Tulane Students Offer to Answer Questions

What can you tell me about the Health Wave RLC? Does living in an RLC limit your exposure to broad friend base at the beginning, or does it make it easier to find friends with similar interests? Is applying to an RLC advantageous in terms of getting to live in a specific dorm instead of a random assignment? And lastly, are there generalities or stigmas about RLCs?

@Zookeeper7 You can find tons of information on the Health Wave RLC at https://housing.tulane.edu/housing-options/residential-learning-communities/health-wave-rlc. Living in an RLC definitely does not limit or define you socially in any way. The amount of people that you meet the beginning of freshman year is really up to you! As far as living in a specific dorm, there are dorms that different RLC’s are typically associated with, and those dorms are listed under each RLC’s webpage on our website. However, those dorm associations aren’t necessarily firm. Depending on interest in each RLC, they could be in different dorms different years because of the number of students in each one.

@watch37 What do you think about how safe or not the campus is? I am concerned about it being in the middle of New Orleans which doesn’t have the best reputation for safety.

@thing3 Have you been to campus? Tulane is not in “the middle of New Orleans.” It’s in a residential section of Uptown New Orleans surrounded by multi-million dollar homes and across the street from Audubon Park and Zoo. It’s in a city, not in a rural setting, so you have to have your wits about you like in any city, but it is in one of the nicer parts of New Orleans.

Hi all - I graduated from Tulane in the mid 1990s with a liberal arts degree (met my wife there as well). I’d be happy to answer questions prospective students might have about the school or living in New Orleans.

My name is Lydia. I’m from Connecticut and I’m attending Tulane as a freshman this year. I’m in the Changemaker RLC and I’m likely majoring in Communications. I’d be happy to answer your questions about applying, the school, or college apps in general!

MODERATOR’S NOTE: Anyone is free to ask or answer questions in this thread.

Hi y’all! My name is Lucas and I am a senior (girl) at Tulane studying Legal Studies and Management. During my time at Tulane I have gotten the amazing opportunity to help out with the admissions office and with orientation, so I have a lot of insight into the admissions process, the transition from high school to college, and Tulane in general.

I have been helping out on College Confidential for over a year now and am excited to continue throughout this year! I hope to offer some insight or help prospective students and family members with anything and everything during this stressful time in the college decision process.

A few other current students are going to help out answering questions this year! @ripcowcat is a senior studying Marketing and Management,@RollOn is a fifth year student in the Masters of Public Health program,@ReilyRocks is a senior double majoring in Neuroscience and Sociology on a Pre-Med track, and @DowntoBruff is a junior studying Political Science.

Feel free to comment questions for us down below!

MODERATOR’S NOTE: Anyone is free to ask or questions in this thread; however, it is NOT the place to ask for chances.

Looks like the moderator moved my discussion topic to this heading (which is perfectly fine with me). @thing3 @pishicaca I consider Tulane a safe campus and I would have no issues with sending my son or daughter there to attend college. While there are super expensive homes surrounding the campus, if you wander off a couple of blocks off campus in any direction, you can find yourself very quickly in a not-so-nice areas.

Sorry, as someone who has been many blocks off of campus in all directions, on foot and driving, that’s just not accurate. The only area somewhat adjacent to campus that can be questionable is the area around Claiborne Ave behind the athletic facilities (north of campus). East, west and south of campus are all desirable neighborhoods.

Hi, my S was accepted and we are planning to attend one of the Destination Tulane days in Feb or March. It looks like things start at noon. Can you let me know how late the event goes? We are a flight away and want to make sure we allot enough time for our visit. Thanks!

Hi I was wondering about housing because I have seen earlier in the thread I think that housing is assigned randomly to freshman and was wondering if you fill anything out about what you are looking for in a dorm or if they just blindly put you somewhere. I know that in previous years you ranked your dorm preferences (not sure if they did that this past year but in years prior) so I am kind of disappointed to see that it is randomized. Would they fill the dorms in a certain order or how does the randomization work? Sorry if this was confusing.

@iconicqueen Dorm building assignments for first year students is a completely random process, unless a student requests to live in the all female dorm (Josephine Louise House), gender neutral housing, or a Residential Learning Community. All housing assignments are randomly generated at the same time, which means the time at which a student deposits to Tulane has no affect on the housing assignment they receive. While dorm assignments are random, students may requests specific roommates if they would like to, or they can also go random.

@HazelnutorFootball, Hi, I was wondering outside of Greek life, what are good fun social groups/organizations to pursue?

@FrothyShake There are so so so many clubs to choose from! Really anything that you could possibly be interested in, there’s a club for it! Some examples of clubs that I know of that hang out a lot are the club sports teams, TUSTEP raisers, the Tulane Peer Health Educators (TUPHES), Cat Mafia’s sketch comedy group, the acapella groups, etc. For me I met a lot of my friends through Green Wave Ambassadors, which is the tour guide association on campus. But that really differs for everyone–I’d recommend going to the activities expo at the beginning of the year and seeing all of the club options that you have to chose from!

@HazelnutorFootball or anyone else - where do students live after sophomore year? Are there plenty of options close to campus? Is it expensive?

@3mamagirls Some students choose to live on campus! Some common upperclassmen dorms are Aron and Willow. Aron is the apartments type dorm on campus so it offers students the benefits of living in an apartment, with their own kitchen and living rooms, etc., but all of the benefits of living on campus too. And then most of the students that choose to move off campus live in houses that are really close by! 90% of students who move off campus live within a one mile radius, and that one mile is patrolled by TUPD (Tulane University Police Department) to make sure that those students are safe. The first few streets on any side of campus have a lot of houses that are rented to students, but there are also lots of families living on those streets too. Pricing for housing can really range, but rooms typically fall between $500-$900 per room, depending on what you are looking for. There may be some type of apartment housing available for students, but most students live in single family home type situations…usually shotgun houses! To give you an example of housing, I live in the bottom floor of a house with three other girls, and the top floor is separately rented to four boys. Last year I lived literally one step off of campus and paid $850 a month, and this year I live two streets off (still a 3 minute walk to campus) and pay $700 a month. However, prices can really vary based on location, niceness, amount of space, etc!

@HazelnutorFootball - thank you - very helpful!!

We just got the email about Homecoming/Family Weekend/Reunion - is that the same weekend that is traditionally called Parents Weekend at many schools? Is this the first weekend that most parents would come back to school for a freshman (we live in Mass so it’s a flight away and want to make plans for the right weekend)

I don’t have a Tulane student, but found this link:
https://parents.tulane.edu/family-weekend

Having another child at another college, the biggest advice I received from other parents for any college is to NOT visit your Freshman on Parents weekend. Hotel prices will be through the roof (if you can get a hotel at all), parking will be tight, and it’s going to be very crowded on campus and throughout the town. The “special programming” is really around the football game and school spirit, but this is not like orientation where important information will be shared. If you want to check on your freshman in the fall, pick a low key weekend. If you can avoid a football weekend or a weekend where there is a major event, even better.

@Rivergirl1313 Can you tell me the dates for the Homecoming weekend? We did not get the email and online it still says the dates are not set. Thanks!