Born in the United States.
Located in the suburbs of Cleveland in Parma, Ohio.
Public High School with 1300+ students in
Caucasian Female (European descent).
First Generation, former 3 sport athlete, current 1 sport athlete playing all year round on A-level competitive club team.
Intended major of Information Technology, Analytics, and Operations OR Computer Science.
Unweighted GPA: 3.875
Weighted HS GPA (5.0): 4.4375
Class Rank: 14/258
ACT/SAT Scores: (Takes official SAT on Mar. 1st) Had a PSAT of 1220
Coursework
Freshman Year was all honors.
Sophomore year took AP World History Modern, PASSED with a 3, and took all honors as well.
As a Junior I am in AP United States Gov. and Pol. as well as AP Lang. and Comp, Statistics, and Bio II .
Scheduled for Senior year I have AP Bio, AP Statistics, French IV, English 1010, and AP Micro/Macro Economics.
Scholar athlete x4 & highest honors x10 (every quarter up to now)
Summer activites include 15+ hours of softball a week & babysitting. During the School year I am in softball and Key Club.
Letters of recommendation from History teacher of 2 years, French teacher of 3 years, and English teacher of 1 year. As well as getting a counselor evaluation.
–By all means apply to ND and give it your all. Just recognize that with an acceptance rate of around 15% the school is a reach for any unhooked applicant.
–Be sure to create a well-balanced application list with reach (like ND) as well as match and safety schools (I see you do have a safety in place) that you would be excited to attend.
–What do you like about ND? Is it the Catholic component – if so then look at some of the outstanding Jesuit schools which have varied levels of competitiveness in terms of admission. Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities--Jesuit Colleges and Universities Is it the big time sports – if so consider some Big 10 or other large schools etc.
–Did you already take calculus? If not I’d consider taking that instead of APStatistics.
–I would not send more than two teacher letter of recommendations to any college. Also consider getting a LOR from a STEM subject teacher especially given the majors you are considering.
Notre Dame is really really competitive . To get a sense for it, I would check out some of the prior CC threads on Notre Dame acceptances for both early action and regular decision, and see the stats for the rejected students. Each year there are many students with near 4.0 unweighted GPAs, SATs in the 1500s with 100s of hours of volunteer work, legacy status, etc. that get rejected. It is a reach for everyone. You have impressive credentials . . . it’s just not a good idea to have your heart set on a school that is so highly rejective!
I would do what some of the pp’s suggest and identify what you like about ND and find other schools that offer something similar. If it’s D1 football, look at Big 10 or SEC schools. If it’s the Catholic education, check out other Catholic/Jesuit schools. Be sure to have a range of schools you love, in addition to ND!
For those who might need a bit more familiarity with the schools OP mentioned:
Walsh (OH): About 1600 undergrads with 70% of first year students in college housing; 1hr away
U. of Notre Dame (IN): About 9k undergrads with 100% of first year students in college housing; 3h47m away
The schools in these lists are either larger (closer to Notre Dame in size than Walsh) or has a higher percentage of first year students (as that was another difference that came to mind). They’re all closer to your hometown than Notre Dame is.
If you’re looking for other Catholic colleges to consider:
John Carroll (OH): About 2700 undergrads with 83% of first years in college housing; 28m away
Mercyhurst (PA ): About 2600 undergrads with 81% of first years in college housing; 1h46m away
Saint Vincent (PA ): About 1400 undergrads with 88% of first years in college housing; 2h44m away
St. Bonaventure (NY): About 1800 undergrads with 97% of first year students in college housing; 3h4m away
U. of Dayton (OH): About 8600 undergrads (percentage in housing unknown but it is classified as a residential campus); 3h10m away
Xavier (OH): About 5100 undergrads, 89% of first year students in college housing; 3h38m away
If you’re open to non-Catholic institutions, have you thought about:
U. of Mount Union (OH): About 1900 undergrads with 90% of first years in college housing; 1h15m away
Ohio Wesleyan: About 1300 undergrads with 90% of first years in college housing; 1h54m away
Ohio Northern: About 2400 undergrads with 94% of first years in college housing; 2h21m away
Agree that first generation can be a plus IF all other factors also deemed equally or more important by ND (ex. class rigor, GPA, standardized tests, LORs, essays etc.) are also very strong.
Okay, it is not Catholicism (I though do belong to a Roman Catholic church) that has me infatuated with ND. It is, however, the education (shocker right, lol?). Close family friend is a legacy and I was hoping to have gotten a letter of rec from them, forgetting that ND requires letters of rec to be from core-subject faculty. I have a wide variety of schools in mind, I do not want to stay too close to my town, it isn’t that great and my heart doesn’t belong to it. University of Michigan, UPenn, OSU, FGCU, Ashland, Baylor, Case Western, and Clemson are on my list. I don’t really have a specific characteristic that I’m looking for other than the basics of education, retention, job placement, and faculty to student ratio.
Okay, so, my freshman year I was impartial to volunteering for some reason but I do have around 5-6 hours from the Key Club. Last year I had surgery which was a huge struggle for me catching up on everything, mentally challenging and physically draining to keep up with softball. This year I am in the position to volunteer around 12 hours a week starting in May. Do you think volunteering or acquiring a job would be better for my application?
I think spending your time doing something that you care about, and that enables you to grow and develop your interest in whatever that is, is what you should do with your time. If you were a kid that is super interested in musical theatre, then than could be a job working at a musical theater summer camp, or maybe that would be volunteering for a local community theater. If you were super interested in a particular sport, then being a ref over the summer for that sport (volunteer or paid) would be great. If you have 12 hours/week to do . . . something . . over the summer, pick something that will continue to demonstrate your commitment to activities and interests you’ve already started to develop the past few years, whether it’s paid or unpaid. ND does like to see community service, but if it’s a choice between a “random” community service activity that doesn’t fit with any or your interests, or a paid position that does, I would argue that it would be better to do the paid position.
However, the main point of my post above is that ND is a reach school for every single applicant and it rejects 85% of its applicant pool. Many of the students it rejects are stellar applicants with top notch academic and extracurricular credentials. Don’t get hyperfocused just on this one school. Spend much more of your time finding other schools that are targets and safeties that you would love.
Be sure to run the net price calculators for every college before you apply if finances will be a factor. FWIW you are unlikely to get significant aid from out of state public schools.
I would also encourage you to NOT become “infatuated” with any one college. The people I see who get hurt most by the college admission process are the ones who focus on one or two hyper-competitive schools and then don’t get in. Cast a wide net and recognize that (assuming no major hook) ND is a reach for pretty much everyone. There are so many colleges where one can get a great education and have a wonderful four year experience.