Chance me...REA or RD

I will be applying this fall and want some insight on when to apply and what my chances may be.

White Male/ Public School
ACT: 32
SAT: 1470
GPA: Spotless 4.0 UW and 4.23 Weighted…as many APs as my school has to offer
Extracurriculars: 3 Sport Varsity Athlete (football-Starting Quarterback, Basketball, Baseball) I feel like my extracurriculars should be unique…more than just sports as well
Essays will be strong

Thoughts would be greatly appreciated…thanks!

Tough call. ND states that, “Because the Admissions Committee is unable to extend all of its offers of admission in the Restrictive Early Action process, it is highly conservative when making Early Action admission decisions. The Admissions Committee advises students to apply in the Restrictive Early Action process only if they are in the very top ranges of our applicant pool.”

For last year’s applicant pool, the mid ACT range was 33-35%, and the mid SAT range was 1390-1530. Your ACT score is on the low range, but your SAT is pretty much right in the middle. Given that, I’d say your chances likely would be better in the RD round.

Agree ^^^^^. Unless you truly have “unique” EC, that put you “above all others”, RD sounds right. What you have posted here is good, but nothing to make you stand out.

I’ve heard that it can be a little risky to apply to ND ED, in so far as ND might outright deny a student who applied ED, whereas if that same student had applied RD that student might have been accepted. I don’t know if this is urban legend or true, but I thought I’d pass it along so that others could chime in or you could research this more yourself.

Last year the REA numbers were 6,020 apps, 1,470 admits, 893 defers, 3,367 denies.

It is true that ND does apply higher scrutiny to the REA round than the RD round for acceptances. But for REA apps that are maybe/maybe not, you’d think those would likely become the REA defers rather than the REA denies.

If you were not in the top 44% of the stronger REA pool (admits plus defers), it seems unlikely that you otherwise would have wound up in the top 16.5% (which was the RD round admit rate) of the weaker RD pool had you instead applied RD. Overall admit rate was 18.9%.

No way to really know, obviously, since kids have to pick one path or the other. So there’s no data on what would have happened on the road not taken.

You definitely shouldn’t apply REA if there’s new/better stuff coming for senior year (grades, test scores, awards, better essays) that would make your RD application stronger than it would be as of November 1. Benefit of REA, of course, is that you get feedback by 12/15 which can help inform your strategy for regular round apps.

Our high school sends a lot of kids to ND – and the advice the kids always get is to talk to their regional ND admissions counselor about the EA vs RD decision. The counselor will give you an honest assessment of which is the better round for you, specifically. We know a number of kids who were told to apply RD, even though ND was far and above their top choice, because the chance of an EA rejection was real. Talk to your ND admissions rep for the best assessment.

i applied early action last year and was deferred then accepted regular action (starting in a couple weeks!)
my ACT was 33 and my SAT was 1470 as well with 4.0 unweighted gpa and 4.35 weighted

i would say the choice to apply early action is a little iffy in this situation
with these stats and really good essays you would probably get deferred (just a guess, in the grand scheme of people who are admitted to notre dame, these test scores are competitive but again just a little bit iffy)

i would say make sure you have a strong community service component because their admissions board places a lot of emphasis on that

also if you have a subject that you feel you do particularly well in (especially if it relates to your intended major), you could take an SAT subject test, which would help your application if you do well on the test (most likely a score of 700+)

overall, i think the choice to apply early action makes sense for you if you have another service and leadership component to your application (i’m not sure if you would be admitted early, i just don’t think you would be denied – keep in mind this is just an opinion)

if not, i would probably apply regular action and work on more participation in service (anytime you have a free minute, trust me, i was in your shoes last year and it seems nearly impossible to work in an extra commitment, but it’s also well worth it for your application, and it’s nice to give back to the community when it seems like so much of your other time senior year is focused on yourself – applications and tests, etc.)

you could also retake the ACT one more time and focus studying on your lowest subscore (this is torturous i know --> i got a 32 twice and then decided to try one last time and got a 33) because even the slightest bump in your composite could put you at a better advantage

i hope this helps!
Go Irish!!