Tulane Turnoff: Lack of Color

<p>If youre a minority there's no way in hell you should go to Tulane. That school is a rich Jewish white kid's wet dream. You'd think there'd at least be some blacks on campus, but nope. And if you're Hispanic like me (viva mi raza) you're really screwed. They don't even have construction workers that are hispanic let alone faculty. It's kind of disgusting. So, if you're minority avoid Tulane like the plague. BTW, the Asian population is even smaller.</p>

<p>miguel, your statements are off base. Try touring some private schools here in the Pacific Northwest as I just did with my daughters if you want to see an appalling lack of diversity. Oh, and not all the Jewish kids on campus are rich -- I know one who is not very well -- he's my son.</p>

<p>miquel
My daughter is Asian and is very comfortable considering Tulane. The university and all of the students there have been very accepting, welcoming and accomodating. In fact, the school has risen very quickly to the top of her list. Sorry that you have such a bad opinion but I would bet there is more behind your perceptions than reality.</p>

<p>Hey-ho! My son will almost certainly go there, and he is neither jewish nor rich, the latter by a long shot! (Can you say "scholarship"?) </p>

<p>Besides, when I went to UF, virtually every young woman in my dorm was Jewish besides me, and it wasn't a problem for me--in fact, I learned a lot.</p>

<p>Another besides--if you think a school needs more diversity, what better way to help make it so than by supplying a little yourself? Have some courage, Miguel! Be a pioneer, if that's really how you see it! Your URM status--or that of those you exhort to avoid Tulane--can only help you get in!</p>

<p>ctymomteacher,</p>

<p>I'm half-Hispanic and I could have helped out diversity at Tulane. Or actually, I look white so I probably couldn't have. Still, I applied as a Hispanic and I still got waitlisted. Minority status doesn't really help you in the application process. If I said I was white, I would have gotten into the same 5 schools I've been accepted to. People talk about how affirmative action makes it easier for minorities to get into schools, but I haven't felt the effects of this one yet and I doubt I will (unless I get into the last school I'm waiting on, it's a major reach.)</p>

<p>Tulane was not a top choice of mine because of the lack of diversity. Not necessarily racial diversity, but other types of diversity. To me, the school seemed like a bunch of rich kids from the Northeast, something I've been around for way too long. I found more appeal in the big, state schools because they were more diverse, not just racially but also economically and you can say in terms of personality as well. Private schools like Tulane are really only attractive to a certain type of kid, while the bigger state schools are attractive to many types of kids.</p>

<p>Miguel, I was curious as to what the cause of your venomous and vulgarly worded post could be. In researching your posts, I have noticed a definite trend in your posts from positive to negative. I hope it is the stress of the wait. If not, I can only assume you're lashing out because you received a rejection in the mail. I can't think of any other reason someone would go out of their way to trash a school at this late date.</p>

<p>12-11-05
Please help me asesss my chances at the following schools:
University of Texas
University of Miami
Loyola University
Tulane University
Columbia University (Definite reach but one can dream...</p>

<p>12-20-05
I was wondering if some people already accepted to Tulane would share their stats in order to help me know whether or not I am Tulane material. I understand you'll never know until you apply, but I'm a nervous wreck about this school.</p>

<p>1-23-05
I thought this would be a good thread for those who applied RD and have to wait till the April deadline to post here and share what schools they're applying to, stats, anxieties, majors, etc. My goal is to have this go until April and then have everyone tell where they're going in the fall. Students already accepted can post here too. </p>

<p>Schools:
UT Austin
U of Miami
Loyola
Tulane
Columbia
Florida</p>

<p>Stats:
Combined SAT- 1420 (I raised it by 100 points)
GPA- 3.5</p>

<p>2-12-05</p>

<p>Let me preface this post by saying that I respect all races, so please attack the opinion and not the poster.</p>

