<p>Is there any advantage or disadvantage in the admissions process if you're not Catholic? Will they favor the Catholic applicants over the non-Catholic applicants?</p>
<p>it helps a little. they ARE a catholic university, so they do want the majority of the students to be catholic. but if you're a good candidate, they'll probably accept you. if the religion question really does bother you, just select "prefer not to answer."</p>
<p>It is demographic information, it is not included AT ALL in your admissions decision.</p>
<p>Not whatsoever. It's not allowed to affect their decision. If you've dedicated lots of time to Catholic activities and whatnot they will probably appreciate your level of spirituality and see it as a good EC, but admissions are looking for diversity and giving Catholics a favorable chance would negate that.</p>
<p>This appears to be another case where someone types the answer they "assume" is right. CitricAcid and justbumming nailed it, there is no advantage, it just happens to be that most of the applicants are Catholic.</p>
<p>Thanks for the responses everyone!</p>
<p>"Not whatsoever. It's not allowed to affect their decision."</p>
<p>Not exactly. Notre Dame may well choose not to consider religious affiliation in admissions decisions, but as a religious university it is NOT legally prohibited from taking religion into account.</p>
<p>they may give preference... they may not.. we can't be 100% sure... if your grades are good, your tests high, your recs good, your essays good.. then you shouldn't have a problem because of your religion.. it isn't ethically right to discriminate based on religion, and the admissions people probably know that.. they read through so many applications each day.. they probably aren't going to put too much thought into the religion or not.. heck, by the end of the application, they may have forgotten what religion you are in the first place (if you choose to answer that on the application).. but they're reading all sorts of information, they can probably care less if your catholic or not.. don't worry about it too much</p>
<p>Oh ok claremarie, point taken. One of my parents is in the admissions business, but not at a religious school. My bad! I agree though, even if they can, I doubt they do.</p>
<p>you guys actually have it wrong- i know for a fact that ND admissions is pressured into having around 80% of its incoming class catholic. A few years ago it was lower around 70s and the board was on their ass about getting a higher percentage of catholics.</p>
<p>Okay, I'm going to jump in. My advice, based on our student's 2005 EA ADMISSION and not being Catholic, is to apply and don't let the fact that you may not be Catholic prohibit your applying. Notre Dame is a fabulous academic institution and yes, it is Catholic. But, it is also trying to maintain diversity and whether that comes from being Catholic, a minority, or the fact that you are an international applicant helps to provide a basis for admitting a diverse student body. There are no guarantees in college admissions and I do not believe that being Catholic is going to give you a leg up in admissions. It has always been my firm belief that ND looks at the whole app and considers it as such when admitting applicants. If you have a strong application, it will stand out to admissions and perhaps in this particular year, you will have the right amount of diversity that they are looking for in this admissions year. I say, if your app is strong>apply! You have nothing to lose. Good Luck!!</p>
<p>if the reasoning behind your rejection is that you aren't catholic, then you shouldn't want to go there anyway.</p>
<p>trnt06,besides some anecdotal evidence about how you "know somebody who knows somebody," it would be good if you could provide ANY evidence at all that this is so. What the BOARD did get a little angry about was the hiring of Catholic professors and it is still a contentious issue on campus. What you need to do is to compare the applicant pool to ND and the accepted pool. Not knowing the demographics exactly, I would imagine that it is not too different (Catholic people apply to ND).</p>