<p>They don’t say how many Presidential scholarships they offer, but getting one is an excellent achievement. Congrats on that. For the past 2 years they have awarded 75 DHS’s. It used to be 100, but financial markets being what they are…They have not said which it will be this year.</p>
<p>As far as investing the time, that is very hard to say. Her top 5% and GPA are certainly excellent, the 33 ACT is very good too. I think on one of the Tulane pages they say the typical applicant has a 34+ ACT or 2250+ SAT, but that certainly is not absolute. Her chances seem good. I guess it just depends on where Tulane falls on her favorites list and how much that $12,000+ in additional merit money would mean to you. Remember also that the $25,000 is a fixed amount, whereas the DHS matches tuition no matter how much it increases.</p>
<p>Thank you for answering. I saw the stats for the typical applicant and that made me wonder how many Presidential Scolarships were offered, since that would give me an idea how many students she would be up against. I think with her SAT writing score combined with the math and reading brings her pretty close to what they want. Thanks for all your good info.</p>
<p>You are very welcome. BTW, jym and I are both proud parents of DHS winners. I am sure there are others on here too. I know a few of the DHS students post from time to time. Of course, not every Presidential tries for the DHS, but you are in the right ballpark. Others apply also, but it is tough to win if you haven’t already cleared that hurdle, as has been discussed on here before. My guess is that she is probably in competition with 300-400 that have stats similar to hers, maybe a few more. Just a somewhat educated guess on my part though. I might be low.</p>
<p>Fallenchemist: Thanks for all your imput. Thats all I wanted was other peoples perspective. Sorry I didn’t mention the good aspects of the school. Certainly there are plenty. As a mom, who gave up a well paying career to stay home and raise my children, (yes this is my first child going off to college,) safety is important as is a good meal. For anyone out there who may have felt that I didn’t find anything good about Tulane, please know that that is incorrect! My husband and I have visited over 22 schools with our son and Tulane was the school that he felt most comfortable in. For me, I immediately noticed that the kids all looked happy. The weather was beautiful and sunny. The college grounds were clean and beautiful. I thought the park was gorgeous and the city of NO was amazing. Seeing the mighty Mississippi at the Riverfront was spectacular. My son is interested in BME and possibly going the Medical School route thus the programs for both are wonderful. Oh and Yes I loved the Mardi Gras Tree!!! </p>
<p>Fallenchemist, one more question…when you say 75 Deans scholarships, is that 75 total offered or 75 accepted. Do they offer more because they figure everyone who receives it wont take it?</p>
<p>malaml-
Is your daughter perchance also a National Merit semifinalist? Assuming she is, and makes it to finalist status (most do, and her SAT/ACT scores would virtually assure that, assuming she filled in the NM paperwork/essay on time), Tulane will give your dau an additional $2000/yr in NM scholarship $$. I think it is well worth your dau’s time to complete the DHS. If she has done a lot of community service work, that’s another great scholarship and can be added to the Presidential scholarship. It will require a recommendation to be filled out by someone involved with her community service. The DHS doesn’t have to be complex or time consuming. I think it is an opportunity for the student to show who they are. Its an opportunity to be clever and creative. Demonstrated interest is also very important, so if you haven’t visited the school yet, I strongly encourage you/your daughter to do so. </p>
<p>While Tulane is expensive at full fee, their scholarships are extremely generous.</p>
<p>Dungareedoll-
Thanks for your last post. Welcome to the cc community.</p>
<p>malaml - That is the total offered. Typically a little less than half end up at Tulane. Some win similar scholarships to other schools (I know one my D’s year got full tuition to WUSTL and took that one instead), some get into Ivy League or similarly ranked schools and go that route. After all, these students have stats at that level for sure, and not everyone needs the money or they may qualify for excellent FA packages at these schools. But back to your point, I think Tulane actually plans on awarding 30-40 of them, knowing that giving 75 will achieve that number. Kind of like admissions in general.</p>
<p>Jym makes a good point about the Community Service Scholarship. There are about 30 of those every year, and from what I was told last year everyone got the full $15,000. As jym says, this is a scholarship you add to any merit you get up to the amount of full tuition. Therefore since she got the $25,000 if she did get the CSS (unfortunate overlap in initials with the financial aid form) she would get about $13,000 or whatever it is to achieve full tuition, same as the DHS. Worth looking into as well, and I think it is just a form along with the rec jym mentions, no project involved.</p>
