<p>I just wanted to add a little something in defense of Tulane and its reputation. Four years ago my S was accepted to Tulane. He received the presidential and the dean’s scholarships. He applied to 13 schools and got into all of them. As parents, we were in love with Duke and Tulane, out of all the schools that we have visited, at that time .However, I will admit to being a bit shallow and state that we held Duke in higher regard at the time, purely based on rankings. S had received a likely letter to Duke, however, Duke didn’t give him any merit money, In addition, we were to find out that we weren’t eligible for fin aid there either. So at that that time we complained to Duke. I wrote an email to Duke explaining all the scholarship money and fin aid we had received from all the schools that S applied to. (Notre Dame, Vandy, Rice, Stanford, Dartmouth, - just to name a few) We explained how surprised we were not to receive anything from Duke. Interestingly, they wrote back immediately and apologetically. But the biggest surprise was when we spoke over the phone, to find out that the only school on the list of schools that concerned them was Tulane. In the meantime, I really didn’t think comparing Duke to Tulane was true apples to apples. I even went so far as to state that to the admission counselor. Yet she stated that out of all the schools on the list Tulane was their biggest concern. As a result they were actually going to renegotiate his fin aid package/merit money for us. </p>
<p>(BTW S attended Stanford in the end. But it came down to Stanford and Tulane. Duke, even with the extra money, never stood a chance to Tulane. For S the only reason Stanford was the final pick was because there were some kids from his high school attending Tulane that he didn’t really want to see again. So it was all about fit, not academics or reputation.)</p>