Tulane vs. Umich

<p>She will be the one one the blue and maize, haha!</p>

<p>I think the academics at both Michigan and Tulane are pretty equal. I am a Tulane sophomore and I don’t think any of my classes are “easy” by any means. Even coming from a HIGHLY competitive public school that is ranked in the top 100 in the nation, I have found most of my classes very challenging. About 30-40 kids from my high school attend Michigan each year (out of state) and I know many of them that got into Michigan and got denied or waitlisted to Tulane. If you had the exact same GPA and qualifications when looking for jobs, I don’t think a single employer would not offer you a job because you went to Tulane and not Michigan.</p>

<p>Aside from academics, I think each school offers something completely. While I love Tulane, sometimes I get jealous when I see all my friends at their football and greek life which is just so much different from Tulane. On the other hand, Tulane is in one of the amazing places you could go ever go to college. New Orleans is absolutely amazing and somewhere I never would have experienced had I not come to Tulane. While I do sometimes feel like I’m missing out on the classic “rah rah” college/sports experience, I realize that NOLA has so much more to offer and I couldn’t be happier with where I am spending these four years of college.</p>

<p>Also, classes at Tulane tend to be MUCH smaller, which sometimes make its even harder because your professors get to know you so much better. You can’t just not go to class every week, you really need to be on top of your game.</p>

<p>"25/75 percentile range:</p>

<p>UMich
SAT Critical Reading: 590 / 690
SAT Math: 640 / 750
SAT Writing: 610 / 710
ACT Composite: 27/31</p>

<p>Tulane
SAT Critical Reading: 610 / 700
SAT Math: 620 / 700
SAT Writing: 620 / 710
ACT Composite: 29/32"</p>

<p>Is that true?
I got into Tulane EA and Deferred EA from UMICH
with…</p>

<p>Objective:
SAT I (breakdown):NA
ACT: 29C, E26, M28, R35, 29S
SAT II: 680 US History
Unweighted GPA: 3.6 W GPA:4.21
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): 48/519
AP (place score in parenthesis): English Language, Microeconomics,US History
IB (place score in parenthesis):
Senior Year Course Load: AP English Literature, AP Physics , AP Gov, AP Calc AB, AP Euro
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.):
Subjective:
Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis): Teen board member, on adult board, (both for a program that I do for 5 yrs) teachers aide at sunday school (5yrs), National Honors Society, indoor and outdoor track,baseball umpire, Agsci for 2yrs/ JSA/ young democrats of america
Job/Work Experience: part time and summer time job, tutor/mentor
Volunteer/Community service: teachers aide (500+hrs)/ nature center/ local,state, federal election polling and campaigning
Summer Activities: 3 summers of a outdoor educational program/ job full time now part time
Common app essay: amazing
Essays: eh they could have been better
Teacher Recommendation: AMAZING!
Counselor Rec: AMAZING
Additional Rec: Lovely!
Interview: none
Other: I am an LD student with documentation/ upward trend in grades
Applied for Financial Aid?: NO
Intended Major: Polisci
State (if domestic applicant): CT
School Type: Competitive Public
Ethnicity:
Gender: Female
Income Bracket:
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.):LD student</p>

<p>Schools make admissions decisions based on lots more than those stats, and also it will even vary from year to year depending on how the applicant pool is shaping up. So while the stats are correct, Michigan might have decided to defer you based on something that Tulane considered unimportant, or for some other reason specific to them. That is the world of college admissions.</p>

<p>Luna: UMich is all about UW GPA, especially for OOS…your admission decision makes perfect sense…</p>

<p>Oh okay char10</p>

<p>hey for UMICH does it help that I got all A’s during first and second quarter of my senior year (sent them in)?</p>

<p>Of course. Anything positive helps.</p>

<p>Here are the most recent statistics on both universities.</p>

<p>University of Michigan
SAT Critical Reading 600/700
SAT Math 650/750
SAT Writing 620/720
ACT Composite 28/32
ACT Math 27/33 </p>

<h2>ACT English 28/33</h2>

<p>HS GPA 3.79</p>

<p>Tulane University
SAT Critical Reading 620/710
SAT Math 620/700
SAT Writing 640/720
ACT Composite 29/32
ACT Math 27/32 </p>

<h2>ACT English 29/34</h2>

<p>HS GPA 3.55</p>

<p>It is obvious through these statistics that the University of Michigan cares much more about GPA than it does about standardized test results, whereas Tulane University cares more about test scores than GPA.</p>

