Early Decision applicants to Tulane University received their decisions back on November 22nd. The New Orleans, Louisiana-based institution’s Early Decision admits are expected to fill between 55-58% of the incoming Class of 2026. Early Action applicants to Tulane will first learn of their decisions on December 20th at 5 PM ET but we have early word of Tulane’s Early Action pool — and the word is interesting. Tulane will be admitting a record-low 10% of Early Action applicants to the Class of 2026. In fact, the university will be admitting an astounding 1,650 fewer Early Action applicants. And why? Because of over-enrollment last year.

As Tulane’s admissions office writes on its blog, “Due to the fact that Tulane over-enrolled last year and saw a twenty-five percent increase in the percentage of students accepting the offer of admission over the previous year, Tulane will be admitting a jaw-dropping 1,650 fewer Early Action (EA) applicants this year. This will speed up a trend of EA at Tulane becoming hyper-selective, especially relative to how the admissions plan used to be at Tulane prior to Tulane bringing back ED a few years ago. As a result, Tulane anticipates marginally more offers of admission for deferred students and Regular Decision applicants than in the past. The overall admission rate for Early Action applicants is just ten percent, which is half the EA admission rate in 2017. Overall, Tulane is planning for its Class of 2026 freshman class to be roughly 1,750 students. Forty-six percent of Tulane’s Early Action admitted students for the Class of 2026 identify as BIPOC, which is a 70% increase, over twenty-seven percent of students who identified as such in 2017.”

In light of this data, we would not be the least surprised to see Tulane significantly climb in the US News & World Report rankings next year. Good luck to all Tulane Early Action applicants and congratulations to all of Ivy Coach’s Early Decision applicants to Tulane. You all got in. We’re so proud of you!