College of the Holy Cross: Athletes vs. Non-athletes

Hi guys! I was just wondering, for any current HC students, I was recently admitted ED to Holy Cross and I have been connecting with some other students who have been admitted through social media. Obviously, a lot of the ED students are athletes since they have verbally committed or signed already. However, it seems like a lot of the people I could maybe see myself hanging out with and getting along with are athletes, and this may be because I am currently a varsity athlete at my high school. I was just wondering if anyone could give me their perspective on if there is a social divide between athletes and non-athletes, and if so, how drastic is it? My cousin goes to HC now and had a friend group of about 7, and 5 of them are athletes from 3 different teams. Is it common for them to intermix into friend groups?

I graduated from HC in 1992, so this is an admittedly very dated perspective, but I found the athlete/non-athlete divide to be a mostly non-issue. While HC is a very athletically driven school, the mindset of the student body is (was) very open to all. As a total non-athlete, some of my closest friends were varsity athletes, including football players. It’s just a very open, “good kids” atmosphere.

My D is at HC and is not an athlete. Athletes get an instant friend group from their team, are not in the dorms as much to hang out due to practice and can be away a lot during their seasons due to games. But there is really no divide and kids do mix. Some of the off campus housing available to upperclassmen sometimes is populated by students from the same team, but when they host a party it is open to those outside the team too. Freshmen live in freshmen dorms, so lots of opportunity to meet a lot of your classmates there and the freshman seminar clusters also do group activities. HC makes it a priority to build community, so I don’t think you’ll have a problem and I hope you love it as much as my D does!

My D applied this year Regular Decision and was wondering about this as well – thanks for sharing your thoughts @wisteria100 - very helpful!

Congratulations on your acceptance to Holy Cross! I’m a current first-year, so I was in your position around this time last year (time flies!) To answer your question, there isn’t a divide between athletes and non-athletes here. As @wisteria100 said so well, athletes are busy and develop a friend group from their team, but everyone mixes. I’m a non-athlete (furthest thing from being one, trust me) and I’m friends with both athletes and non-athletes. I was afraid of this same thing going into HC, but quickly realized there was no reason to be afraid! There’s a lot of community here at HC, so don’t worry. You’ll love it here! Please reach out to me if you ever have any questions or concerns!!!

(masscatholicgirl - so glad you wound up at HC and are happy there! I knew it was the place for you.)