<p>The only issue with that argument, KronOmega, is that one can never be sure if or how the HS GPA’s have been adjusted. On the Common Data Set they tell you to report the GPA on a 4.0 scale, i.e. unweighted, yet there are numerous schools that report average GPA’s like 4.05 or 4.11, so clearly they are using weighted GPA’s. This then has the additional issue that the weighting systems vary, with some schools using 5 point scales, some 6, etc.</p>

<p>I happen to know Tulane reports UW GPA, and based on that number I rather suspect UMich does as well, but it is hard to be sure. Additionally, as mentioned earlier, GPA is affected by the lack of randomness in the sample, which means in this case there is a skewing towards Michigan high schools in the case of UMich.</p>

<p>Having said all that, you may well be right that UMich emphasizes GPA somewhat more than Tulane, but in the end I would stick with my opinion that the two schools have very comparable incoming classes in terms of high school academic achievement.</p>

<p>@fallenchemist, your statistics are a bit flawed. Since Umich recently joined the common app, their apps increased dramatically, meaning its acceptance rate has decreased and its SAT scores have increased. These are the actual stats:</p>

<p>UMich
SAT Critical Reading: 630 / 730
SAT Math: 670 / 770
SAT Writing: 650 / 750
Overall SAT: 1990 / 2200
ACT Composite: 29/33
([About</a> Our Applicants | University of Michigan Office of Admissions](<a href=“http://www.admissions.umich.edu/drupal/about-our-applicants]About”>http://www.admissions.umich.edu/drupal/about-our-applicants))</p>

<p>Tulane
SAT Critical Reading: 610 / 700
SAT Math: 620 / 700
SAT Writing: 620 / 710
ACT Composite: 29/32</p>

<p>these differences may seem small to you, but since umich accepts many more applicants than tulane (because of size), that says a lot about the fact that the quality of accepted individual to umich is much higher than that of tulane. Tulane is a great school, dont get me wrong. Umich is simply better. It is constantly harder to get into every year and I wouldnt be surprised if that trend continues for decades.</p>

<p>^ sjuhawk, is that you?</p>

<p>According to collegeboard, Tulane has an acceptance rate of 25% and Michigan 41%…just sayin’</p>

<p>goblue- You pointed out that FC’s figures were wrong and showed the latest #s for UM, but then showed old figures for Tulane. Here are their figures for the same 2011 class. The differences between the schools are quite minor (except for math, which I would call significant). According to their 2011 CDS they are</p>

<p>620-710 CR
620-700 M
640-720 W</p>

<p><a href=“http://tulane.edu/institutional-research/upload/CDS-2011-2012.pdf[/url]”>http://tulane.edu/institutional-research/upload/CDS-2011-2012.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Actually, goblue is more incorrect than that. Talk about flaws, the data he cites in his own link is (read the title carefully goblue) for the ADMITTED STUDENTS for Fall 2011. Not those enrolled, only those admitted. So of course those stats are higher, as they would be for Tulane. That same page shows 15,559 Admitted and 6,175 Enrolled, therefore almost 9400 students that were admitted did not attend Michigan. Clearly many of these 9400 went to Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Duke, etc. just as many of the thousands admitted to Tulane that did not choose to enroll did. That is why you have to look at the stats for students that actually decided to go to the schools, not the phantoms that are not sitting next to you in class but are instead sitting at a desk in Cambridge or Palo Alto.</p>

<p>You can find the correct data for Michigan in their Common Data Set. [Office</a> of Budget & Planning: Common Data Set](<a href=“Office of Budget and Planning”>Office of Budget and Planning) I used the data from 2010-2011 because that was the same year I had for Tulane, but there is no meaningful difference in any of the last 3 years at Michigan. My stats are indeed correct and do not suffer from comparing apples to oranges, as you have. Since TV4caster was kind enough to provide the link to the Tulane CDS, let me restate the comparison for last year.</p>

<p>25/75 percentile range, 2011-2012 Enrolled Students:</p>

<p>UMich
SAT Critical Reading: 600 / 700
SAT Math: 650 / 750
SAT Writing: 620 / 720
ACT Composite: 28/32</p>

<p>Tulane
SAT Critical Reading: 620 / 710
SAT Math: 620 / 700
SAT Writing: 640 / 720
ACT Composite: 29/32</p>

<p>I would continue to maintain these figures represent no meaningful difference in this area between the two actual, enrolled classes at the two schools.</p>