<p>The year my DS got the DHS (he is now a junior), they said they had awarded 100, and about 40+ (just under half) accepted. The funny thing is that the award letter said that there had been 10,000 applicants. That was a typo! There were apparently around 1,000 applicants, LOL. As FC said, the past 2 years they have awarded only 75. I am pretty certain that most, if not all of the DHS winners were previously awarded the 25K scholarship first (FC’s dd and my ds were), which goes away if you win the DHS. FC has posted elsewhere that he heard indirectly that 1 person had been previoulsy offered the 22k scholarship first, though this was not verified. </p>
<p>As FC said, if you win a CSS, it gets aded to the 25K, up to a maximum of full tuition. The CSS also offers neat opportunities. My cousin’s DD had it, and she was invited to speak at a presentation at Pres Cowen’s house shortly after school started freshman year. When we first visited campus in Oct (possibly Nov- not sure) to attend an admitted students weekend (or open house-- again I forget-- apologies-- it was a few years ago), Pres Cowen greeted my cousin’s dau by name, and our admissions counselor greeted my DS by name. Impressive.</p>
<p>My DS applied for both the DHS and CSS, as he was very active in CS (community service) and had won a big local award. They mentioned his CS in the DHS award letter. As FC said, the CSS is simply a form to complete that documents what you did, where you did it and the hours you spent. Then someone affiliated with your CS writes a letter of recc. Not sure how many CSS’s are awarded. Good luck. Deadline for DHS is Dec 15 and CSS is in Jan sometime, IIRC.</p>
<p>Thank you again for all your good info. I just texted her and she did not qualify for the NM semifinalist. (I remembered that now.) Qualifying is different from state to state and I guess our state scored higher than many. As far as community service goes, she has volenteered at our religious school every Sunday morning during the school year, for 3.5 hours. She has other sporadic community service hours but I dont think enough to merit any kind of scholarship. I guess it doesnt hurt to try. She attends a public art school and the art classes and associated extracurriculars take up a lot of her time. Getting to and from school is a commute so that takes up more.</p>
<p>Im not all that clear on the National Merit business. My general feeling though, mainly from what my dau told me is that she didnt qualify. I will double check with her. Thanks.</p>
<p>I checked with my D and she was not a NM finalist. I do have another question. About the DHS. How important is the actual project as compared to the the students stats. In the little reading I did(mostly on these boards) it seems that anything goes. Some students put in a lot of time and effort and others not so much. My D cant do anything half baked and she is already thinking up a involved,time consuming project.</p>
<p>LOL, then she should do well. I think the project can be very important. After all, when you get down to the last 300 or so, they all have great stats. I am only supposing here, but it is hard for me to see what else they would use to decide among such a similarly excellent group.</p>
<p>If your daughter is motivated to do a thorough project and she has a history of success, as it sounds she does, then I’d let her do it and manage her time with all the other things on her plate. She seems to be fine with it. Try not to own her stress It is easy for us parents to worry more than our kids do. In the end, they do fine and we worried for nothing.</p>
<p>Believe it or not, I have spent the last 12 or so years saying " what’s wrong with a B?". So yes, I stress because she’s stressed. Another question…because you are both so informed, the deadline for the DHS is Dec 15. Is that only for the early action admits? Is there another deadline for reg admits? If not, it would seem that the number of apps for this scholarship would be a lot lower. We really didnt look at it seriously until she got the Pres. Scholarship because without the Pres. Scholarship I doubt she would be in a position to attend. The Pres. Scholarship makes it do-able for us.</p>
<p>I see where your thinking is going, because it is easy on here to equate the scholarship received with where Tulane “puts you in the pecking order”, to put it crudely. But that is why they post the suggest parameters for who usually gets considered for the DHS (2250+ SAT or 34+ ACT, top 5% of class, great recs, strong EC’s, etc.). That way those that are applying RD can judge for themselves whether they should give it a shot.</p>
<p>Yes. I was trying to avoid being ahem…crude. LOL. I was just now trying to find the stats that you referred to above, for the typical candidate, but didnt see any specific ACT or SAT numbers. Anyway… I did come across the profile of a student who won with Sat of 2200 and ACT of 30. That does it for me.</p>
<p>Just curious, where did you see that? They would have gone with the 2200, not the 30. All universities that I know of use the best scores, and a 2200 is better than an ACT of 30.</p>
It is easy for us parents to worry more than our kids do. In the end, they do fine and we worried for nothing.</p>