<p>After being down for maintenance, acceptance status blank, acceptance status back to pending, I can no longer get onto my financial aid summary of status/requirements, holds, academic progress…?</p>
<p>@Fallenchemist: Thank you so much for your insight and willingness to share on this forum! Any potential scholarships will be purely merit-based. My initial questions about the process stem slightly from differences between Tulane and what we have experienced at other schools, but mostly because of apparent differences in our “Tulane Experience” and the experiences of other Tulane applicants. What if an applicant is pegged out on all objective measures? Top 1%, AP laden curriculum, 36 on ACT(single sitting), 12 varsity athletic letters at a high school of over 3200 students, leadership, volunteer service, gifted musician… How should an applicant with these sort of credentials approach the application process? Do schools wonder if they are serious enough applicants? Does Tulane? Can you shed any light or give your enlightened opinion?</p>
<p>Not sure how enlightened my opinion is but here is what I have observed.</p>
<p>Tulane does indeed consider if the applicant is serious. That is why they instituted the “Why Tulane” question a couple of years ago. They purposely made that question “optional” because if someone applied and didn’t fill it out, it was a pretty big red flag that they were applying because it was a free app. Before that question was added, the number of applications ranged from 40,000-44,000 and this year I heard from someone that the number of applications is 32,000. So it seems to have weeded out a large number of “passers-by”. Out of that 32,000 some number (no idea how many) don’t fill out the Why Tulane question.</p>
<p>All schools want students that are really into the school and likely to attend. Tulane is in a funny position in a way because it is an excellent school with a very good reputation, but it is perceived as a “safety” by many who are HYPS caliber hopefuls. Obviously the applicant you describe could easily aspire to be accepted by such a school, and therefore has the extra burden of convincing Tulane that they are truly likely to attend if accepted. If that is your son, then congrats to him on an extraordinary high school career!!</p>
<p>If at this stage of the game he really wants to go to Tulane, then I would suggest a phone call between him and his admissions counselor at Tulane where he can explain that he is not simply waiting to hear from the Ivies et. al. If on the other hand he really is just waiting to hear from those schools, then one would have to say Tulane made the right call. After all, you have to admit that it isn’t in Tulane’s interest to accept such a student at the expense of someone more likely to attend. I would also say that if the latter is the case, there is a good chance he will get into one of those schools.</p>
<p>This could be discussed for an hour easily, but hopefully that answers your questions.</p>
<p>Thanks, again, Fallenchemist! We fall into the category that it seems quite a few people find themselves in: just high enough income to make EFC higher than COA. When I filled out my first net cost calculator and saw what schools would likely expect us to be able to contribute… I laughed and cried simultaneously. Even though my son can likely be accepted most anywhere (and has applied to a couple Ivies), we/he are really only able to seriously consider schools that would probably offer significant merit scholarship consideration and are a good fit for what he is looking for in a school. Tulane is on that extremely short list of two schools at this point. Net cost will be a big factor, but also those intangibles that are hard to quantify. Tulane’s silence is deafening…</p>
<p>I just went back and reread your first posting, and I think I was a bit confused. I was assuming that you were still waiting to hear about his admission status, but now that I looked again it appears he has been admitted with a merit scholarship. Are you saying that you never got a paper letter? It also appears he applied for both the DHS and PTA, correct? If you never got anything on paper, but his Gibson status says he is admitted, then for sure write or call the admissions counselor and have them resend the letter.</p>
<p>Maybe you can explain in some detail exactly what has transpired and when. Thanks!</p>
