Interesting article about Tulane disallowing ED for a high school in Colorado for a year after a student broke an ED agreement. Gives at least a little more grist to the lawsuit trying to end ED (or at least get some money out of it).
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I appreciate the university being upfront about this. Historically that is what the GCs thought was happening but with no concrete statement from the school.
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Good for them. Although Iām of the opinion that there is a lot more to this story and/or itās not a one-off for the high schools
Mr. Salisbury added that universities like Tulane should be better equipped to handle situations when students backed out.
Iām hoping Mr Salisbury isnāt a verified expert on this site. How is the onus on the university? The ED agreement, signed by the student, parent, and GC seems pretty clear.
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Seems to me like Tulane is struggling in some way to bring on this bad publicity.
In what way might you suggest?
As @momofboiler1 points out - people have suspected for a long time that this was the one place schools targeted (the only real leverage they have). Definitely more the the story here than whatās being reported. Tulane does a decent job of meeting financial need (at least as determined by FAFSA) - though that calculation of need can be dramatically different than what a family feels their need is.
I expect by punishing a HS, and by extension innocent students, runs afoul of multiple NACAC ethics guidelines. I hope NACAC weighs in.
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Please note that, according to the article, the policing action currently extends to four high schools, of which only one is named.
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Edited my message accordingly
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Without further info, I would assume that there are more than 4 schools where students have backed out of ED agreements at least over the past few years and I wonder if these 4 are seen as ārepeat offendersā withdrawing ED for what Tulane regards as non-valid reasons.
Our (public) school is very strict on ensuring that those who apply ED anywhere understand the commitment,but I would assume a private school does that too? (Interestingly our Maia shows the same # of students accepted ED and EA at Tulane. No RD admits.)
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Asking from a point of ignoranceā¦ though I agree that NACAC will take exception to this.
What leverage does NACAC have over the University when it comes to this? Maybe they can then exclude them from college fairs? Does the school have some sort of other agreement/contract with NACAC to uphold some standards?
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Thatās a good point about possible repeat offenders. Iām also guessing that the other three unnamed schools were also private schools where there is less likelihood of the financial concern being the primary reason to withdraw. When a student accepts an early decision, they are supposed to cancel their other applications. My guess is that these students did not, got into a more desired school and then canceled their ED at Tulane. Thatās why, while not a legal violation, it is an ethical violation so the school getting its hand slapped gets a message sent. Many private school counselors have relationships with the admissions people at the schools so my guess is there has been some back channel conversation between admissions and these counselors.
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This is a fairly drastic and public response by Tulane. I imagine that these high schools might have a history of students pulling out of ED acceptances for reasons Tulane deems not valid. IF that is the case (I donāt know facts other than what is in the article) and the system has been abused, then good for Tulane.
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So, let me get this straight, the punishment is that 2026 students from Colorado canāt apply ED to Tulane and therefore probably not attend Tulane next year?
Hmmm . . .
Well, I guess every cloud has its silver lining.
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Wonder if admissions might look at students from these high schools with somewhat different eyes knowing ED was not an option for them.
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This is a small, very high-end private high school. While not a certainty, it seems very likely that the student(s) pulling out of ED would not be doing so for financial aid reasons.
One might wonder if this publicity will negatively impact ED results for this high school more broadly. Itās one thing to punish the high school secretly, but I would not want to be a current senior there applying ED anywhere. Holy smokes.
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I donāt know. Universities that are NACAC members agree to abide by NACACās ethical guidelines, but they are just guidelines so Iām not sure there can be consequences. NACAC could certainly tell Tulane publicly itās a bad look and/or the guidelines its practice runs afoul of. Throwing the Colorado Academy counselors under the bus is also unacceptable IMO. Noting also that Tulaneās yield model does not model 100% ED yield.
To be clear, I donāt know any specifics about any of the āpunishedā HSs or why any of the students backed out of their ED agreement. There are legit reasons to back out as we all know. There can also be bad actors too. Iāll leave with the thought that in college admissions, the schools operate with little transparency which means they have all the power. Admission policies/processes are not student first/student focused. So, I tend to want to side with the little guy. Of course, facts can change what I think.
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Itās terrible publicity! Why would it be worth it to them to alienate sending schools? I donāt know what their motivation is, but it just seems like a bad move. Especially for a schools thatās been under the microscope for itās ED practice anyway and one that has lost ranking prestige. I like Tulane, but ugh I stick by this being a very bad move.
I also think it is horrendous behavior for a student to pull out of an ED commitment.
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Iām not taking an approach that this was a good or a bad move. To be honest, these days Iām suspect of just about everything I read and what the motivations behind it are.
Whatever happened - isolated to this student or a history of āabuseā by the HS - lets keep in mind that Tulane send them a letter. It took someone at the HS making this letter public for there to even be a news story about it. We talk about the bad publicity here for Tulane (which will be potentially a national issue for them) but I donāt see much narrative above about holding the HS accountable.
Itās a bad look for the school to the public but some other universities might be observing this going āhmm, thatās not a bad ideaā or maybe those universities have been sending such letters for years and this one is just coming to light now.
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I think the scale is different. Colorado Academy - sure itās well known in Colorado ā but Tulane is a national University. I imagine people who want to go to Colorado Academy aka people who want to go to a prep school in Denver will still go as it likely has a lot of status. I donāt think this will tarnish them because thereās probably not another option. But the optics for Tulane seem very Trumpy punitive. I donāt think people will like it.
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People have spoken about schools doing this for years. The only thing thatās happened is now we know for sure Tulane is one of the ones who does it.
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