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<p>…and one gets all of that for instate price of nearly 24k per year! What a bargain! Still, Rutgers enjoys a wonderful reputation nationally. It is very well respected. It is also a research focused university.</p>
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<p>32 interesting stats I saw about Tulane are that, as a result of its vast distribution of free applications, it received nearly 44,000 applications last year–the most of any private school in the country. It accepted only 26%–and only 15% of those accepted enrolled.</p>
<p>It must be very strange to work in an admissions office which rejcts 33,000 kids–and then gets reject by 6 out of 7 it accepts.</p>
<p>yabeyabe - you’ve just set a new world record - a post re Tulane admissions almost 1 hour ago and Fallenchemist has yet to respond!</p>
<p>FC and I have discussed this issue at length. His position - Tulane’s position - is that as a result of this strategy - they are getting a higher stat class every year. Many, many high stat kids are now using Tulane as a safety - and why not? If they use the free personal app - no app fee - no essay - and they will get an answer in the fall. Once they have their acceptance from Tulane - they can skip the other safeties - and go right to their HYP apps or other top 25 apps. Some of these kids will not get in to HYP - or - the $20,000 merit aid they picked up from Tulane looks great - and suddenly - they are heading to Tulane - which probably wasn’t even on their list a few months earlier. So, it’s a bit of an odd strategy - most schools don’t want to be just a safety school - but it does seem to be working for Tulane.</p>
<p>I understand their logic, but think they are also using the mass mailing of applications to mislead a lot of kids into thinking Tulane wants them in order to boost their selectivity rating to make the yield not seem as bad. I would bet that, of the 33,000 rejected, many, many thousands had no chance to begin with. </p>
<p>I also wonder how much attention 43,000 applications can possibly receive–for example, could they carefully process 430 every working day for 100 days in a row? I suspect there are some stat cutoffs that they apply to admissions, but do not use when it comes to mailing out the applications.</p>
<p>My motivation for posting it was that I wondered whether the admissions staff involved find it difficult to stay so perky and psychologically positive–notwithstanding that Tulane is a fine school–when they are not only having to turn down 75% of the hopefuls, but then being turned down by 85% of those they want. It must be hard enough being a top school turning down 90% of very, very talented kids, but there you at least are accepted by most who are admitted.</p>
<p>Tulane’s situation is not unique, although its huge number of applicants makes the percentages very high–many fine schools such as Lehigh will turn down about 2/3 of applicants and then be turned down by 2/3 of those admitted. It seems to be a vicious cycle of more applications per kid being filed than ever before, producing both more kids being turned down by schools and more schools being turned by kids than ever before.</p>
<p>I am not sure why Tulane is so popular. There are many schools which can be “safeties”. Why Tulane?</p>
<p>Mardi Gras fun, lol?!?!</p>
<p>mdcissp - because Tulane makes it easy. Their personal app does nor require an app fee, teacher recs or an essay. And it is rolling - so if you are towards the top of their range - and apply in Sept - you could easily have an acceptance in October. Once you have that in your pocket - you don’t need to waste time with other safety or even match schools - you work on your reach apps. They also give very good merit money for high stat kids - $20,000 - $25,000. If you have a kid who is applying to top 25 schools - Tulane makes the perfect safety. And don’t get me wrong - I’m not knocking Tulane. I think it is a great school with lots of positive attributes.</p>
<p>Tulane merit awards:</p>
<p>“Most merit scholarships (various partial tuition scholarships ranging from $7,500 to $25,000 per year) require no special application and are awarded by the admission office based on the strength of the admission application within the context of the given year’s applicant pool. The majority of merit scholarships are renewable for 4 years, (or 5 years for architecture students), provided the student maintains good standing with the university, a full-time course load and a minimum GPA.”</p>
<p>Aside from the easy application, what is so special about Tulane that someone would want to go there?</p>
<p>LOL, where to start?? There was a thread about the 101 best things about Tulane, or something like that. I will dig it up if I have a chance later. But in short, you cannot talk about Tulane apart from New Orleans. More than almost any other school, Tulane is very highly integrated with its surroundings. Ones that also have this, albeit in different ways would be NYU and USC, among a handful of others. But New Orleans is unique, now more than ever as the rebuilding from Katrina will literally last for decades. Tulane is the only school of its stature, I believe, that has service learning as a requirement. Any major can potentially see work actually implemented in the community, although some majors are more obvious than others. Architecture students see their designs actually get built. Business students get to help local businesses with loans, accounting, marketing, etc. Law and Medicine, those are easy, of course, along with education and social work. The local politics has always been fascinating, and now is no exception for the poli sci major. The sciences, especially for environmental impact, are critical to the safety and recovery of the area. I could go on, but you get the idea. The school is heavily involved in all these areas and more, and the students can be as involved (or uninvolved, except for the requirement) as they choose to be.</p>
<p>Beyond that, Tulane represents a very nice balance of a PhD granting institution doing fine research but with the heaviest focus on the undergrad. Student after student will tell you that they feel like it has a lot of the best elements of an LAC as far as small classes and attention from the profs, but clearly has the opportunitites and resources of a research institution. The students are smart (average SAT scores are actually #28 in the country among “national universities”, as USNWR calls them), and the last three classes have been the best Tulane has ever had academically, showing a school on the rise.</p>
