My daughter has her heart set on Notre Dame. She intends to apply to Notre Dame Early Restrictive Action and has a good shot at getting in (34 ACT, 1530 SAT, 3.96 GPA, several rigorous classes like Calc AB and BC). I have told her she cannot count on getting into Notre Dame. She is applying to our local state university as a safety, but her safety not a great fit for her. Are there any other selective and very selective colleges with a service orientation? I’m not sure how to describe service orientation, but Notre Dame wants students to have a personal commitment to be “a force for good”. This is very different from political activism and social justice. Any ideas of other colleges which might be a fit for her? She is open to looking at other colleges and has done some research but hasn’t found any other colleges of interest to her. Thanks.
Jesuit schools live by the objective of “men and women for others”. So Jesuit schools like Boston College, College of the Holy Cross, Georgetown and Fordham all have very active community service missions and a big % of students are involved in service. All are excellent schools
Notre Dame is a long putt for practically all students. They love varsity athletes by the way. In addition to those already listed, Santa Clara University and Villanova.
Have you considered smaller schools? Her major interests? And where are you looking? University of Mount Union, in eastern Ohio, emphasizes service and community as a graduation requirement, lots of community engagement, I’m sure other small LACs probably do the same.
I also suggest St. Louis University. It is a Jesuit school. They strongly encourage service. Your daughter would qualify for significant merit aid. It is a great school.
Another religion-affiliated college (not Catholic, but Lutheran) with a service bend is St. Olaf College in Minnesota. They have multiple academic merit scholarships (up to $25,000 I believe), several other scholarships (including a Service Leadership Scholarship), and generous financial aid packages. There is a Catholic club on campus, a Catholic service group (St Paul’s Outreach), and a community service ethic on campus that seems to be ecumenical and action-oriented.
With your daughter’s academic stats, she should have a very good chance of admittance with a top merit scholarship. I believe they still stack merit aid as well, so she could be eligible for the service scholarship on top of the academic. My D loves the school!
Brandeis University
Clark University
Both emphasize service and personal commitment to caring for other people in the community and the world. Neither has any religious affiliation whatsoever.
The University of Tulsa is a private LAC. From their website:
“A key component of The University of Tulsa’s mission is to engage students in the responsibility of citizenship and service in a changing world. Community service and engagement are integral components of TU, as well as a point of pride for our TU students, staff and faculty members.”
Her stats give her a chance at the TU Presidential Scholarship which is a full ride https://admission.utulsa.edu/special-programs/presidential-scholars/
One more post about St Olaf… the community service orientation permeates the campus culture as well, with an emphasis on building community on campus that truly plays out in practice. This is from the President’s welcome speech to the Class of 2022:
“All of us are passionate about our beliefs, but at St. Olaf we hold that an underlying civility based on regard for one another & respect for facts & critical analysis is essential both to learning and to our life together. In this coming year of our life together, let us offer each other grace. Let’s presume the best intentions from others. Let’s be slow to anger. Let’s be quick to forgive." — President David Anderson '74
Not for everyone, but there are also the “service” academies, generally known as “forces for good.” And you can’t beat the financial aid and job prospects.
As mentioned…the Jesuit colleges infuse community service as part of their mission.
Our kid is a Santa Clara graduate…and this was something she really liked about the college. Lots of involvement with the greater Santa Clara and San Jose communities, and also service opportunities during school break at other places. This was in both living communities as well as the classes.
I forgot that it was her older sister who got 1530 on the SAT. She got 1520. We don’t need aid as my father passed away this year and left a boatload of money for college. She is interested in engineering but not sure about it. We did look at Purdue but she wanted to be at a place where there was more geographic diversity in the student body. Purdue has more than 50% of its student population from Indiana.
This is an interesting list of colleges for me to consider, and I’ll start looking into it. The only college on the list that we have actually visited is St. Olaf because a niece sang at a Christmas concert there when she was in high school. I can imagine that it may have that sense of service that is at Notre Dame and will look into what the college may offer for engineering.
