faculty or see no difference in having lots of profs from average institutions. Until relatively recently (25 years or so ... no tenure, no retirement plan to speak of, mega student faculty ratios ... higher than the UFs and Penn States) The result .. super low tuition and a campus that looks attractive. Another result ... the y get tons of bright, WASPy students who get very good jobs. Most of the faculty world does NOT want to know how GCC works because of course it would de-mythologize the mystique that profs add so much value to student development and learning, especially at the UFs of the world. And of course due to economics, today over 80% of students attend these large, relatively low cost mega institutions.</p>

<p>What really mystifies me is why anyone on the planet would pay private school tuitioin for a public school education. I suppose it's so Junior could say he goes to UF "with the greatest hoops and halfbacks" and it's in FL instead of Kalamazoo or Sioux Falls. Sounds sexy, but when one digs beneath it all ... it's a chevy at cadillac prices, in most cases.</p>

97

<p>Much food for thinking in all of this, as I read back through the thread this morning, and refreshed myself on the OP question: "what do y'all think of Tulane?" </p>

<p>While there are questions about the president and the administration (the reality is Cowen is there until his contract expires whether you like him or not) and whether the marketing plan is the correct one (as a CMO, all I can say is that you set your goals in light of your current situation then target those segments where you have the potential to differentiate, you define your marketing mix and then you measure your results - at the end of the day, the proof really is in the pudding (so, a year after disaster, hitting your target without having to go the waiting list (which contains, BTW, qualified students...) seems to be at minimum a good step in the right direction), questions about which departments should or should not have been eliminated as TU went into crisis management mode trying to reopen in the wake of Katrina (as a fluent French speaker, I'll risk some wrath by saying I'm not particularly convinced of the value of learning a language at a University - you want to learn French, go to Paris and study at the Alliance Francaise for a summer, for example...); eliminating some engineering and PhD Econ programs are certainly up for debate, but having worked at an academic institution, I do know that some departments get really moribund when tenured profs refuse to change with the times - personally, I would have been more concerned had not some new programs / majors been launched this past year...; the value of published profs (I agree with the comments below (or above, depending on which way you have the posts ordered...) - I had a nationally recognized prof who was possibly the single worst instructor in the world - far worse than some of my high school teachers, but he'd written a book...), the question prospective students (and their parents) need an answer to is how will TU (or any other institution) help me achieve my goals?</p>

<p>The answer for our D wasn't clear until she visited the campus - (and while she was in what some might see as the 'tainted' class, with all those waitlisters...) she had her pick of a number of nationally-ranked institutions (as did many of her dorm mates). TU was not our first choice for her at the time, particularly given all the concerns about recovery of both the school and the city. However, I did have some input from a close friend who was a tenured prof at a very well-known Uni - he noted that for a learning experience, Tulane was a very good choice, because (like Wake) it sought 'teachers' in the same manner many of the LACs do, v. 'researchers.'</p>

<p>But - and this is important for anyone - she visited (as she did with all her choices) and she fell in love with the place, sending in her acceptance when she got back. And then when she got there, it was all she expected it to be - challenging (and small) classes, engaged professors, good friends. </p>

<p>So my advice would be to pay particular attention to the posts on this site where parents and students write about their personal experiences - good and bad (and do note that even those of us who are positive on the school recognize it is both different from many other institutions and not for everyone) - with this question in mind: given my (my child's) personality / desires / goals..., is this a place I (s/he) could thrive? If the answer feels like a no, look elsewhere. If the answer feels like a maybe or a yes, then visit.</p>

98

<p>Dad, you've nailed a lot of very good pertinent points, and notably your bottom line. TU "felt" right, and your dd has reaffirmed her feelings and developing through lots of engaged learning, much of which is stimulated by a primarily teaching and qualified faculty, it seems. This is valuable insight to a complex and highly subjective issue that still calls for working at genuine, careful assessment. Where are those places the have the real potetential and likelihood of adding value to MY student's experience?</p>

99

<p>"the reality is Cowen is there until his contract expires whether you like him or not"</p>

<p>Yeah that is what my father told me about Nixon too. We were on vacation in Quebec at the family cabin (no electicity) when he came back from town my mother asked him if there was any news in the wide world. He wrote the unspeakable, unthinkable "Nixo resigned" in the sand.</p>

100

<p>"(so, a year after disaster, hitting your target without having to go the waiting list (which contains, BTW, qualified students...) seems to be at minimum a good step in the right direction)"</p>

<p>As a puddinghead who rarely woke up in the econ 101 class he took a few decades ago I can assure that if the price is right you could "sell" snow to an eskimo. What was the discount rate and who are we trying to fool with our "list price" and who if anyone is paying it? </p>

<p>It has been 2 years since katrina on my calendar, we didn't actually meet the recruitment goal this year or last - it was 1400 not 800 or 1375. "Qualified students" needs to be defined and finally I don't want to pay a guy big bucks for "at minimum a good step". If he wants the big bucks and the big house and the big praise to go with his big voice and big ego then he needs to make at minimum the best step.</p>