<p>Out of the schools I applied to, the Catholic ones were: Boston College, Providence College, Fordham University, and Villanova University. I didn’t get into BC and I was waitlisted (still am) to Villanova, but I would have loved to go there. I did not choose Fordham because I wasn’t offered housing (I live in northern NJ). I chose Providence (I had other non-Catholic options) because of the small size, the Dominican influence (my great uncle was a professor there and is buried in the cemetery on campus), in addition to my great uncle I have other family connections, the sports, the city of Providence, and ultimately, the core curriculum. Some may call it strict but I think its wonderful for someone like me who has no idea what they want to do. I definitely would call PC a liberal arts college.</p>
<p>Saint Joes’s because the hawk will never die!</p>
<p>Thanks for all your feedback! It’s extremely helpful!</p>
<p>termah420 - welcome to the Providence College community. I hope your time at PC is enriching, fun and educational as mine was. Its a great place!</p>
<p>I apologize in advance for the monologue I’m about to type. After my first year at Notre Dame, I’ve completely fallen in love, and I will tell anyone who will listen everything I love about it.</p>
<p>I think Notre Dame was a perfect choice for me. When it came down to the end, I was choosing between four schools, and Notre Dame was the only Catholic one. I’m so glad that I chose ND. In the time I’ve been at Notre Dame, my faith has grown more than I could even imagine. Never before have I been to Masses where everyone around me was excited to be there and honestly making an effort to get something out of the Mass. One of the things I miss most when I’m away from ND is going to Mass with the women of my dorm, hearing a wonderful homily from an awesome priest, and growing closer to God with the people who live around me. Mass truly is a community experience instead of an individual one.</p>
<p>I also like the sense of welcoming there. Everyone is welcome at ND, regardless of who they are. It’s a very contagious attitude, too! I’m on the freshman orientation staff in my dorm, and I’m going a little crazy with excitement. I just can’t wait to meet all the new students and show them why our community is wonderful. I just want all of the girls who live around me to feel welcome and at home in my dorm.</p>
<p>I also like how involved everyone is. There are many different types of people with many different interests, but everyone gets involved in their community. Everyone is constantly playing sports, joining clubs, doing service, and hanging out with each other. I don’t think I know anyone who just locks himself or herself in his or her room all the time. Although there are many different interests, everyone is actively pursuing theirs.</p>
<p>I am truly blessed to be a student at Notre Dame. All the people around me are wonderful people. There are all sorts of great opportunities to take advantage of. It’s simply an amazing place that calls you to be better in all aspects of your life. I have found a level of happiness and fulfillment at Notre Dame that I’ve never experienced before in my life. It’s true what they say: If you’ve never been there, no explanation will suffice. If you’ve ever been there, no explanation is necessary.</p>
<p>I know someone asked about pre-med programs in Catholic universities. At ND, I think about 80% of the students who apply to med school get accepted. This is an extremely high average.</p>
<p>sasbmar: thanks for your post! I want to go to a Catholic school to grow in my faith, and, from everything I’ve heard, ND seems like the perfect place. The fun part will be getting accepted. ;)</p>
<p>Leigh2911, regarding medical school acceptance, just wanted to let you know that 85% of students from The University of Dallas who apply to medical school are accepted.</p>
<p>Just a cautionary note – be careful about Med School acceptance rates published by colleges. Be sure you know exactly what goes into those numbers. Many colleges only include in the statistics those students who they have basically pre-approved to apply to med school. Students who may apply without the school’s blessing are not included in their acceptance statistics. Each school has different standards for this pre-approval process. In addition, a few schools approve anyone to apply to med school so their admission stats will be lower but they may have the same percentage of their top students admitted.</p>
<p>@Happy1 - VERY good advice. If you ask and find someone who will give you an honest answer, many schools report the % accepted into med school of “qualified” applicants, which as you said are those the school pre-screened as being likely candidates for acceptance. There are so many variables - how many who declare as pre-med are still pre-med by senior year? How many of those remaining apply and how many are considered “qualified” applicants? Also, it’s important to realize being pre-med is NOT a requirement to get into medical school, and in fact there are some medical schools looking for students coming outside the sciences. My husband had one student get accepted who was a classics major (of course she took the requisite science courses). See [The</a> Changing Face of Medical School Admissions - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/02/the-changing-face-of-medical-school-admissions/]The”>The Changing Face of Medical School Admissions - The New York Times) and [Ask</a> a Medical School Admissions Expert: Dr. Jessica Freedman - Varsity Tutors Blog](<a href=“http://www.varsitytutors.com/blog/ask+a+medical+school+admissions+expert+dr+jessica+freedman]Ask”>http://www.varsitytutors.com/blog/ask+a+medical+school+admissions+expert+dr+jessica+freedman)
