My 2 cents. At least at my kid’s Los Angeles HS, Tulane is a safety college for high stat kids. In 2018, 58 applied, 18 accepted (31%), 1 enrolled (5% yield). I think Tulane is popular from this HS for a few reasons, its private, good academics, gives great merit for high stat applicants, is located in a fun, southern city with a large Jewish population.
Was looking for this year’s numbers (so far). Any available?
A 31%acceptance rate (18/58) makes it maybe a match. Maybe. It does NOT make it a safety. And with such a low yield, those acceptance numbers may drop.
This is exactly what I am talking about. My son couldn’t do ED because he was also applying to higher ranked schools. However, he should be admitted. His application, scores, etc are pretty awesome. But I am sure some of you will tell me I am crazy. What I was saying is they are playing the game by focusing on yield so they defer qualified kids hoping they will go ED. Whole thing is nuts.
At the top 50 schools, there are plenty of qualified students who “should” be admitted but are not. We are not behind the curtain to see what they are looking for, what their enrollment management directors are saying. They focus on yield because low yield messes with their financial planning.
Jeff Schiffman’s blog http://tuadmissionjeff.blogspot.com/2011/12/ive-been-deferred-now-what.html mentioned that the last few years have had larger freshman classes, so they might be needing to to tighten up a bit this year. The fact that their newer admissions approach has led to their enrolling 2,400 fewer students than this time 2 years ago was pretty compelling.
@goodjob What do you mean he “couldn’t do ED because he was also applying to higher ranked schools”? So he did not have Tulane as his top choice, in which case he should of course not apply ED. That is the exact type of kid they are looking to defer. Even if qualified. Because those are the precise kids who actually want to (and will, if admitted) go to the higher ranked schools! In our case, Tulane really was our son’s top choice (after his Hail Mary Ivy ED1, which was always a total reach and understood to be unrealistic). We rolled the dice on FA at Tulane with ED2, and are grateful it worked out.
If one accepts the premise that there’s are many, many, many more well qualified applicants to Tulane than available spots, and that the school could literally reject the roughly 5,377 students they accepted and instead accept the next 5,377 and have virtually no drop off in the quality of students, then why on earth would Tulane follow any other course than to choose the people who are most excited to attend? Tulane has sky high rankings for happiest students, quality of life, best city, etc. Why would they jeopardize school spirit, which greatly impacts students’ experiences and campus morale, by taking equally qualified students who are more likely to start out lamenting that they did not get accepted elsewhere and then infect their fellow students with their negativity? In the end, Tulane is a wonderful, community service oriented, internationally focused institution in a diverse and amazingly unique city. There are many other schools that are amazing in their own ways. To all who feel disappointed, remember: Tulane did not reject you, it rejected your application. That says zero about your potential or your future unless you let it do so, which would be incredibly unfortunate. If you have stats that lead you to believe that you were undoubtedly academically qualified for Tulane, then there is no doubt you’ll be in another great school with your whole life ahead of you.
You can substitute virtually any other top school name in the above post (#27, @NJDad68) and ask the same question . But there are many variables that go into building a class and identifying who will likely attend. Enrollment management programs do their best to try to calculate who is likely to attend and what it will take to lure those they are cherry-picking to attend.
Have attended many, many college presentations that say virtually what was posted above-- that they could fill their class 3 fold with vals/sals, top 10%, perfect standardized test scores, etc.
I don’t understand why adults are calling the admissions process a “game”. It’s not a game - it’s a BUSINESS, and the smart admissions departments will know how to maximize the business goals of their employer. Tulane seems to be doing as good a job of it as anyone else, which to me makes it a far more attractive place to send my son. Being successful at managing the applicant pool just tells me that they are smart. And Tulane is the only school my son applied to that was genuine and honest about what they were dong and what the applicants could and should do to improve their chances.
Exactly, @BDHMom . Some seem to not understand how enrollment management works. Read this (Tulane used Royall &Co in the past, which is now owned by this company: https://www.eab.com/
Agree, we’re in January…that acceptance rate of 13% (which I question at this point) can only go up from here as RD applicants are admitted thru April, no?
Here are a whole lot of adults talking about playing the game, “forcing your hand,” etc. (See article and comments).
Call it what you want, but these colleges have a business strategy in place, and if you want to be admitted, you better understand and work within that framework, IMO. Whining about it is a waste of time.
ED is “a runaway train and its not going to stop,” says the CC admissions guy. Hmmm…
If schools are going to rely so heavily on ED, though, they should do a better job of dispelling the myth that only full-pay students should apply ED. If the net price calculator tells you a number you are comfortable with, ED can be a great option for all types of students.
@cst467 I agree that 13% number is strange, and the article is vague about what it represents. But Tulane will probably end up below 17% overall this year, from the sound of things…
@4kids4colleges I agree. My son applied ED to another school and we are not full pay. When we toured my son decided that ED was his only real shot at getting in so I spoke with the Director of Admissions. He told us that as long as we ran the NPC and were comfortable with that number, he should apply ED and he stressed that we could turn down the offer if it wasn’t feasible. In the end, he was admitted and the school not only met our need but it far surpassed what the NPC predicted (100% needs met school). Tulane was just the opposite and said in the info session we attended that if you weren’t prepared to pay full price you shouldn’t apply ED. Which I think is weird because they do meet so much financial aid. I think what they should say is if you need merit aid that you should not apply ED as there’s no way to predict merit. ED is really not a huge gamble if you need FA since you can back out if it doesn’t come out the way you need it to. I think more people should be aware of that.You can’t compare offers, of course, but if the number is one you’re comfortable with I think it makes sense.
@collegemom9 totally agree. Tulane needs to get its message straight on this. The conventional wisdom - the idea you should never apply ED if you need FA - is no longer true, at least at these 90-100% needs met schools. Our FA at Tulane also surpassed what its NPC predicted. For sure more people should know ED can be a good option even if you are not full pay.
I believe the 13% represents the total number of applicants who will be offered admission (accepted as opposed to denied) and they can know that number based on the number of applications that they have received, the number of slots they need to fill, and yield projections. They may not know specifically who will receive an offer of admission in the RD round yet. Last year the acceptances was 17% so if this year applications are up and yield is improving then that 13% number makes sense.
Tulane is not a meets 100% need school, so to encourage applicants who need FA in order to be able to attend to apply ED would be disingenuous. I am happy that it appeared to work out for several students in this thread though!
Tulane met 86% of need last year. They have an NPC that’s accurate. For people who utilize it ED can be a great way to go. And again ED is not binding if you don’t get the FA you need. If you’re ok with the NPC number I see nothing wrong with applying ED.
@collegemom9 For my D20, the issue will be would she get significant merit to make the college more in line with other college options. I doubt we would apply ED even if it was her #1 choice because too much uncertainty. 300K is a lot to pay for Tulane (as it is with most colleges).
The other issue is that it seems that in the future, Tulane is moving away from giving lots of merit to high stat kids and allocating that money to more need-based students. We will see…