My son was accepted to both and he is actually in NOLA right now for Destination Tulane tomorrow. And he’ll be at USC on the 24th so hopefully visiting the schools will help him decide which is the right for him.
Financially, both schools will cost us exactly the same. Out of pocket there is less than 1k difference a year. Both schools are about 20 hrs from home, both are warm weather schools with beautiful campuses. These are the pros and cons to each school…please correct me if I’m wrong.
We feel like Tulane is a smaller school and that professors are really there to teach and mentor. Sometimes I hear that USC has huge classes, often taught by TAs and it is easy to get lost in the crowd. I like that even tough NOLA isn’t the safest city, Tulane is in a good part of the city, NOLA has great public transportation and can be easily navigated without a car.
USC is a top 25 school and getting better every year. The alumni are amazing and since my son plans to live in CA after graduation, he feels like the connections and opportunities at USC will be invaluable to him when he goes to find an internship, job etc. However, even though LA is very nice, USC is in a very bad part of town and you really need a car. You do not want to walk around off campus and take public transportation.
As far as academic rigor…do you think Tulane and USC are similar?
And does class size and TAs vs Profs teaching really make a difference? Both schools have similar student faculty ratio and 4 yr graduation rates.
Nice choice for your son to have! Congrats to all on that.
Absolutely.
That is more dependent on the student themselves. Some are far more comfortable in smaller classes, some don’t care at all. So that is more of a him thing. Also probably after 3 semesters at USC he wouldn’t have classes taught by TA’s unless he saved a lower level required class until later, or just picked up an intro class out of personal interest. I would be surprised if USC used TA’s in 300 level classes or above, or whatever numbering system they use. Getting TAs teaching lower level classes is a craps shoot. In general they are not as experienced by definition, but some are great due to that youthful enthusiasm. Luck plays a big role there, hence the craps analogy.
I agree with you that Tulane is in a much safer area. His timing is unfortunate in that a former football player was just murdered there. It wasn’t close to Tulane, being about 3 miles towards downtown in the Lower Garden District, according to the news. But violent crime is not particularly normal there either. This is an aberration, not for New Orleans in general unfortunately (or Los Angeles for that matter), but for that part of NOLA it is more unusual. But because of who was involved, it is getting huge press. Of course we would all be thrilled if violent crime were less in NOLA, but the vast majority of it is in 2 areas, neither of which typically impact the Uptown area.
The strongest objective argument is that USC has the strong SoCal network. Tulane’s is decent there, and alumni have done quite well in the area. But clearly that is a check mark in the USC column.
So beyond that, I think he is going to have to rely on his instincts after both visits. I will add that in the last decade a surprising number of graduates that thought they would return to New England or California have decided to stay in NOLA. It is becoming more attractive for young graduates all the time. He can make of that what he will.
Our son graduated from USC in 2014, our daughter is a freshman at Tulane. Tulane would’ve been a bad fit for our son who wanted a bigger school with good D1 athletics and a west coast feel (he turned down UVA). Our daughter would’ve been a bad fit at USC, not only because she’d seen it a lot and didn’t like the size, but because she really likes the whole feel of a school half that size.
The USC neighborhood is not nearly as bad as it’s made out to be. Downtown has really changed for the better, too. Plus the new development just NW of campus is going to be super nice. Our son didn’t have a car there; when he really needed one, he could borrow it from a friend. He also took public transportation. He had 2 muisic industry internships, both way off campus, one in the valley even, and never had a problem other than time getting to and from. He also was involved in an organization helping nonprofits that required off-campus travel and it wasn’t an issue. The USC alumni network is a huge deal - it’s like joining the mafia - but that wasn’t how he got his great job in San Francisco. He didn’t love LA but he had a ton of opportunities and he was great about saying ‘yes.’
Tulane seems to be a wonderful fit for our girl; she’s made many good friends, she’s involved in some cool extra-curricular stuff, and she loves NOLA. Our son made some good friends as well, but it seems like our daughter is making more of the lifelong kind. Partly just luck in which dorm and which hall a kid ends up on.
So - let your kid figure it out. As long as you’ve visited both schools, he’ll be happy with whatever he chooses. Very different schools but both really good schools. #25 vs #41. Our son had his share of big classes at first at USC (including Leonard Maltin’s film studies class - what a gas!) but most every bigger university has that. Never had a TA teach a class. The food plan food is not great - but same at Tulane - surprising and disappointing for both schools. Dorms are dorms. Tulane is preppier and way more east-coast oriented FWIW, but our son had 2 summer internships in NYC and 2 full-time offers there as well. Good luck!
That’s great to hear that the area around USC is getting so much better. I was there several times about 25 years ago and frankly it couldn’t have been much worse. Sounds like USC has been buying some of it up?
Of course even better to hear that your kids picked schools that worked for them so well. That’s all we as parents can hope for. Well, we can hope they get to go for free too, but that doesn’t happen very often!
Similar story. My son graduated from Tulane in 2014. My daughter is a junior at USC. My daughter loves USC. My son likewise thrived at Tulane. I would say that Tulane and USC have similar safety issues–both improving. I’d give the weather edge to USC, though my son said he got used to the humidity and rain.