Hot Fun in the Summer Time

Summer has arrived here in New Orleans- and with it comes high temperatures and the high expectations of our incoming first year students as they arrive on campus for our Summer Orientation session. Over 1,100 of our 1,500 incoming students will attend one of the seven orientation session. Its a great time to come to campus, familiarize yourself with the city, meet new friends and even register for class. The class of 2013 appears to be diving right in and really enjoying the 2-day sessions, which run this entire month. The students we interviewed in this video really seem to be taking a lot out of the session. Don't worry if you can't make it, all of this stuff will also be covered at the fall Welcome Week.

If you make it to New Orleans this summer for orientation or just to visit our city, be sure to dress for some hot temps- its been really up there this past week! But don't let that stop you from taking advantage of some of the amazing things going on this summer in NOLA. Festival season is in full swing and there are all kinds of free concerts and such. I stumbled across this article about being a tourist in my own town from nola.com, and took this weekend to cross the first one off the list.
The Algiers ferry runs from downtown New Orleans across the river to Algiers point. My friends and I grabbed our bikes and rode them downtown to catch the free ferry and take in the views of the city (see above). We noshed on some po-boys in Algiers Point, the only part of the city that is on the other side of the city, or as we call it, the West Bank. (or as West-Bankers call it, the Best Bank...) It never ceases to amaze me how much there really is to do in this city. I have lived here for 8 years and still find new cool stuff to do every single day. Below are Megan and Brad on the ferry and then Brad and I as we digest our extra large lunch and cruise on over the Mississippi River.

So come on down and see what you can check off your New Orleans "to-do" list. Oh, and stay cool this summer!

Commen Cement Ceremony

Man what a weekend that was! Now I know that every school has a great Commencement Weekend, but I gotta tell you, I really feel that Tulane does it the best. I think we really do. Ask anyone who has ever been to a Tulane graduation and they will tell you the same thing. I know that sounds pretty bias, but how can I not be when we graduated our 2009 Katrina class this past weekend? The group of graduates, all 2,000 of them, were students who started their experience at Tulane with "evacuate" as the first thing on their orientation schedule. After attending 522 different colleges and universities in the fall, nearly 90% of them came back and four years later, here they are on our graduation stage.

And what a stage it was! Second line parades, brass bands, jazz bands, music, dancing, Harry Connick Jr, and of course, Ellen! If you haven't had a chance to check out Ellen's graduation speech, do your self a favor and do that. Right now. Go head, I'll wait.

Pretty good, huh? It was all the buzz this past week, it seems Ellen's speech was the favorite of many critics on the Commencement Circuit this year. Graduation this year was also filled with many other cool surprises. Check out this video on Why We Came Back, with some very special celebrity appearances at the end.

Tulane's graduation is a whole weekend ordeal. We start with a great big party called Wave Goodbye on the academic quad. It brings tons of live music and food to our campus and is one big celebration of the class of 2009. Check out the video here.

But where to now? After all, as Ellen said, the economy is so robust, there must be plenty of jobs out there these days. Well, if you live here in New Orleans, that is actually the truth! A large portion of the class of 2009 has chosen to stay here in NOLA, in large part due to the strong economy that we are currently experiencing. You can read all about it in this article from the Chicago Tribune. Nearly 10% of the class of 2009 applied for Teach for America, and over 50 of them are staying here in NOLA as part of New Orleans Teach for America. Still worried about finding a job? Ready to head to NYC, DC or LA after college? Don't worry, the Tulane Career Center is here to help! Check out the story here.

Sorry for posting all those links, its just been such a busy time here on campus and we are so proud of our class of 2009, the Katrina Class, President Cowen's favorite class, and the class that came back. I leave you with some great pictures of this past week here at Tulane. It really was a weekend to remember!

My lovely ladies from the AEPhi sorority toss their caps out front of Tulane's campus.
NFL player Matt Forte from the Chicago Bears got his degree too! Congrats Matt!
Wave Goodbye party on campus. So fun!

