TULANE TALK

May 10, 2013

Good Morning:

While most of the university is busy with finals or making preparations to honor our graduates at next week’s Commencement, our Office of Admission is working on the Class of 2017. And what a class it will be! Selected from more than 30,000 applications, the 1,575 members of the class of 2017 are the best of the best. In fact, the mean SAT score of these students and their high school class rankings are on par with the record-breaking first-year classes we have been welcoming in recent years.

The incoming class is also diverse, representing minority groups and communities from throughout the country. This includes students from the Posse Foundation, which recruits and prepares talented public high school students from New Orleans and other urban areas to attend highly selective universities like Tulane. And speaking of selectivity, this year we accepted only 26 percent of students who applied to Tulane. This is an area of great growth and pride for the university. For instance, in 2003 our acceptance rate was 55 percent; in 2000, it was 73 percent. Not only are our incoming students great scholars, they also excelled at public service during their high school years and are now excited to put civic engagement at the heart of their education. In other words, they are true Tulanians.

Students are willing to travel a long way for a Tulane education, too. The typical member of the class of 2017 will travel an average of 923 miles to attend Tulane. While the largest percentage of our new students continues to come from the Northeast, we are increasingly attracting more students from the country’s western regions. In fact, nearly 17 percent of our incoming class hail from the Mountain West or Pacific West. Attracting these intelligent, energetic and accomplished young people, many of whom stay to live and work in New Orleans after graduation, is one of Tulane’s many contributions to our hometown. In addition, spending by prospective students and their parents, who visit Tulane on their tour of the nation’s best schools, is equivalent to a major convention returning every year to New Orleans. Then again, almost 200 members of the new class won’t have to travel that far at all since they come from right here in Louisiana.

Now you know some of the facts about our new class. It will be August before you can meet them and learn more. I, for one, can’t wait.

Have a great weekend,