The Jesuit colleges are an interesting idea. I was reluctant for her to consider Notre Dame because there is a brand of Catholicism that is more social justice than it is personal commitment to do good. When we visited, we appreciated that Notre Dame is serious about having students contribute themselves to the common good. Georgetown has the reputation of being off the rails as a Catholic school. Boston College is an intriguing idea because it is more in the north where there is a change of seasons. We were just in Boston last September, however, and she didn’t really like being in the city.
She does have a good shot at Notre Dame because she scores at about the 70th percentile for standardized tests, but she isn’t really considering the possibility of a strong candidate pool this year that will result in her not being accepted. Kids do have a mind of their own, and I need to respect that, but I want to have teed up a list of colleges that she might consider if she does not get into Notre Dame. Thanks for all the suggestions!
@katrina1 What do you mean when you say that Georgetown is “off the rails”?
My kid is an engineering grad from Santa Clara University. They have a very highly regarded department…and it’s located smack in the Silicon Valley.
Community involvement…yes.
I can strongly recommend that one.
Since engineering is part of the equation, Tufts? Very different vibe from ND and not necessarily any easier to get into.
Very good question to which I do not have a good answer.
Here is an article I found on the Internet just now:
When we were at Notre Dame, I picked up a book by a Catholic priest who has worked at Notre Dame about the conflicts there with what it means to be a Catholic university. One of the tour guides was the president of a student group for gay students. Did that bother me? No. What I would be concerned about is 1. The focus on service is really more about political activism, such as lobbying the government for universal healthcare, or 2. Catholic teaching is misrepresented.
I found neither at Notre Dame. What I have picked up about Georgetown left me with the impression of it being off the rails, but I need to do more research. I hadn’t really considered Georgetown as a fit for our daughter because she is a STEM kid who is likely to major in some sort of science or engineering and I also thought Georgetown was more of a liberal arts college.
Marquette, in Milwaukee, is a Jesuit university and has a school of engineering.
@katrina1 My D is a student at Notre Dame, and her final choice was between ND and GU. I just want to offer you our experience of GU if it helps with your impression. I want to say before I write this that there will certainly be those who disagree with me, and that’s fine. I am simply saying this was our impression when we visited 3 weekends.
I loved GU. Very different from ND, but each has a big basket of positives. Our takeaway from GU was that it was more international/multi-religious than strictly traditionally Catholic. They have a priest, rabbi, imam, protestant minister, etc all sharing offices in the same building, all having roles on campus. That’s not meant as a criticism, I thought that part was wonderful and would have been perfectly happy if my D had gone there. I just wonder sometimes if that contributes to its reputation for being “Catholic-lite”. We did have the feeling while at the school that the tone is more political/social justice reform vs simply service to others for service sake. Again, that is not a criticism, but I agree with you that the two can feel differently and it depends on what one is looking for.
Rosered55, Marquette is another interesting idea. Thanks!
Waitingmomia, What does your daughter think of Notre Dame? I haven’t really researched Georgetown. I have no concern about a Catholic university being more open to people of other faiths or no faith. Our other three children chose state schools. The oldest also applied to and got into Notre Dame but we were not in a position to afford it and she didn’t like it anyway. It seemed too social to her.
If she does not get into Notre Dame, my hope is I have some possibilities for her to consider, she can apply by the end of December, and we can go look at a couple that might work for her during admitted student days. The state university is a good solid school with a great engineering program, but it does not have a lot of school spirit. Kids walk around wearing shirts and sweatshirts from all sorts of places. At Notre Dame, there clearly was a lot of school pride. A lot of kids were wearing Notre Dame shirts or sweatshirts.
This is a parent - child issue. She told me, “Mom, Notre Dame is looking for kids like me.” Great. She thinks she’ll get in and, if she does not, she can just go to the state university. I’d prefer that she look around at other options. She’d rather spend her time enjoying senior year.
@waitingmomla, I went to GU (back in the olden days) and your thoughts on it match much of what I was going to write. If a student is looking for a strong Catholic support it can be found there, but you could also find that for many other religions.