“So the all American type kid, Eagle Scout, athlete go somewhere else.”
You’ll find eagle scouts, athletes, and all American type kids at Tufts, no problem. Guess it depends on how one defines “All American”. 
@ohhey #2217 - I agree with you regarding Notre Dame. We are Catholic, visited a number of Catholic (both Jesuit and non-Jesuit) universities and my kids applied to Georgetown and BC. We found Notre Dame weird and very different from all of the others. The lowlight of the tour was when the guide stopped by the faux Lourdes grotto and asked if anyone wanted to pray there. No one stepped forward, so my wife and I took one for the team and said a quick prayer. We got the impression that ND just assumes that almost everyone going there is Catholic?
I think one reason for ND’s insular Catholic atmosphere is its isolation. My wife’s theory is that most of the other larger Catholic schools are in attractive cities (Georgetown, Fordham, BC, DePaul, Providence, etc), so historically attracted many non-Catholics who grew up locally, want to move to these cities to go to Uni, are attracted by specific programmes and/or want to live in a city post-graduation. These factors have made these schools welcoming to non-Catholics and increased their non-Catholic populations.
@londondad Do you think some of the difference between Georgetown, BC< Holy Cross, Fordham, etc. is due to their Jesuit basis as much as location differences with Notre Dame?
They don’t have assume it, they know that 80% of the students list ‘catholic’ as their religion on their paperwork. Many applications are also coming from Catholic prep schools and it is easy to see that the applicant has had 13+ years of catholic school. Doesn’t mean they are catholic, but they’ve certainly been exposed to it for years.
@londondad Wow. Having a tour guide ask you if you want to pray certainly puts kids on the spot. I always wondered why our Chicago-area school does not send many kids to ND. Maybe I just found out why.
@londondad , just chuckling that you “took one for the team”.
Any chance the ND admin folks track “prayers”?
I haven’t read the entire thread, but Villanova was pretty heavy on religion from what my family said. Religion truly has a personal barometer…what passes as fanatical to some is expected from others.
For the record, lighting a candle at the Grotto at ND is a bucket-list-worthy experience for a lot of American Catholics (along with attending a football game), and I was not surprised that they paused there to allow it during the tour. Nobody in our group did so we moved on quickly. We were told 60% of Catholic valedictorians apply to ND.
Here’s one that I will remove the identifying information but it is reliable. A kid (not saying who) did an overnight at a highly ranked LAC (again, no more hints), his #1 at the time, and saw a student injecting heroin. He went elsewhere.
Holy crap, @Magnetron … now I really want to know the school.
That said, we would all be naive if we didn’t think that stuff existed everywhere.
Wow, @Magnetron , that seems unbelievable. Was this a trustworthy source?
^^ But it is usually not part of the tour.
Re the Catholic schools, I think BC & Georgetown have a lot of overlap , & BC & N Dame have a lot of overlap, but Georgetown & N Dame don’t have a lot of overlap.
Well, you could remove them from the school of course. I have a sneaking suspicion that English is taught in other classes at that school, like those religion classes. But yes, on the surface, twice a week seems rather stark.
Absolutely. One of S1’s HS friends, a scholarship athlete, died of a heroin overdose at his U. It is way more prevalent than we like to admit.
Georgetown and ND had a decent overlap in the ND admissions thread this year, maybe not quite that of BC, but those tend to be the big 3 for high-academic Catholics at drawing a nationwide applicant pool. I wonder if anyone keeps track.
ETA: The kid asked the host about it, and the host told the kid they have a work hard/play hard attitude (trite, I know, cuz every college says this even without the heroin). The host was not surprised by it.
Well, since you brought up heroin at a LAC, should we talk about the meth lab bust in a dorm at Georgetown? See, even Catholics sin. 
Joking, who knows if the students were Catholic, but just a solemn reminder that it is everywhere.
@doschicos , so much for that kid being a chemistry major, right?
If my memory serves me correctly , one of the UCs had a similar story.
@doschicos Good point. I think that the Jesuit schools that we visited seem to do a good job of combining the Catholicism of the university with the Jesuit mission, which I found effective given the Jesuit’s strong record of holistic education. However, we did visit non-Jesuit Catholic universities such as Villanova which did not feature the extreme Catholic focus during the tour and info session. ND also seemed keep harping on about the single-sex dorms and the parietals (visiting hours). Most people either know of this going in or can be quickly informed about it on the tour (I also think that most kids are pretty ambivalent about it) so no need to keep bringing it up.
Regarding the heroin- here’s another story- girl admitted to Wesleyan was invited to an overnight and her host took her to a meeting of the club. Turned her off completely and did not enroll. Admissions was embarrassed, as recounted in the book about college admissions The Gatekeepers. Then again, Wes could also be the heroin school.
Regarding Notre Dame- yes it is much more religious and conservative in tone than the Jesuit schools. Could be a turn off to some, while a positive for others. But calling that ‘weird’ is really not appropriate.
We toured Fordham and were surprised by how much emphasis was placed on religion. We had heard before hand that that wasn’t the case there but we heard about the priest who lived in the honors dorm who said daily mass, and how great it was to be able to go to daily mass, and what a great resource it was for the students to have such easy access to a priest. The guide barely stopped talking about it. It was probably just our guide but it was a bit off-putting and we are catholic. That aspect of the tour didn’t really change how she felt about Fordham, but I could where see it could bother some. D did remark to me that she would probably have to start going to church more if she went there.