My Sig Ep guys on graduation night. Congrats guys!


And congrats to all of you high school graduates as well, I look forward to seeing you all on campus in a few short months. And in for quick years, it will be you in the pictures above! Haha, I suppose I am getting ahead of myself. I hope everyone has a great commencement in their own right. And for the class of 2009, just remember what Ellen said:


Life is like one big Mardi Gras. But instead of showing your boobs, show people your brain. And if they like what they see, you'll have more beads than you know what to do with.


Congrats 2009!

Welcome Class of 2013

May 1st has come and gone! That means that colleges and universities across the country are tallying their final totals and have a good grasp on what their incoming class will look like. We here at Tulane could not be happier with the class of 2013. Our target was 1,500 first year students, and as of today we are at 1534, so we are right over our goal. This number will go up and down over the next few months as we enroll a few more of our student athletes or lose some students to wait lists at other schools or students who choose to take a gap year. Overall, this class is what I would call the bomb. Here is a little snapshot:

The class of 2013...

- Represents 49 different states. (Come on Vermont! What's the deal?)

- Is 56.8% female, 43.2% male

- Has 22 international students

- Lists Cell and Molecular Biology, International Relations and Psychology as the three most popular majors
- Has students in the top five most represented states from:

Louisiana: 202 students
New York: 163 students
Texas: 100 students
Illinois: 95 students
California: 95 student

I can't wait to have them on campus this fall. Welcome to the class of 2013!

May 1st is a big day for us here in admission. But its also something else here in New Orleans... Jazz Fest! I leave you with a few shots from the fest. This year was amazing- Bon Jovi, Spoon, Kings of Leon, Dave Matthews, etc etc. What a great way to relax after a crazy year of recruiting! Enjoy the pics.

Crawfest 2009!

Oh man if you were on campus this past weekend you would have been in for a treat! This Saturday was our 3rd annual Crawfest on campus! It brought local and nationally known musical artists, food, arts and crafts and 16,000 pounds of Louisiana crawfish! Needless to say it was awesome. One of the coolest things about Crawfest is that it is totally student planned, organized and invented. Three years ago , two Tulane students thought the fest would be a great idea and be somewhat of a Tulane version of Jazzfest, and the concept was born. Since then the event has grown into one of the largest annual traditions on our campus. Nearly the entire student body was in attendance at this free event which was also open to the New Orleans community. That's one of the best things about Tulane- if you have an idea for an event, club, organization, or really anything at all- it can happen!

Hope to see you all on campus for Crawfest 2010! Enjoy the pics...

This is what part of 16,000 pounds of crawfish looks like...

That's me on the left in my sweet 2008 Team USA Olympic Chris Paul jersey (Go Hornets!) and a few of my friends chillin out at the 'Fest.

Spring has Sprung

Happy Spring All! While New Orleans tends to have balmy weather all year round, spring really is the best time of the year here in the Big Easy. We have beautiful weather and the whole city is in bloom. Here are some pictures of the campus in full bloom. Check out these pictures!



Spring is also a great time to come down to visit campus! If you haven't been down yet, we have plenty of opportunities for high schools students and their parents to visit campus. We offer daily tours at 9 am and 2 pm every week day and most Saturdays. For you admitted seniors out there, I highly recommend you make it into town for a Destination Tulane day. We have them the entire month of April during the week (except Wednesdays) as well as on Saturday the 4th and 18th of April. You can sign up for a day on the Admitted Student Website. We hope to see you down here on campus soon.

I have also added some cool stuff to the website to check out while you are in town as well as where to stay and eat.

We hope to see you down on campus soon. If you want any restaurant or hotel recommendations from a seasoned New Orleans pro, just give me a holler at jschiffm@tulane.edu.

I've been... Waitlisted?

So you just got the wait list e-mail. Now what? What does this even mean? I’ll do my best to explain this all to you waitlisted students out there. Every year we have a group of students who towards the end of the admission cycle, we know are qualified to admit, but we are not sure if we will have room in the class to actually admit them. These students are placed on the waitlist. We work with a waitlist ever year. Here are some FAQs I get a lot regarding the waitlist...