If you do major in pre-med (which may or may not even be a “true” major depending on the school) it’s a good idea to minor in something completely different, such as an area of the humanities, to help make yourself stand out from the crowd.</p>
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<p>Exactly. Such published stats are absolutely worthless, since colleges can easily fudge the denominator. Does the ‘acceptance’ numerator include offshore schools, for example? </p>
<p>For example, Holy Cross, which touts an extremely high admit rate, restricts students from applying if HC believes that they have a low chance of success. (HC restricts them from applying by denying the low stat kids a Committee letter, without which, a med school knows with certainty that the applicant was not good enough to receive a rec letter from his/her local college.) Heck, HC even restricts – or used do – low stat kids from their premed “program”, which means that such students have a low registration priority for the premed prereqs and might not even be able to get a lab spot in Chem. OTOH, HC is an excellent school for the above average college premed.</p>
<p>Well, somehow I had no idea schools could/would do this sort of thing. Since these dire warnings followed my post on statistics from The University of Dallas, I feel compelled to look into the matter. I will let you know what I find out, assuming it’s an “honest answer” and that I/we haven’t derailed the original topic. </p>
<p>I will say that I don’t think one can get a “pre-med” degree from U.D., but I could be wrong. They do have a Pre-Health Society whose mission is to advise students interested in pursuing health careers. They advise students that they can major in anything and still get into med school as long as they meet the pre-reqs. [University</a> of Dallas - Pre-Health Society](<a href=“404 - Page Not Found - University of Dallas”>404 - Page Not Found - University of Dallas)</p>
<p>I will also add that U.D. is a rare school that actually has a core curriculum which consists of a 60 credit hour sequence of classes which all students must take, regardless of major. (See list here: [University</a> of Dallas - Classes in the Core](<a href=“404 - Page Not Found - University of Dallas”>404 - Page Not Found - University of Dallas)). Every graduate has a healthy dose of Western Civ classical literature, history, philosophy and theology in addition to the courses required by their major. So, they all - even the science majors - have to read and study Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Augustine, The Illiad, The Odyssey, Beowulf, Dante, Thucydides, etc. (Shakespeare is ‘light’ reading.) This results in some well-rounded students, whether they are applying to medical school or not. </p>
<p>That said, I agree that it is good advice to be a bit skeptical of the claims of admissions departments of all schools.</p>
<p>^^not dissing your school, but think about it. IFF a school had an 85% acceptance rate, the application list would total hundreds of thousands. Not even Harvard, Yale or Princeton have such a high acceptance rate – no undergrad college does.</p>
<p>Glad to hear about the Core – I’m a big fan of a broad liberal arts degree.</p>
<p>CherryBlossom, you list confused me when you said based on your state of residence. You have schools on the east and west coast as well as the midwest. If being somewhat close to home, you may want to pare your list down. </p>
<p>And Mt. St. Mary’s is not the school for you. Forty years ago when I went to school, anyone who couldn’t get into schools like G’town, BC, ND, Villanova, Providence, Fairfield (which is a good school too) and the like, went to the Mount. When my nephew went to college less than 10 years ago, people who couldn’t get into G’town, etc, went to the Mount.</p>
<p>There’s a Catholic college in my state that I’m deeply interested in and plan on applying to. It’s definitely my first choice.</p>
<ol>
<li>The school is located in a very safe and clean area. </li>
<li>Has Catholic ideals but is very tolerant of other religious beliefs.</li>
<li>I’ve heard from other students that the college takes hygiene and cleanliness seriously.</li>
<li>15:1 student to teacher ratio.</li>
<li>Offers the courses I’m interested in. </li>
<li>They are very generous with their financial aid. The cost of going would be the same as one of my state’s public universities. </li>
<li>The professors are kind and know their stuff.</li>
</ol>
<p>We’ve been researching this for a very long…time. Our results are that the spiritual formation is more important than the academic/career. It is rather painful for me to admit this since I have a very high-achieving d, but because of this decision, we’ve eliminated a lot of schools like Georgetown, BC, Holy Cross, Santa Clara. I just couldn’t in good conscience send my child there for the excellent academics knowing her theology professors may teach something contrary to Church teaching.<br>
If you want an authentic Catholic education, look to the Cardinal Newman Society’s website. They post a list of schools that they suggest. Also, ask if your school of choice has signed the mandatum with their local bishop (this document, actually signed by the professors of theology, illustrate their commitment to the faith).