<p>Yes. He was initially deferred to the regular admission pool (which was a bit of a shock, but I think it ultimately worked in Tulane’s favor in that he viewed it as a challenge!), so we had been emailing his counselor with updates and finally called a few weeks ago to make sure there was nothing wrong with his packet. She told me nothing was amiss: he was a strong candidate for admission, but that the decision wouldn’t come until around April 1. She said the DHS and PTA notifications were being mailed within the next couple days (over two weeks ago). We would receive an e-mail if the news was bad, a letter if good. I though it odd that he might be notified about a scholarship prior to even being admitted, but she said it works that way sometimes. A day or so after my call, his Gibson account suddenly showed him as “accepted” with a partial tuition merit scholarship…but we still haven’t received anything in writing about the other scholarships or confirming his admission. It seems others have received at least something in writing, based on other posts. Maybe I am confusing people who were notified early action and regular decision notifications have not yet been mailed…I don’t know. If he was not chosen for either of the premier scholarships, is the Gibson posting all we will receive to base our decision on? Is that the “final answer” as far as estimating the cost of attendance? Is he really admitted without written confirmation? It just seems so weird our experience has been so…unique…compared to everyone else.</p>
<p>Update: he just told me he got an e-mail earlier today confirming his admission and that a letter will follow shortly! He found out while at a track meet and just got home and told me.</p>
<p>The admission always shows up on Gibson before the letter is mailed. So now that he seems to have officially been admitted, you should get the letter shortly which will confirm that and also his merit scholarship.</p>
<p>As far as the DHS and PTA, I thought they were all decided already, but I don’t know that 100% for sure. So I suppose it is possible he still might receive one. For the DHS it would be unusual, but for the PTA it is the first year and they do say rolling notifications, so maybe they kept a few in their pocket for just this kind of situation. Now to be clear, this is just my take on it, and I have no special knowledge other than having watched this closely for about 5 years. But for now, I would say you should have low expectations on getting one of those awards, but maybe not zero expectation.</p>
<p>Congrats on the admission and scholarship, keep us up to date on how things unfold.</p>
<p>Thanks! You’ve been great!</p>
<p>My Gibson application status use to say your application is complete etc. but now there is nothing written there. How long do you think it will take for them to fix it?</p>
<p>Probably be up again tomorrow, latest Monday if past incidents like this hold true.</p>
<p>thanks that was a quick reply</p>
<p>HELP!!! MY application status is blank!!! HELP! What does that mean!!!</p>
<p>My daughters Gibson account has been blank since yesterday! Regular Decision applicant, Top academics, and applied for community service scholarship and was hoping to hear back before now. Does a “blank” page mean a decision should be posted soon? Thank you!</p>
<p>My son’s Gibson account is blank as well. I’m guessing it means they’re doing maintenance on the site. I work for a college in computing and we generally do our account maintenance on weekends.</p>
<p>okay, thank you! Sure hope we hear good news very soon!</p>
<p>I am also curious about Nate’s question.</p>
<p>You would have seen a statement to that effect on the letter you received via regular mail. Congrats on the Founders Award, that is great! But usually only the Presidential ($27K) and some of the Distinguished Scholars ($25K) are initially invited to the Honors Program. Not to worry or feel slighted though. You can still take any honors sections courses you want, assuming there is room (and there usually is) as well as live in the Honors dorm (Butler) in most cases. And then you can earn a place in the Honors Program by achieving a 3.6 GPA your freshman year.</p>
<p>Keep in mind the HP at Tulane is not like an Honors College at many state schools. The main purpose of the HP is to provide a clear path to graduating with high honors (magna cum laude or summa cum laude which require a minimum of a 3.6, hence the requirement for the HP. It also provides the smaller, more discussion oriented honors section classes which I mentioned are open to you, as well as special advising for post-graduate fellowships and scholarships such as Rhodes, Truman, Marshall, etc. But those don’t become an issue until junior year or later for the most part. So you are not really missing out on any opportunities by not being initially invited to the program.</p>
<p>No longer blank on Gibson it now went back to the original message of “your application is complete and in review”. My daughter submitted her application November 7, 2012 regular decision status so I thought we would have heard back by now??</p>
<p>Tulane is not rolling admissions. There is really no reason to expect an RD decision before April 1. Clearly some do hear sooner, but they do not notify on the basis of when the application was complete. With limited space, they try to get as close to 1500 students as possible that fit whatever criteria they have set for that year’s class. Since there are always far more qualified applicants than spaces, that means that sometimes good students have to wait while they see how they want to round out the class. It’s not an exact science by any means.</p>