My senior daughter is very interested in attending Notre Dame. We visited in April and she really feels like it is the school for her.
She has statistics (grades, test scores, EC’s, etc) that put her well within the middle 50% of accepted students.
The issue is that we have heard from multiple credible sources that it is very hard to get into ND without a hook. Legacy, Church tie-in, etc. We also come from an area (MD-Suburban DC) that is very competitive and sends plenty of kids to Notre Dame.
The struggle that she/we are having is that given the fact that she does not have any hooks, she may decide to apply ED to her 2nd choice school rather than apply to Notre Dame REA. Playing the odds so to speak.
If anyone can offer any insight into this type of situation it would be appreciated.
Candidly, I am not looking for feedback that says, “if ND is her number 1 choice, she should follow her heart, etc”. (No offense)
I am looking for anyone that has real experience with admissions at ND, real knowledge of the process, and if it really is harder for a solid applicant to gain acceptance without one of these hooks.
I’m not going to answer your question per say, but I will try to help a little bit.
According to ND’s website, 23% of the class of 2019 were the children of alumni. So clearly legacy helps, but 77% of students weren’t.
As far as church goes, are you saying that your child is not Christian? Because ~80% of students are Catholic, and I’d guess around 90% are Christian. Religious activities certainly help an application at ND.
As far as area goes, I’m in the same area as you, but I’ve only seen 1 student get accepted to ND. What county are you in? (PM me)
I hope I could shed some light on some of those issues you brought up. Can’t really offer much else, as I am also a senior in high school. Best of luck!
We are in Montgomery County, MD. A fair amount of kids from this county apply and attend ND.
We are Catholic, but I understand that many applicants have their Parish or Archdiocese leadership supporting the applicants. We don’t have anything like that. My daughter is involved in religious activities.
Good luck to you in your college process. I do have an older son in an Ivy league school right now, so if I can provide any insight let me know.
@InfoSec Ahh, I’m in Frederick County. Based on some friends I have and knowing where they’ve gone, I think I know the area your students attend school at. It certainly is competitive there.
I understand. I can personally say that I have a rec letter from my Youth Minister, so I can only imagine many other students do. However, if your D’s EC’s are meaningful and she can show that, she has as good of a shot as anybody else (according to what I heard at an info session at ND).
Despite the name, I’ve actually had a change of heart as far as where I want to be. I’d like to attend a Catholic school like ND, but I think I’ll apply to Cornell just in case. Thank you for the offer though!
The majority of ND students get in without hooks. Your D is in the majority. All she can do is put together the best possible application she can and see what happens. And everyone should be certain to have a good mix of reach, target and safety schools that they feel they could be happy at.
I always hate the idea of gaming the system and applying to a non-first choice ED for a better chance to get in. It really depends – if she gets in ED will she spend the next four years wondering “what if I applied to ND”? Only your D can answer that. Does her #2 school have ED2? – if so maybe she can apply REA to ND first.
I didn’t want to start a new thread, and I think it applies here, so I’ll bring it up. Does applying REA increase chances of admission? I know they say if you are denied REA, you would be denied RD, but is it the same vice versa?
ND was our DD’s top choice school. She applied EA, as her file wasn’t going to get any stronger in the wait and she frankly wanted to find out sooner if she was going to get in or not. She had no hooks and definitely wasn’t in the top of the pool when it comes to stats She also had no real hooks and was not a legacy, nor had any special endorsement from our parish. She did get in. I would suggest your DD call her admission rep and have a candid conversation with him/her and get their take on it. The demonstrated interest would help, too, in my opinion. I think now that they have gone to REA, that this is showing an extra level of commitment and interest to the school, even more so than when it was only EA.
Well I will try to get this back on topic, given what I was looking for.
MidwesternHeart, thanks for your insight. You read my post, understood what I was asking, and responded with the kind of feedback I was hoping to receive. I think that is good advice about calling the admissions rep and having the conversation.
Part of the challenge here is the Notre Dame policy. They are the only school that I am aware of, within the Top 50 Universities, that has this Restrictive Early Action policy. I am not sure I understand why they feel this policy is the best for them, but it certainly makes them the exception among the nations top universities. That is not at all a criticism of ND. They are certainly entitled to choice their policies, I just am not sure I understand why they are different than the other top schools in the US.
intparent. Yes I am certainly aware that if she can get better scores and be in the top 25% of applicants from a score perspective it will increase her odds. In other news the sky is blue. (smile) Sorry could not resist.
Happy1. Also well aware that the student needs to be put the best application possible and see what happens. Blue sky again I think you are off base though on “gaming the system”. It is not gaming. It is using facts and understanding of the landscape to make the best possible decision.
