Tulane is one of those schools that draws a TON of kids from outside of its region.
Its top sending states are usually something like NY, CA, IL, NJ, MA and LA. The rental house my kid lived in senior year was pretty typical. Kids were from LA, MD, NY, CO, CA, IL and Asia.
Big contingent of kids from the northeast, which overlaps with the size-able Jewish community (maybe 25% of undergrad students) that Tulane has long had.
The campus is not overwhelmingly “southern” in look and feel as a college (e.g. big time football, big time greeks, southern accents, preppy). Think a bit more like Duke on those things, and a bit less on those things than say Vandy, UNC or UVA.
I’ve always known people from the places I’ve lived in the northeast and in the midwest to send kids to Tulane. I’ve long thought of it as a national school, with particular appeal to Jewish families.
Yes, that has long been true, as I think I mentioned in my microhistory of Tulane. While it is tangentially related to geography, I have noticed that Tulane is usually in the top 15 or so of lists of schools sorted by percentage of Jewish students. 25-30% seems to be typical, or at least was about 5 years ago.
Agree with above comment. Tulane has had a national student body even before the 80s. The southern schools back then that attracted students from around the country include: Duke, Emory, Tulane, and some others. More recently, Vanderbilt and others probably got added to the list.