<p>3-3-05
Does anyone have a rejection letter from Emory University? I know this is probably the most bizarre request ever made on this board, but I'm doing a project/film that will satire the entire college selection process and the focal point is this one rejection letter from Emory. I would just wait for mine to come in the mail, but that's a little while off. LOL Pleasssssse help me out. Thanks in advance
.</p>

<p>Today
Well boo hoo some freakin asian didn't get into his first choice school, well damn just blame URM's. I'm so sorry, it's my fault that you have to go to Stanford instead of UC Berkely. Give me a break.</p>

<p>1-23-05
" quit whining kid. you just don't cut it. pick some lower tier schools and move on. don't blame anyone else for your shortcomings as a student. i'm not trying to be mean, but you need to be real."</p>

<p>You certainly didn't sugar coat the advice you gave that poster. Perhaps you should heed your own advice.</p>

<p>oooooooooooooh. ouch. </p>

<p>btw, i'm asian and thinking about going to tulane. (vs Austin)</p>

<p>Hopefully we can sqeeze out the other half of the tuition when I go visit the campus tomorrow.</p>

<p>First of all, I was accepted to Tulane, but thanks for playing. As far as the asian post, that was in response to the people who basically blame URM's for their rejections. I'm just disappointed at Tulane and how the adcoms made the school seem like something it wasn't when I spoke with them, I wouldn't waste my time trashing a school I was rejected from.</p>

<p>miguel: The job of the adcom is to sell the school. But, it is always a buyer beware situation. Did you visit campus to make sure the reality matched the preception? Did you speak with current students of color to gauge their level of comfort? These are the reasonable steps I would urge my children to take. Being Jewish, we always ask about school and community for Jews. While certainly not a minority in terms of college attendance, we are a minority in society. Thus, there are some simple questions that we would find important, such as is there a temple nearby, a Jewish Student Union, of Shalom Club, or Hillel. I would seem the same questions would be asked my any minority or person of color. </p>

<p>If you have done your due dillegence and Tulane is not for you, so be it. That is fair. What is not fair is to trash a school because its reality did not meet your perception of what it was, or should be.</p>

<p>Dolfan829, you said that "private schools like Tulane are attractive only to a certain type of kid..." This seems to me to be stereotyping of the least thoughtful sort. I think I know the "type of kid" to which you refer, and unless decidedly NON-wealthy, non-preppie math-and science-heads are that type, you are mistaken. My son is likely to accept their offer because they have his major, which is rare, and because they have offered him enough of a scholarship to make Tulane LESS expensive than our state university would have been, where his major is not offered for undergraduates. In short, it is a fine school which appears to be seeking excellent students by offering good scholarships to them regardless of their "type."</p>

<p>You are probably indulging yourself in the same kind of cognitive laziness that you would suspect students and staff at Tulane of here, no?</p>

<p>While I agree with others who have said that no one NEED apply anywhere that doesn't suit them, I have a hard time letting stereotyping go by unchallenged, particularly when it begins to include my own son.</p>

<p>cty: I agree with you about making broad generalizations about certain types of people, but all you need to do is look at the posts from current students like Rico and Entitlement to see that Tulane is a "predominantly" preppy, upper middle class school. I say all of this after having been accepted to and visisted this university on numerous occasions. Also, if that's not enough for you, go on princetonreview.com or studentsreview.com. That's not to say that other "types" of students don't attend, but the facts are unimpeachable.</p>

<p>Sorry. Double post.</p>

<p>My point was that to say that a university appeals "only" to a certain class of people is very silly. My son cannot be the only person planning to attend for a particular intellectual and academic experience. (If he is, he won't be there long!) </p>

<p>I don't understand the point of evaluating colleges on the basis of their social features. None of the best students in my son's class did so. Any college has many social groups, and everyone can find his or her own comfortable space. Worrying about what is "predominant" seems beside the point to me. (But then, I live in an unrealistic family that contains more than one race, religion, preference, etc, so maybe I'm out of touch with the "real world.")</p>

