NEU or Tulane?

MnADad
Fri, 03 Feb 2023 22:53:49 +0000

A brief update from my D’s admitted student visit to Tulane (based on what I could extract from her).

My D was there 3 nights, 2 days. She stayed at her freshman cousin’s dorm room. The dorm room was a double and my D said that it was quite spacious with room for a separate mattress for her. We had read about the dorm rooms not being great but that did not seem to be a concern for my D. The new dorms being constructed will likely make this aspect even better.

She went out of campus on one night for a star wars chewbacca costume parade (!), went to a frat party on campus, and went out for several meals/coffee runs with her cousin and her friend group. Overall, she thought that the social scene was quite active. Her take on it was that there are quite a few social activities/parties (not just on weekends but also on earlier days of the week) and it would largely be up to her to moderate and balance her partying and academics. In general, she agreed with the overall perception of Tulane students being quite happy and social. But, she also thought that there was a lot of academic focus at least within her cousin’s friend group.

She spoke to several students about their decision to go to Tulane and found that several of them had chosen Tulane in lieu of some well-known colleges such as UCLA, UCSD, UCSB, Northeastern, etc. A common theme was that they were attracted to Tulane’s balance of academics + social life and that they did not want to be lost in large colleges. One person who chose Tulane over UCLA said that she found UCLA to be a bubble that students rarely stepped out of whereas Tulane actively encourages students to interact with the New Orleans community.

The Destination Tulane event itself was somewhat useful. They did a tour of the campus (which she had already done before she applied) and a rundown of academic life, social life, NOLA, etc. She met several other admitted students (a large group from MA) and found that to be useful.

My D commented that she did find a lack of diversity on campus.

Overall, she has not made a final decision between Northeastern and Tulane as yet but she did convince herself that she would be happy, be academically challenged, and have an active social life at Tulane.