1) How many students will get in from the wait list?

It all depends. Some years we are able to offer admission to a few hundred students from the waitlist. Some years it’s almost no one. It all depends on the year and the size of the class.

2) So how do you decide how many students to admit off the waitlist?

What it will come down to is how many students accept our offer of admission. If we have a large group of students who have already been admitted who say yes, then we will not be able to admit as many students off of the waitlist. However if we have fewer students say yes they will enroll, we will have room to admit a number of students off of our waitlist.

3) Will you go to the wait list this year?

We will know more as we get closer to May 1st. With the economy the way it is, we have no idea if our numbers are going to be up or down. Only time will tell, but we will let you know as soon as we know. You want to know my honest opinion? I think that there is a very good chance that we will be able to admit a sizeable group from the waitlist. Don’t hold me to that though!

4) Is there financial aid available if I am admitted from the wait list?

We will offer the regular need-based aid to students who are admitted off the waitlist as need-based aid is done regardless of how or when you are admitted. We may also offer some merit aid to students who are admitted from the waitlist. It will be less than those who were admitted in the earlier rounds, but we may still be offering some merit aid to students.

5) Is there anything I can do?

Well as you know, it is a numbers game at this point, so most of this is out of your control. But if you are super interested in Tulane and we are your top choice, contact your admission counselor and let them know! Interest in Tulane will play a small part in the waitlist, so definitely its worth it just to shoot your admission counselor an e-mail and let him or her know that you are very enthusiastic about Tulane. You can contact your admission counselor here.

Let us know if you have any other questions at all. Good luck guys!

Reading Season!

Hello loyal readers-
You may wonder why I haven't posted in a month! Its because I have been reading. A lot. We here in the Admission Office at Tulane, and at other colleges and universities across the nation, have been spending the last few months reading your essays, recommendations, resumes, transcripts, etc to shape our incoming class and decide who will get that coveted "big envelope" in the mail.

Its been a big year for us here at Tulane. We are a few applications shy of hitting the 40,000 mark in terms of total number of students who have applied for admission at Tulane. We are thrilled to see this big increase over last years 33,000 applications, which was a record in itself. When all is said and done, we will admit roughly 10,000 students for our class of 1,550-1,600 students. This means that only 25% of the students who have applied will be admitted this year. Its been our best year yet- highest average SAT, ACT, GPA, rank in class, the whole deal. We here at Tulane are excited to see such a strong interest in our institution and are pretty pumped to see how the class of 2013 shapes up. Check out this article in the New Wave for more info.

For some of you all out there, this big increase in applications may not be a blessing. Because of this large applicant pool, Tulane will be waitlisting a group of students. What this means is that we are not able to make a final decision on some of our applicants at this time, so we create a waitlist from which we hope to be able to admit students off of in the spring. Some years, we offer admission to a large group of students from the waitlist, some years its very few. It all depends on how many students who have been admitted decide to enroll. So if a bigger percentage of our students say "yes, see you this fall," this means we will admit fewer students from the wait list. But if a lower number say yes, we will be able to admit a greater number of that wait listed pool. Only time will tell, so for those of you out there, its a bit of a waiting game. Tell you the truth, with the economy the way it is, we really have no idea what to expect. We will know more in the end of April and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. In the meantime, get in touch with your admission counselor, send in a resume, send us your mid year report, and really feel free to do anything that you think may supplement or ameliorate your application. Best of luck guys!

So with reading season dying down, we should have all of our letters mailed out in the next few weeks. Contact us with any questions you may have. We are gearing up for Mardi Gras here in New Orleans, more info to come on that soon!

Okay, and i have to admit, I haven't been reading applications the WHOLE time. I did take a little ski vacation up to Whistler in BC Canada with my 3 best friends from Tulane last weekend. Enjoy the pics!

Happy Mardi Gras!!