And they are pretty savvy about identifying those who are truly engaged and excited about Tulane and those who are not, regardless of stats. Every year I chuckle as I read through the sour grapes posts from those deferred stating that Tulane was their safety or not among their top choices. Well, there you go. You can feel that difference in the app. With far more qualified applicants than they can accept, they choose to fill their community with those who who come across as really wanting to be a part of it. The approach works as Tulaneâs students are consistently rated as among the happiest, most engaged and best quality of life.
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My kid is similar to yours, but a male. He too applied TO and wonât be doing ED2, but will do the LOCI to try to stay in the mix. Iâm wondering if he should have submitted his test scores. He got a 1400 on the SAT which is right under the lower end of Tulaneâs middle 50% of 1410 and my kidâs schoolâs Naviance average of a 1419.
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DD also deferred but her letter made no mention of the option to switch to ED2. Not sure if we should read anything into that?
Sadly I think we are in the same boat⊠Tulane not her top choice but would happily go there if top 2-3 donât pan out. I donât consider that a âsafetyâ at all â and it is frustrating that if applicants donât demonstrate what Tulane considers the appropriate level of interest, that they are therefore viewed as less serious applicants. The top schools are all so competitive, so even the best students have to apply to a lot of schools. We will gladly visit once accepted, but it really isnât realistic to spend the time and money to fly to numerous schools. (And yes I know there are other ways to demonstrate interest, and weâve done the virtual sessions etc., but multiply that by 10 colleges and itâs still a huge investment just to âproveâ you really like the schools).
For the record her stats are similar to others:
ACT 35 single sitting
class rank 7 of 892
a zillion APs (all 5s), IB, Community college classes
competitive dancer
etc etc
Obviously no way to know how her essays were evaluated, but based on her stats I confess I was surprised she was not admitted. Her advisors considered this a good âmatchâ school.
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this is my point as well. Itâs not a safety for us. Not gonna lie and say my daughter would choose it over her reach schools, but itâs a solid match where she would fit in and be happy attending. And if they had offered some of the $ awards some others seem to have gotten, who knows? Not saying she was more qualified than those accepted kids, not at all. Just saying she is clearly qualified and she visited and I think Tulane is a little overconfident in my daughterâs likelihood of other acceptancesâŠ
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DS was deferred ED1 and it is his top choice. Did plenty of demonstrated interest, wrote all 3 essays from the heart, met with AO while in NO and in hometown area. Went TO and not the highest of GPAâs but not the lowest either. Praying for a miracle in RD. Not expecting any merit and ok with that.
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When my daughterâs AO came to her school she specifically told them - more than once - do not submit anything under a 1410. Mine was right at that number and while I am sure there will always be exceptions, I have not seen anyone with a score lower than that on this board or others say they were accepted. The AO also said there were going to be changes this year with the new Admissions Dean, saying more kids would get in EA and RD than in previous years and that appears to be the case with EA so hopefully your son will get in Rd!
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https://admission.tulane.edu/apply/getting-into-tulane/new-class-profile
I found this to be insightful. I think the region where you live may play a bigger factor at some schools than others. How many kids from the Mountain West out there that got accepted?
My S23 got accepted. We are from the Mountain West. He has similar stats to all those accepted. He is an amazing kid but we were pleasantly surprised⊠as it a reach for everyone.
My S23 did visit, communicate with his admission counselor & attend several virtual events.
His âWhy Tulaneâ essay was probably the best essay that he wrote this cycle. He touched on Tulane events related to his love of music, service & becoming involved, and the happy students on campus.
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I was hoping maybe they would try and even out the girl to boy ratio this year and he could benefit from that 
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for future âhigh-statsâ kids, my daughter attended a Campus Preview Day. i think this may have worked in her favor not just for demonstrated interest purposes but attending it really helped her craft a very thoughtful and very detailed âWhy Tulaneâ essay.
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I would bet money on it that those who kids did get in thru EA 50% or more that this was not their first choice either. Everyone is spreading a wide net, because they have to.
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For those whose kidâs did get in thru EAâŠhow many of you was this their first choice and your kid is committing to going there (irregardless of what other acceptances are still to come)?
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thatâs an excellent questionâŠand the corollary is how many give off the impression itâs a top choice when it actually isnât?
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In EA, it doesnât have to be about âfirst/top choiceâ. Itâs about genuine enthusiasm and engagement.
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It is definitely a top choice for my student who was accepted EA. We need to see the full financial picture before committing.
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These are great points. For EA as opposed to ED, hard to call it the top choice when $ is a big issue and crap shoot across similar ranked schools, including our state flagship school.
My OOS student fortunately accepted. I see many with much higher stats being deferred. 1420 SAT, demonstrated interest with in person visit, virtual sessions, many ties to NOLA and Tulane legacy, met with coach for varsity sport. But depends on merit money if we ultimately attend. Leadership award ($8k year) isnât going to cut it.
I wonder if the randomness of acceptance/rejections to these high ranked schools are due to so many high stat students being âforcedâ to apply to many schools due to uncertainty of acceptance.
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Yes. To clarify (because I forgot to mention. DD admitted not me.
I think this makes sense:)
https://admissionblog.tulane.edu/2022/09/16/whats-the-deal-with-engagement/
Isnât this just âyield protectionâ?
This is a question that Iâve gotten more and more recently. I think someone heard the term and posted it all over the applying to college subreddit and folks ran with it.
The idea of âyield protectionâ that I hear a lot is that students hypothesize that Tulane and other schools automatically defer/deny very high achieving students. Their theory is that schools assume these high achievers are going to go to the Harvards and Stanfords of the world, so we donât bother admitting them. This could not be more wrong. We absolutely admit and enroll students who performed at an elite level in high school.
We do not automatically deny anyone, but having elite grades and/or scores does not entitle anyone to a spot at Tulane. High achieving students have to show us that they are taking their application seriously just like everyone else. And when they do show that, theyâve got a great chance of getting admitted! We want to build a class and a community of people who are not only strong students, but also people who are excited about Tulane and New Orleans.
Admission to Tulane needs 3 big hurdles that everyone needs to get over: academic, personal, and engagement. It is quite hard to get into Tulane if you miss one of the three hurdles.
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yea, thatâs well put. hard to argue with it. but I still think savvy, competitive kids can game this system and fool Tulane pretty easily. If I recall, Tulane does not have a high yield rate, which might suggest their assessment of engagement is faultyâŠ
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Tulaneâs yield rate has been surging the last 5 years. Itâs was 52% last cycle. Here is a table with other institutions for comparison.
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