So our final list: U of Dallas, Providence, Walsh. Looking into U of Portland out of curiousity, but would NEVER consider Gonzaga. Way way over the line.
Blessings!</p>
<p>Also Catholic in NAme Only: ND, Dominican U of California, U of San Fran, Carroll, Seattle U, </p>
<p>Others that seemed solid Cathilic schools, but simply not for us: Catholic University of America, Franciscan in Steubenville, and Thomas Aquinas.</p>
<p>RE #47, #7
D just told me that U. Dallas had 100% acceptance for this year’s (class of 2013) med school applicants. (However, their weed-out is tough and they don’t inflate grades.)
Their biology dept. has a good reputation.
They just added a computer science major last year.</p>
<p>bluebayou, Even assuming the acceptance rate truly is 85% or higher, UD will never get that many aps. Most students these days are not willing to undertake the Core Curriculum. It’s very tough, especially when you add the additional requirements for science and math majors. And atomom is correct, the majority of professors do not curve grades, and if they do, it is a tiny curve. Also, UD is a very small school with only about 1300 undergraduates and most students want a larger student body population. There’s no football team or big sports atmosphere. The campus does not win any ‘beautiful campus’ awards, and the cafeteria food leaves a lot to be desired. As a private school, it’s expensive even with good financial aid. Then there’s the highly religious component, which is obviously a plus for many people, but not so much for others. However, with such a small student body and class sizes, it is not a cliche to say that the professors truly do get to know the students and write fantastic LORs. This carries a lot of weight when it comes to grad school admissions.</p>
<p>Xavier? Catholic, good regional rep, good basketball, significant financial aid.</p>
<p>@Needavacation - I don’t think any of the comments about stats were directed at your comments about UD in particular, but just good information about med school applications in general. Yes, kid coming from strong liberal-arts tradition schools such as UD are more well-rounded - but many kids focused on med school aren’t thinking of that as a plus, they are only thinking of biology classes. Everybody feels they must be “pre-med” to get into medical school, when “pre-med” usually isn’t an actual major, you are a biology, biochem, chem, or some other science major following a track that commonly leads to medical school. There are many routes to get there as long as you have the required science courses. The biggest “name” school might not be the best choice for every student - you need to look at your strengths, what is important to you, and make a choice. Being the worst student at a top school is not good - being a strong student at a more “average” school is better. As far as statistics “gaming”, ever school engages in it to some degree, some to the point of fraud (see schools tossed off the US News & World Report list for falsifying data) and some innocently enough, by legitimately filtering out kids who are pretty much guaranteed rejection by medical schools. So it’s helpful to know things that might matter to you, such as what % of students who want to go to medical school actually apply, what % are accepted, what % are accepted off-shore, how many are in MD programs vs. DO, and so on. I’m a numbers person, so I can’t look at a statistic without asking about the data used in its generation.</p>