Tulane mom here. Why not apply EA to Tulane, especially with no application fee? You have to apply EA or ED to be considered for Tulane’s many merit full tuition scholarships - of course, submitting separate applications for the different scholarships. There is no downside for submitting your application and trying your hand at one of the scholarships.
During my sons’ application years - many of the universities sent emails encouraging them to apply ED2 - this wasn’t specific to Tulane.
Same experience here. Tulane was first choice, but not financially swingable without scholarship help so we couldn’t do ED. Have to believe many other EA applicants are in same boat, so saying EA means not first choice as someone did above is not accurate. DD got the one email suggesting she switch to ED, but again that was a no go for us. She got in EA with an extremely nice scholarship package.