<p>I have narrowed down my schools to Tulane University and Indiana University. I am planning to pursue pre-medical studies, and I like both schools alot. I feel that I might have an easier chance of being in the top of my class at Indiana University, but I also like the rigor of Tulane. Help! Which should I choose?</p>
<p>Two great schools, but pretty different in so many ways. Size, urban vs. rural, weather, state school vs. private, so on and so forth. I am guessing cost must not be an issue for you since you don’t mention it.</p>
<p>Surely with such differences, there must be some things that you like better enough about one than the other. I can understand that you might be a very adaptable person, equally comfortable in various situations. Still, you must have preferences about the everyday things outside of academics, as well as things related to academics like class size.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t focus on where you think you could get the higher GPA. There are so many factors that go into how well you do in school, and being in a school with the right fit is certainly one of them. You might thrive a lot more in an atmosphere where you can get to know your profs better, and so do better even though the academic quality of your peers is somewhat higher. In fact that very fact, the rigor as you call it, also spurs a lot of students on to do better, keeps them sharp and focused. Everyone can be different, so unless you know this already about yourself, and many don’t before they go to college, it is not a criteria you probably want to focus on too much. Personally (again assuming cost is not an issue) I would focus more on where you felt most comfortable, which one intrigued you or excited you more, something like that.</p>
<p>No one can tell you which to choose, otherwise everyone here would tell you Tulane, lol. But the more honest answer is to think about what it is you like about each school and what you think is most important to you in a school and match that up to see which one has more of what you want. With the two being so different, as I already said, one should emerge as your favorite. If you had said Tulane and Vanderbilt or Tulane and Emory, it would be much harder. The two schools you are considering have starker differences.</p>
<p>I am looking for a campus that will have plenty of research opportunities, many approachable professors, etc. The only problem is that I do not have enough money to travel to Tulane by May 1 in order to visit it, and by the time that I am able to visit the campus, it will be in June. I was wondering, fallenchemist, since you appear to be a student here, what is the diversity of the campus like? How many student organizations are there? It is really killing me that I cannot visit the campus because I would hate to decide not to go here if it was not the best fit for me.</p>
<p>Actually I am an alum and now a parent of a Tulane student. There are PLENTY of research opportunities, and in fact Tulane thrives on undergrads doing real research. Someone was just telling me yesterday that their honors thesis of 120+ pages was actually more “meaty” (my word, not hers but it captures the point well I think) than her masters work at a USNWR top 10 school. Anyway, that is something you shouldn’t have to worry about at Tulane.</p>
<p>Tulane is more diverse than Indiana when it comes to geography, which is no surprise since Indiana will have kids overwhelmingly from Indiana. Tulane has more students from 500+ miles away than any school in the country. Ethnic diversity I don’t know about Indiana, you can look it up on their common data set. Tulane is about 70% white, and the remaining 30% is fairly evenly split between Asians, African-Americans, and Hispanics I think, with the last being the lowest % of the 3 IIRC.</p>
<p>There are over 200 official student organizations, probably a few unofficial ones, and anyone can start one and get it recognized and get money if you can get a total of 10 students at the beginning. Between that and New Orleans, I have never heard a student say there wasn’t anything to do at Tulane. I am sure the same is true of Indiana, but of course you don’t have anything like New Orleans as an option.</p>
<p>I don’t know what else to tell you since you cannot visit. Watch as many videos as you can I guess, although I imagine you already know that doesn’t cut it really. But between that and reading these threads and whatever else you can get your hands on, I think that is the best you can do.</p>