Don't get fooled by low EA admit rates for some schools like Tulane!
This article appeared in my feed today and I was taken a back that Tulane's EA admit rate has dropped to 10%. That is 2 to 3 times lower than last year early rates at school like Williams, Amherst, NotreDame, Emory, Dartmouth, BU, BC, UNC, UVA, Vanderbilt. So what's going on? I think this clearly shows to me that the admissions office at any Private College can use ED to fill 60% of their Freshman class, immediately boosting their yield rate because 100% of ED applicants will attend the school. So even if RD and EA admits only have a yield rate of 30%, their overall yield still look good. So lets say 1200 were admitted ED and 60% of the Freshman class was filled, that means that Tulane only need to fill 800 seats for EA and RD. So lets say they get 2000 apps for EA and only accept 10% or 200. Then the only need 600 for RD. But if they get 40000 applications like last year, they only need to accept 2000 at 30% yield for RD. This pushes their RD acceptance rate down to 5%. On par with Ivys and Elite colleges. But is #42 ranked Tulane with a sub 10% (prolly 9% this year) admit rate as good as JHU, RICE, CMU and the other schools I mentioned. I don't think so. While it's a good school, I think its on par with Syracuse U. which has a 50% admit rate.
https://admissions.blog/tulane-early-action-admit-rate-plummets-to-10/
There is no statistical comparison that you can make that would put Syracuse in the same league or level of difficulty of Tulane, UMich, BC, NE or UVA…It is a “Likely” aka “Safety” school for those admitted to the aforementioned. But keep trying!
@CameronBameron. As a parent with a child who is attending Tulane this year, I would suggest you take a look at the stats of the 2026 class when they are released. Having seen the admissions in action this year and over the past few years, Tulane is really trying to up the academic level of its incoming classes. I know multiple applicants from this cycle and Tulane seemed to only offer EA to students with exceptional grades (4.0) or exceptional qualities AND submitted test scores- and those test scores were 1450 plus SAT or 32/33 plus ACT. The EDs who were accepted also had high grades and high levels of student involvement. This is reflected in an overall ED acceptance rate of still only around 25 percent. I do agree that they really want the applicants to come and do not hide it. It's in the application and in every admissions presentation and blog.
While I agree Tulane is not yet Williams or the Ivies, its level of students are at least equal to UVA, Michigan, BC and Northeastern but not Syracuse, which is still an excellent school but is definitely accepting students that did not and/or would not get into Tulane.
Finally, ED seems to be a growing trend. I would guess that at least 1/3 of my daughter's class applied and was admitted to their colleges ED.
I beg to disagree because a few programs are actually more rigorous and harder to get into at Syracuse than Tulane such as the School of Architecture and the Newhouse School of Communications. Admit rates for the SOA are less than 10% and it remains a top 5 program in the US according to Architectural Record. If Tulane is the equivalent to UVA #25, Michigan#23, BC #36 it wouldn't be ranked #42. NEastern, I agree is closer to Tulane at #49. I think that is why the Tulane Chief Marketing Officer started at NEastern this year to repeat some of the same marketing strategies. I'm happy you have a smart kid in a good school but my main point is that there is market manipulation and admit rates of 7% or 10% don't mean that much when UVA, BC and UMich are closer to 20% admit rates and better schools. The simple fact is that if you have FREE application fee like Tulane and NEastern, you get 50% more applications than schools charging $60-$85 to apply. This has a profound effect on admit rates. Secondly, if the school historically had extremely low yield rates, like 25%-30% and then all of a sudden it jumps to 33%-38% that has a profound effect on how many admits can be accepted into the next freshman class. NEastern and BU both had an uptick in yields last year and that's directly related to their low admit rates. If you look at the TimesHigerEducation/WallStJournal world rankings then Tulane is in the 400-500 bracket, while UMich is 24, Syracuse 351-400, NorthEastern 168, UVA 251-300, Boston College 62. These are not HS students but professional opinions so I'm siding with them.
It is MUCH easier to get into Syracuse than Tulane. Literally a fall back option. You can babble all you want, your idea of better school based on "ratings" by magazine writers, vs educators is interesting. How to you measure better? I measure it in pass through to graduation rates and starting salaries of graduates. I literally could do this all day. My questions are rhetorical, if you know what that means.....
@Bella619 and @CameronBameron, who could blame these colleges for wanting to fill their classes with EDs admissions who can pay the full tuition. Unfortunately, elite private universities now cost over $80k a year. That's a huge price tag that is beyond the reach of many families. I read that Penn and Barnard each took over 50 percent of their students through ED this year. College costs are out of control.
