<p>What SAT scores do the kids with merit aid have?</p>
<p>Tulane has various levels of merit aid, and SAT scores are an important but definitely not a wholly determinative factor. I have seen students with fantastic GPA’s and lots of AP courses get good merit awards even with SAT scores that are around the middle of the Tulane stats, which would be around 2,000. It is a balance between grades, test scores, and other factors that speak to how much Tulane wants to entice you to attend. I believe about 25% of the incoming class gets some level of merit aid, although of course the top level awards are fewer. So this is really an impossible question to answer.</p>
<p>Rule of thumb would be that merit aid goes to applicants who are above average and higher. My kid got a nice merit award and was a little shy of the 75th percentile number. 2012 numbers below: </p>
<p>Test Scores – 25th / 75th Percentile
SAT Critical Reading: 630 / 720
SAT Math: 620 / 710
SAT Writing: 640 / 720
ACT Composite: 29 / 32
ACT English: 29 / 34
ACT Math: 27 / 32</p>
<p>That tracks. If you take the middle of the 3 SAT categories, it adds up to 2020. Not technically correct mathematically for an average or a median, but very close I am sure since the distribution should be fairly smooth. The 3 75th percentiles add up to 2150. I would definitely say with good grades and other attractive qualities, the merit awards would typically start somewhat closer to 2100, but again that is misleading. I have seen kids just slightly less than 2000 get them when they have other areas that counterbalance that.</p>
<p>Remember that, as I mentioned, the Tulane awards are tiered, I think into 5 levels. So they range from something like $8,000 per year to $27,000 (obviously not counting the full tuition awards that require a separate application). You do have to have pretty outstanding stats and other accomplishments across the board to get the highest levels, of course.</p>
<p>My D was closer to middle of the road for composite ACT, but still got significant merit aid so they definitely take into account other factors.</p>
<p>In fact, I would say this last year they changed their philosophy somewhat to put less of an emphasis on stats. Not saying you don’t need good stats but it appeared, at least based on fairly substantial amounts of anecdotes that were related, that even some high stat people didn’t get the “predicted” amount of merit offer that in past years one could predict almost exactly from stats. It seems they were looking harder than before at other factors, be it geography, certain talents, whatever. But in all cases, showing strong interest in Tulane is a necessary but not sufficient condition for getting considered.</p>