Anyone hear from financial aid?
@MDmom2018 Thank you so much! When I was hit with the Tulane deferral I thought I had absolutely no chance at UNC. Looks like things just turn out for the best sometimes.
Was deferred EA back in December, but I got an email this morning telling me to check my portal, and I found out just now that I was acccepted. Has anyone else who was deferred found out their decision?
My D received an email today that she was not selected for Paul Tulane scholarship but due to the “strength” of her application her merit award was increased from $25k to $26k/per year. Kind of odd to make such a small increase, really just a drop in the bucket when the COA is $65k
@Veronica02 Have you seen the 2018-19 fee schedule? It’s even more than $65k now.
@Cre8tive1234 Hilarious, I totally agree. Obviously Tulane was flooded with early applications and I heard they over enrolled in past years so took less this year, but turning down very qualified apps while giving big scholarships to lower stat kids only makes them look bad and will hurt them in coming years. Good luck at Vandy!
I’m not sure it’s likely that every deferral was because a student didn’t show sufficient interest and every admitted student visited campus, etc. By all accounts Tulane has been swamped with applicants just like all top schools and makes judgement calls just like all the rest. Not saying “interest” isn’t relevant but it can’t be the be all and end all in every case.
S did not get the PT full tuition scholarship today. I think the letter said 3000 applied and if I recall, only about one hundred or so (might be 50) got the award.Nothing was added to an already generous Distinguished Scholar award. Not likely to attend, so there’s a space opening up for someone who was deferred.
Did you all receive letters in the mail saying you didn’t get PT, or was there a change on the portal? I’m a RD applicant
(deferred EA) and there’s no change on my portal either way…
Edit: Just kidding, just clicked on the wrong part of my portal. Did not receive PT. Still going to wait to see if I get in RD, but I’m assuming even if I’m accepted that will take Tulane out of the running for me since I’m expecting little/no merit aid.
@EDHDAD - Thanks for pointing that out. Unless the DHS comes through, Tulane doesn’t make financial sense for us, Distinguished Scholars wasn’t enough to bridge the gap. Like @nomorelurker, a spot is likely to open up here as well.
@Veronica02 We like Tulane and the scholarship they gave our son enough to merit a visit for one of the honors weekends. But they are competing against slightly less selective schools that are net price $10k-$20k per year cheaper.
Interesting. My D got in EA to Tulane w/15K/yr in merit, deferred at BC UWisc and Michigan. ACT 32, 3.4GPA and a few AP’s in a Northeastern prep school…very good essays and fairly strong resume…we are happy she got in but yet pulling for those who really want to go. it all works out keep the faith. Apparently Tulane was extremely hot school this year.
@EDHDAD - In our case, Tulane is competing against our two top publics which are more highly-ranked, and looking less expensive. D is competitive for both, so fingers crossed. Her stats are high - top 1% with strong resume and ECs. Applying to Tulane was a deliberate choice since they have the reputation for generous merit and she’d be in contention for the full scholis. Now that she’s out of the running for PT, DHS would have to come through for us to travel to honors weekend. If DHS is a no, then we wait for our in-states which would be a better fit for D, academically, culturally and financially. And it would be nice to keep her on the west coast ;
@Veronica02 We are considering some public schools as well. It can be hard to ignore the costs. As far as schools being higher ranked, remember that a huge portion of a school’s ranking comes from the number of applications and the resulting accepted students stats. Because public schools are generally a lot cheaper they generate more applications, especially if located in a highly populated area. Tulane will never have the ranking of a school like Cal Berkeley or UCLA(two schools from our neck of the woods)because it will never compete with them on price, and it because New Orleans doesn’t have one tenth of the potential student base from the local population that those schools do. So even though public schools and private schools compete on the same US News lists, it’s really like comparing apples to oranges. I guess my point is that it’s easy to gloss over the advantages of a private university education, but there is a reason that the publics are less money. Name one government run entity that runs better than a comparable private one. DMV? US Postal Service? VA Heathcare?
“northwesty- MY first choice was Tulane, but I don’t date someone who tells me they will only go out with me if someone else isn’t interested in them. I want to also be a schools “first choice!” So if Tulane doesn’t want me. I will find someplace else to go!. My Dad had me apply to Vandy - I guess he was right along. Hopefully they will take me- because just because I had one bad relationship doesn’t mean I don’t deserve to be happy.”
@Cre8tive1234 – Good luck with Vandy – a totally awesome school that has lots of cross-applicants with Tulane.
You realize, though, that Vandy has its own “relationship” foibles? Vandy fills half of its seats via binding early decision, which means the odds of getting in RD are much longer than ED. Essentially, Vandy is telling you “We both know I’m hot. So don’t even ask me out unless you agree to marry me before we even have a first date.”
I think you misunderstand Tulane. They didn’t tell you they thought they were better than you. Think Tulane was telling you something more like this “1234 – you are probably out of my league. So to keep from getting hurt, I don’t want to date you until I figure out whether you are just going to dump me for a cuter school (like Vandy who thinks they are all that). Because, you know, that happens to me a lot. Like 79% of the time actually…”
Crea8tive1234, I had a choice between Vanderbilt and Tulane when I was your age, and my father, who was a Vanderbilt Professor, wisely pushed me towards Tulane! They are completely different types of schools in totally different types of cities. If you love Tulane then it is worth the wait. My son was just deferred from his dream school, but he is not comparing this situation to an amorous rejection!?! Be mature, and hold steady to achieve what you want. Send Tulane a letter reassuring them that they are your dream school, and that no other school will do for you!
@northwesty I love analogies, and that one was hilarious!
@EDHDAD - I’m not referring to acceptance rate, I’m referring to their overall ranking. Acceptance rate is only one factor of many including graduation rate, academic reputation, etc depending on the list. Some even consider graduate’s debt load, student satisfaction and post-graduate success factors. The handful of reputable lists we’re looking at consider far more than acceptance rate.
@Veronica02 The easiest way to be disappointed in a school choice is to pick based on rankings. There are some very highly ranked schools that I would never want my kids to attend. I use the example of Cal Berkeley because it’s close to my home. It’s a school where the average lower division science class has over 1,000 kids in it and most are taught by graduate students. Cal is so overcrowded that a lot of students are literally having to commute an hour to school because they cannot find housing on campus or anywhere close. It is continually having it’s funding cut and being told to add more students but no more teachers or buildings. Yet there it sits towards the very top of most rankings that I have seen. When your child goes to school do you want them to be treated the way you get treated when you go to a nice restaurant, or the way you treated the way you get treated at a fast food restaurant? You can find plenty of five star reviews for fast food restaurants because people are rating the food as being great given the low cost.
We had a similar conversation with our daughter. Although for our state (Fla) there is really only one (UF) she would have considered. Miami is private and similar in cost - my daughter might have received a little higher merit package at UM. In the end, we are fortunate to be able to afford Tulane and it was the best fit. They have really been outstanding in their communication since her acceptance and we already feel like it will be well run. The one thing I think we have learned from this process is that there are plenty of great schools - some are a great fit for both the student and the school. We chose Tulane because of class size and my daughter loved the campus and their approach to academic flexibility. When they offered honors and a nice merit package (although we had hoped for more) she was beyond excited. School and class size were HUGE issues for her and we felt worth the cost to help her be successful.