How is Tulane closer to NE than it is to BC? lmao
Flawed analogy - College Rankings are a mere play on stats supplied by the very institutions vying for the top spot. A Columbia U mathematician debunked that in a recent article. Acceptance rates across the board include either ED1/ED2/EA or all of them. They all strive for yield but given the current climate, some do a better job in managing their intake. A comparison to Syracuse reveals how little research you’ve done. The caliber of student, along with their resumes at Tulane, is clearly no comparison to Syracuse. Smaller school, higher test scores for those submitted along with elevated GPAs points to a very different student body. Post-college results and sheer numbers of qualified applicants that Tulane processes makes it much more selective than the Syracuse numbers.
Actually Syracuse grads earn more early career on average and mid-late career the difference is $5,900 which is only $500 a month. Don't you have anything better to do that troll HS students for 4 month old post without any back up? Get a life.
You can do whatever math you want. Here are the facts, for the class of 2025 Tulane received over 45,000 applications and admitted less than 10%. They then had more acceptances than planned and ended up with a class larger than they really wanted. Tulane undergraduate enrollment is less than half the size of Syracuse. You're comparing apples to oranges because Syracuse had to offer more students admission to fill their freshman class, which is more than twice the size of Tulane's. So whatever Tulane does with EA or even ED, at the end of the day if they received 45k applications and offered admission to less than 10%, then that's their admit rate. Period.
No one is disputing the 10% rate. Just pointing out that how they got there was through a series of strategic multiple ED and EA rounds that were designed to lower admit rates and improve yield rates.
Like pretty much every private school in the country. They don't get to a lower admit rate by anything you've said. Their overall admit rate is the number of students offered admission (ED, EA and Reg) divided by the total number of applications received. While the numbers in ED and EA can vary with maneuvers (which all schools do because athletes on scholarships are included in those numbers), the discussion moves beyond just an analysis of EA to an overall comment that their admission is more akin to Syracuse. Nothing could be further than the truth. Tulane's class of 2025 admission rate was less than 10%. Syracuse was close to 60%. Apple meet orange.
In addition, Syracuse offers ED and EA. Those offerings do a better job of filling the number of slots for a starting class and reduce the number of regular decision offers where those students might not come. That said, you don't think Syracuse is offering about the same percentage of their class ED and EA? For Tulane, they fill about 60% of their class that way. Having a bunch of offers to students that might not come is stupid. Look at UC Santa Barbara and it's complete disaster of housing because they had a much higher number of students accept offers than historical for their class of 2025. Now it's a literal disaster with students living in cars.
Any University that can't manage it's admissions so there isn't a housing crisis isn't worth going to.
@Bella619 but Syracuse does not have an Early Action program. You have missed my main point which is that Tulane indeed has a 10% admit rate but it pales in comparison to the quality of other 10% schools like Emory, WashU, Rice, ND, UCLA, UCB, GTown which are all ranked #14-22. #42 Tulane shares the same drawer as Brandeis, UofGeorgia, Univ.of Illinois and nearby ranked Syracuse that all have acceptance rates of 40-60%. My main point is that a low admit rate doesn't equate to a better school. Otherwise Tulane would be amongst schools that have better academics, prestige, and reputation alongside other attributes that define what a better college is. A smart marketer can manipulate admit rates faster than rankings.
Pretty subjective if you to then equate quality with those with a more historical lie admit rate. Maybe you should do real research on schools whose graduates make more money and are more successful. You've got a lot of opinions that aren't based on real facts.
@Bella619 its time to get off the soapbox
That's laughable. Look in the mirror! But anyone who thinks Syracuse is a supervisor school would get their panties in a bunch when proven otherwise.
Hey starting average salaries Syracuse: $64k vs Tulane $75k but hey keep coming with your baseless opinions then tell me to get off a soap box. LOL
2021 Tulane grads made an average of $60K. The $75K number you quote is is the average salary of paid staff at Tulane, not Tulane grads in the most recent graduating class.
Actually NO - you're wrong. I'm quoting average salaries AFTER 10 YEARs. Collegesimply.com
It's okay that you didn't get into Tulane; I'm sure you'll do good somewhere else.
Sad comeback. I go to the #2 college.
Hello - are you referring to me? I am 54 and retired at the age of 42 after a career with a Big 4 Firm in mergers and acquisitions. I'm very well versed in the college application process and am disputing the misleading comments is all - but hey, keep it coming. And I've got a kid at Georgetown - so yeah, I know what I'm talking about.
I'm not referring to you I'm talking to the original comment.
Yea, I'm sure you do💀. I think it's funny that everyone that got denied/waitlisted from Tulane is hating on the school in this thread because they're mad they couldn't get in😹
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