Five E-mails You Should Never Send

It's back- application season! I've been in Europe recruiting the class of 2022 and spreading the Tulane love around the world. I've been meeting some really great students, and I look forward to reading your applications. And sorry for such a delay since my last post- travel season is keeping me busy (more on that later!)

Speaking of things I look forward to reading, I read a lot of e-mails. A lot lot. Like, thousands a week. Which is great! I love hearing from you students with your questions, your interest in Tulane and your follow up e-mails. However, there are five kinds of e-mails I do not particularly enjoy getting. I thought it would be a great service to you, the applicant, and to me, the admission officers (and admission staff nationwide) to give you all a few tips on e-mails that you should not send, or at least be very wary on sending. So here is a list of 5 e-mails to not send to your admission officer. Hope this helps you all as you enter the application process. Selfishly, I know it will help me!

1) Take the time to communicate effectively with your admission counselor. I know it seems like a no brainier, but "i" is a lot different from "I". When e-mailing with your admission counselor, take the time to write thoughtful, error-free messages. I suggest sitting down at a computer to do these. Don't treat these like text messages. Also, here's a tip: always start your e-mail with an admission staff member with "Dear Mr. or Ms. so-n-so." Then, see how they reply. I'll reply with "Sincerely, Jeff" and that's your hint that it's cool to address me as Jeff. Always take the lead from the admission rep for how formally they want to be addressed. I like to keep it casual, others may be more formal.

2) This hasn't been as much of a problem in recent years, but please do create a professional e-mail address to communicate with colleges. Where this comes more into play is your social media presence. Be careful with your Tweets, Snaps and Instas. I honestly don't check them (we don't have the time to!) but if at some point, maybe I want to quickly refresh my memory as to what you look like (was she that student I met a few months ago in LA?) and if I search you and you come up in bikini with a Bud Light, well that doesn't look so good to admission staff. Remember, all it takes someone else pressing two buttons and a screenshot is sent to me of you doing something dumb. This happens every single year. It's pretty simple- be a good person on social media (and in life, too.) Just be smart, compassionate and good to each other. Think that this would never happen to you? I bet those Harvard students from last year thought the same thing.

3) I really do love replying to your e-mails. I mean it. But it gets hard when we get very vague or broad questions that become difficult to type out responses to. For questions that are not really easy to find out by reading our website, there's nothing wrong with picking up the phone and giving us a call to chat. Or logging on line and chatting live with our students, which we have every day! You can attend a regional reception, attend a high school visit if we are at your school, or visit campus. You should definitely have these kinds of questions, but since we do get such a high volume of e-mails, don't feel the need to e-mail an admission rep just for the sake of e-mailing us. We don't count the number of times you e-mail us; don't feel like you should feel pressured to reach out with a question unless you genuinely have one.

4) Oh man. Okay, great questions. Really! But again, see above on this one. For the most part, you can get the answer to every single one of these questions on our website. We want you to ask us questions, but we also expect that you do your own research as well. There is so much information out there on Tulane, and on school sites in general- use it! When you list out 24 questions on an e-mail to me, it just is not the best use of our time.

5) I get an e-mail like this every single week, without fail. Don't cut and paste! We can tell! Especially when just the name and school are different. Take the time to send individual e-mails to each school, even if they say the same thing. We want to know you have taken the time to contact us personally with your questions, especially if you are expressing your interest in our school.

All of the e-mails above are recreations of e-mails we get every week. So don't worry, all of the above are fabricated e-mails I made. But they represent real e-mail situations that happen all the time. I want to make sure you put your best foot forward when you apply, and I also want to make the very hectic and very busy lives of college admission staff members a little bit easier. I'm never one to only look on the negative side and tell you what not to do, so here are my tips for great questions to ask!


Hope this helps. E-mail me if you have any questions about it! (Seriously!)

The Optional Statement

One question I frequently get is, "I noticed that you have an optional essay titled, 'why are you applying to Tulane?' do you suggest I complete it?" The answer is always a resounding YES!

Ah, the "why are you applying" question, a.k.a.: the optional statement. You'll notice a growing number of colleges and universities are now including this as a part of their application. As students apply to more and more schools, it becomes more difficult for us as admission officers to gauge a student's level of interest in our school. The optional statement is a perfect time for you, the applicant, to express to me, the application reader, why you are selecting us as one of your potential schools. So is it worth it to take the time to fill out that question? Let's just go through a (very hypothetical) situation. My boss, Satya, tells me, "Jeff, we have one more spot left in the class of 2022. You can only pick one more student." I come back to my office and notice I have two applicants left to read. They are identical in terms of grades, scores, extracurricular activities, and both have glowing recommendations. One took the time to write an entertaining, engaging, and smart essay about why Tulane is the perfect fit for her, her passion for studying public health, and her love of BBQ Shrimp from Pascal's Manale. The other student? Well, she didn't write anything—at all. The decision for me? An easy one.

Now, we'd never get to a point where I can only select one final student from two. But, you get the idea. So... now that the question has been addressed, you might be thinking: "what makes a great optional statement?" Let's check out four great ways to write a killer optional statement for any school that you may be applying to.

1) Tell a specific story. The more specific you can be about the school you are applying to, the better. We can see right though the generic answers, so be specific. Tell me about your tour guide (if you've visited), what food you ate in New Orleans, what resonated with you when you attended the info session in your hometown. I remember vividly how one student last year told me about how her tour guide seemed so smart, but laid back and even mentioned how she loved the green sundress the guide was wearing: "she struck me as someone who had the perfect work/life balance." I liked that. I like hearing specific stories about your research on Tulane. The optional statement is an opportunity for you to show your interest in the school, so even if you aren't able to visit, be specific about why you are applying. We know New Orleans is a great college town and an amazing place to live. I want hear, why YOU want to live here, what attracts you to New Orleans culture, and how those facets factor into your decision to apply. Remember how your college counselor tells you to "show rather than tell" in your essay? Make sure to do that in your optional statement. I want to read a narrative about riding the streetcar or the conversation you had at that crowded college fair with the Tulane rep.

2) Holler at your hookups. Did your cousin go to Tulane and love it? Did your 9th grade history teacher tell you about his experiences as a masters student here? Do you love following that senior from last year on Snapchat and seeing all her cool shots of New Orleans? Tell us! And tell us who! Feel free to name drop people who turned you on to Tulane, especially if they are current students. Many of us recruit from the same region each year, so it's cool to see who is helping us in the recruitment effort. Our current students and alumni are your best sources of research on our school, so use them and tell us you did.

3) It's not a 'Why College?' statement. As in, if I can read it and replace "Tulane" with "USC" or "Vandy" or "Miami," then it will not come across as genuine. Avoid generic essays here at all costs. We know we are medium-sized and are well respected. Delve deeper; we read thousands of these and can easily tell when it's an essay that's going out to all the schools you applied to (see point two above for tips on doing this). Horror story: last year I got an optional statement that actually said [insert school] where "Tulane" should have been. Yikes.

4) It should not be all about you. Sometimes, we'll get an optional statement that is all about the applicant. It will be a description of a great service project they did or a sport they love to play, and then the last line of the essay will be "and I want to keep doing this at Tulane." You've got the whole rest of the application to talk about yourself, so instead, use this section to speak more on the connection between you and the school. Why is is a great match? Why are you a great fit? It's okay to draw on some of your own experiences, but you should only mention them in context of the school.

Hope this helps when you're completing optional statements. Happy applying!