<p>"First of all, I was accepted to Tulane, but thanks for playing."</p>

<p>This is not game, and I'm not playing. This is a forum. Nothing more, nothing less.</p>

<p>"....all you need to do is look at the posts from current students like Rico and Entitlement to see that Tulane is a "predominantly" preppy, upper middle class school."</p>

<p>Two posters that give one point of view. Couldn't be further from my son's and his friends' lifestyle at school. In fact, my son wouldn't know a pair of Pradas if you hit him in the face with them! Preppie dressing just isn't him. Neither is partying every night. Also, Princeton Review, while sometimes helpful, is only comprised of opinions of those students that bothered to answer. Sometimes they speak for the mainstream, and sometimes, they don't. As for studentsreview.com, I would hardly call an unscientific forum for student opinions the gospel. Concernedded's approach to informed student consumers is a good approach.</p>

<p>I think it comes down to what YOUR emphasis is in choosing your school. I will say this, my son attended a school with much diversity. He picked his friends because of similar interests and not because of their race or religion. His Friday night movie group was about as racially and religiously diverse as they come. The only thing that was really common for them was that they were on the hs AcDec team and above all else enjoyed each other's intellect. My son is enjoying Tulane for the same reason. Instead of a small group of intellectuals to socialize with, he has a campus full. And, I must say, the group he has settled in with is a pretty diverse lot.</p>

<p>I think the thing major thing for success here is that you have to work at it. If you expect people to see you for more than the geographic area you're from, your economic status, the religion you come from or your race(s), then you have to do the same for them. Look past the clothes, the accent and everything else you think you know about them. They might just be willing to do the same for you.</p>

<p>My son was enthusiastic about Tulane for a while and was accepted, but for a variety of reasons has decided he would be happier elsewhere. </p>

<p>But in the course of our family's visit, my H spoke to an adcomm for more than a hour, and has since emailed back and forth with that adcomm. A good chunk of their conversation and subsequent communications revolved around the question of how to make Tulane a more diverse place, and how to help URM students (that is, those who might need help) succeed in college once they were there. Other topics covered included Tulane's efforts to reach out to the city of NO. They are well aware that the Tulane students, regardless of ethnicity and family income, are a privileged bunch, compared to the populaton of NO, and they take quite seriously the importance of reaching out to help the broader community. While I do not agree with all of their admissions policies, I do think they are serious in wanting to build a more diverse campus, and that they see the relative lack of diversity as a negative. </p>

<p>I echo the poster above - You have two choices if diversity is important to you. Go someplace more diverse, or go someplace less diverse and take up the issue there of how to increase the diversity.</p>

<p>I'm visiting tulane tomorrow... 10 hour drive.
ZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..............</p>

<p>lol, have fun, and let us know what you think when you come back!</p>

<p>To the parents who suggested that perhaps Miguel go to Tulane and be a 'pioneer' inspite of their dearth of minorities, ( I don't know if this is true or not) : I imagine it is easier said than done to simply go to a place where you are conspicuously in the minority.. and then live there for four years. :)</p>

<p>filmxoxox17: Like perhaps being Jewish and living outside of Norman, OK? Been there, done that. Or, how about being Jewish and living in the Projects? Been there, and done that too!</p>

<p>Just to put Tulane's paleness into a little perspective I check the actual demographics of Tulanes student body against those of Oberlin. I picked Oberlin because it is about as PC a place as you can find on earth and has a history of admitting minorities that goes back well before the Civil War.</p>

<p>Tulane 8.3% Black Non-Hispanic.
Oberlin 6.9% Black Non-Hispanic.
Tulane 3.5% Hispanic.
Oberlin 4.8% Hispanic.
Tulane 0.5% Native American
Oberlin o.9% Native American</p>

<p>Tulane 12.3% Total URM
Oberlin 12.6% Total URM</p>

<p>I don't see from the numbers that Tulane is any paler than Oberlin and I am pretty sure if I looked at its peer institutions the URM situation would be pretty much the same at all of them.</p>