Tulane response to NYT article, from the VP of Enrollment/Dean of Admission. I believe it was only sent to HS counselors, but I’m not sure:
Colleagues,
Many of you have seen the recent New York Times article highlighting that we placed a one-year pause on Early Decision offers of admission at four schools where students broke an Early Decision Agreement. I hope you can understand why we cannot share details about any particular case, but I wanted to clarify a few points that were not included in the story:
We actually released well over 50 admitted students from the Early Decision Agreement last year for financial reasons. And we did so even though we met their demonstrated financial need. Because we recognize that meeting one’s financial need may still not be enough for some families who need to compare financial aid offers, we released these students from the Early Decision Agreement with no penalty or consequence. The cases where we enacted a pause were instances where students broke their promises, that we were relying on, without a plausible explanation.
The Times’ article quotes a three-year-old Inside Higher Ed story suggesting that we admitted just 106 Regular Decision students in 2022. That is not correct.
The 106 figure was our yield on Regular Decision admission offers at that time. Regardless, in the last three years, we have doubled the number of Regular Decision admission offers to more than 1,100 and will extend a similar number of admission offers again this year.
The reporter was also not willing to make it clear that students at the schools in which we have paused Early Decision offers can still apply to Tulane via Early Action or Regular Decision. Tulane is one of the few selective universities that offers both Early Decision and Early Action. And we extend the majority of our admission offers to students who apply Early Action, which enables students to apply early and compare their admission and financial aid offers. Last year, we extended just over 2,300 Early Action admission offers and where an Early Decision pause is in place, we would simply guide students to apply Early Action, which operates on nearly the same timetable as Early Decision. While Tulane is one of the 30+ colleges and universities in America that typically fills more than half of its class with students who apply Early Decision, the sweeping majority of our actual admission offers are made through our Early Action and Regular Decision rounds. Last year, 3,400+ of our 4,600 admission offers (74%) were made through Early Action and Regular Decision.
I only write to clarify that there is no flat-out ban on any particular school and at each of the schools where we’ve placed a reluctant pause on considering Early Decision Agreements, their college counselors have been nothing but professional and have attempted to steer their students toward ethical decision-making.
Some thoughts:
-The mere fact Tulane felt the need to respond is telling, and that they might feel their actions aren’t being met with a positive reaction in the industry (they are not, even though that’s not the case here on CC LOL.)
-Glad they cleared up the 106 students accepted in RD situation a few years ago. Would have been better if they told us how many were accepted in RD, not how many they yielded. The cited article was widely circulated in the industry. Why not just share EA and RD admission details in the CDS?
-They mention that they met the financial need of the 50+ students who reneged for financial reasons, but neglect to say that is financial need as calculated by Tulane, and also Tulane often includes loans in FA packages. I can’t comment on the accuracy of Tulane’s NPC.
-Tulane likely released more than 50+ ED students, maybe significantly so. AFAIK ED renegers cite gap years more often than financial reasons, based on data I’ve seen over the years. Of course, some schools might have a different experience or not even allow gap years, for any students, let alone those admitted ED. Also, some students have more unique situations happen, like family illness, or their own illness that change the nature of their college path. They didn’t say if the past year’s ED reneg rate was higher than normal, but regardless, their yield model takes into account their historical ED reneg rate, so there is no issue of ‘taking someone’s spot’.
-Going forward students should cite financial reasons if they are going to pull out of ED. The majority of HS counselors can’t/won’t get into a family’s financial details, and colleges tend to release ED applicants for ‘financial reasons’ without the need for great detail/explanation. I’m not suggesting families not adhere to the ethics of ED agreements, and many schools’ NPCs are accurate.