<p>Then there is the food, the culture, Mardi Gras…all the other things that make New Orleans and Tulane unique. It isn’t for everyone, many students find it too “foreign”. But the vast majority really enjoy it, and quite a few completely fall in love with it.</p>
<p>I am not saying that there aren’t other schools that have some of these same qualities. No college is that unique, of course. But Tulane has a unique combination of factors that can make it a tremendous fit.</p>
<p>We completed our Rochester plus Canada college tour. It hasn’t gotten much play in this thread, but the University of Rochester seems like a very impressive school with a meaningful Jewish population/Hillel. ShawD’s GC lists it as a possible, so I assume that this that means it is possible for a B+ student to get in. It is highly research oriented – they expect kids to get involved in research and told us that there are more positions available for kids at the two hospitals affiliated with their medical school than there are undergraduates available for them.</p>
<p>Fallenchemist - thanks for chiming in - no one can sing the praises of Tulane quite the way you can! :)</p>
<p>shawbridge - my sister and 2 cousins attended University of Rochester in the 80s - all had a good experience. I do think a B+/A- student could be accepted. I also want to mentiopn their “Take 5” program - the general idea is that if you want to stay for a 5th year and add a double major - tuition is free! Only school I have ever heard of with this option.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.rochester.edu/college/CCAS/TakeFive/[/url]”>http://www.rochester.edu/college/CCAS/TakeFive/</a></p>
<p>shawbridge - I just looked at our hs Naviance - and I do think - based on our graph - that Rochester is a bit out of reach for the typical B student. We had 15 apply last year - 8 were accepted and 2 will attend. Most had at least a 4.0 weighted GPA - many were closer to 4.4. Most had SATs above 1300 or an ACT above 30. There were a few with high GPAs - maybe a 4.5 wgpa and a low ACT of 25. So, I would consider this a reach for anyone who describes themself as a “B” student.</p>
<p>A friend’s daughter is going to take a fifth year at Rochester. She has had a lovely time there so far. There are plenty of Jewish resources, but she has chosen not to take advantage of any of them, despite being raised in an observant home.</p>
<p>She was a solid A student in High School, though, and I think that anything lower than an A- will be difficult in admissions.</p>
<p>rockvillemom - Hi there! LOL, thanks. I was just up at Brown yesterday, students starting to show up again to get their apartments ready and the like. Drove right by the Hillel, it was already buzzing.</p>
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[quote]
I also want to mentiopn their “Take 5” program - the general idea is that if you want to stay for a 5th year and add a double major - tuition is free! Only school I have ever heard of with this option. <a href=“re%20rochester”>/quote</a></p>
<p>fyi – Clark U has a program where you can do an accelerated masters in five years with the fifth year free to those who qualify (3.25 gpa which seems pretty doable). [url=<a href=“http://www.clarku.edu/academiccatalog/introduction/academicprogram/adp.cfm]Clark”>http://www.clarku.edu/academiccatalog/introduction/academicprogram/adp.cfm]Clark</a> University | Academic Catalog | The Academic Program<a href=“for%20those%20interested%20in%20business,%20an%20mba%20and%20msf%20are%20among%20the%20masters%20programs%20included%20–%20i%20have%20NO%20idea%20how%20their%20business%20program%20is.”>/url</a></p>
<p>and i think Clark U (in Worcester, Ma) would definitely meet the criteria of being accessible for a B student and having a great Jewish community. </p>
<p>I know some kids who have been very happy at Clark, both with the school itself and with the Jewish community.</p>
<p>Rockvillemom, ShawD attends a private HS where the grading is hard – a strict curve with a B- median. So, the Naviance numbers might be a bit more favorable for her school. The GC listed as a possible after looking at Naviance.</p>
<p>unbelievablem, I like Clark in principle, but ShawD doesn’t want to be in Massachusetts – she wants to go away to school.</p>
<p>ShawD is up at her summer science program and was interviewed by a radio program that aired this morning.</p>
<p>My middle son just got a note from the Chabad rabbi at University of Denver…congratulating my son on his engagement. Poor son had to tell the Rabbi it was a facebook joke (he and the rabbi are facebook friends). Son has now been roped into coordinating a bbq one night during orientation.</p>
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<p>I just stumbled on this website that I thought would be interesting to mdcissp and anyone else looking at actuary science as a possible career path.</p>
<p>[Be</a> An Actuary](<a href=“http://www.beanactuary.org/]Be”>http://www.beanactuary.org/)</p>
<p>Away for a few days and great conversations!</p>
<p>Rutgers is expensive! especially when you start comparing other state schools.</p>
<p>AU, Syracuse, Miami - The 50,000 + tuition makes me nervous to even look. What does a typical B student pay? Is it reasonable to expect a 20,000 tuition break? </p>
<p>:) if we all can convince our students to go to Salisbury, we can re-energize the hillel!</p>
<p>I think that Rutgers, and other NJ public schools, are way too expensive for instate students! My kid was offered several private school packages for much less money than our offer from an instate NJ public, but the private schools were not from “brand name schools” (we stayed away from those after seeing those packages with our oldest child). Also our younger son was looking for a different type of school.</p>
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<p>I’m glad to see unbelievablem bring up Clark again. I know this thread has had a mid-Atlantic focus, but for others, Clark is an excellent choice for a Jewish B student. D1, a B+/A- student, loved Clark and we had one of our best college visits there. She was interested in both Jewish Studies and Peace Studies, and after our tour, the tour guide offered to take her to the Peace Studies department to meet a professor. There is clearly a very active Jewish student group - we saw posters for things like “Hookah in the Sukkah” which D loved 
Also, Clark had, hands down, the best college food we sampled.</p>
<p>Also, this was a case where I was glad I kept my reservations about the surrounding community to myself. Yes, Worcester is an economically depressed city, but D was completely oblivious. She loved the campus and the people, and that’s all that mattered to her.</p>