My daughter would be very happy at either her first choice school or her 2nd. My son already is at her 2nd choice school (Cornell) and she knows that school very well. The other thing she is contemplating is the strength of her program of choice (Physics) at the schools she is considering. For Physics Notre Dame is about the 54th ranked Physics program while Cornell is 7th. So you see it is really a multi-dimensional decision.
At every school that offers ED, you get a higher chance of admission, all other factors being equal. At ND it does not appear that there may be much if any bump for applying REA, and you inhibit yourself from getting the ED bump at other schools that you would be happy at.
No, I don’t know if you understood what I was saying. I interpreted your comment to mean she is within the 25%-75% range on her scores. My point is that if both are above the 50% mark (so not a 40% CR and a 60% M, for example), it improves her chances. Students admitted with any scores below that 50% mark are more likely to be hooked.
There are a few other schools with SCEA restrictions – Harvard and Stanford come to mind.
I gotcha now. I was just doing some good natured ribbing. No offense. Your point is valid.
She took the ACT and is at 34 (35,35,32,35), so what I meant to say in the original post was that she is at the top end of the middle 50% score range for admitted students.
Wasn’t trying to take this off topic, I just didn’t explain myself I think. The reason I asked is that if there is a bump in chances for REA apps at ND, and if your D wants to go ND as a first choice, then she should apply through REA. If there isn’t a bump, then she may want to apply ED elsewhere. However, I’m in the same boat as happy; choice 2 may be a good school, but she may always have that “what if” feeling. It’s a tough situation, and I wish her all the best!
(Also, just to clear things up from a earlier comment, a rep from ND told me that REA does NOT indicate demonstrated interest.)
Ivy, no worries you didn’t take it off topic. I think you are correct. My understanding is there is little to know bump for ND REA. There is for ED at her second choice. A place where she would be happy at, and a much better school for the program she wants to study. However, as others have pointed out here and on other threads, she needs to be happy and I am leaving it up to her, whatever she decides. It is certainly possible that she gets into neither of these two schools. She has a good list of reach, match and safeties selected.
If Cornell is her second choice, I don’t believe her chances would be much different than Notre Dame. Cornell is very selective and very big on legacy (as are most of the Ivies). The class size is bigger so the numbers might look better than Notre Dame for legacy but I don’t know anyone who got in Cornell without either legacy or a hook. Applying Restrictive Early Action is actually better than just Early Action for your daughter. REA means your daughter didn’t apply to HYP schools and Notre Dame is her first choice (and not a backup to the Ivies). This limits the competition for your daughter while helping ND with it’s acceptance rate.
KathleenA, thanks for your reply. The numbers and facts don’t really bear out your supposition.
Certainly Cornell is very selective, but they are not that big on legacy, especially relative to the other Ivies. I know plenty of students admitted to Cornell who did not have legacy or a hook, including my son who is at Cornell now. Most don’t have legacy/hook.
Cornell ED though does give a big bump on admittance chance. They offer admittance to about 26% of those applying ED, while only about 13% for those applying RD.
As far as I can tell, the admittance rate to ND is about the same 20% for REA or RD. Now I understand there are a tremendous amount of factors at play in admittance, and the yields are just one of the factors to consider when making a decision on ED/REA/EA/RD.
The other big factor she is considering is the large gap between the quality of the Physics programs between Cornell and Notre Dame. While Cornell is regarded as a top ten University in Physics (and in most of the techs), the tech programs are probably Notre Dame’s relative weakness when compared to other top schools. Both are wonderful universities.
There is quite a difference in the admittance rates between REA and RD. Last year, there were 4700 REA applicants with 1400 admitted for a 29.7% admit rate. 800 of them were deferred and when added to the other RD applications, there were 14,257 total RD round applicants, of which 2177 were selected for a 15.2% admit rate. So it certainly seems there is quite a boost by going REA when you have a strong file.
Here are some hard numbers from last year (D was admitted to class of 2019 and is currently attending). 20% overall admit rate, 30% REA admit rate, and 1,400 students admitted REA. Overall yield is published but I don’t know how many of the REA applicants accepted which is what you would need to know to answer your question. What I can tell you about “hooks” at Notre Dame is that there is probably no other school where the Legacy advantage is so great. We were told in an admissions briefing that there was a 20% advantage to legacies. We live in suburban Chicago and D attended a public high school, a fair number of kids apply to Notre Dame only 2 of 650 were admitted. The local Catholic High School is well regarded but certainly not the best in the country or even probably Illinois. Fully 16 out of a class of 200 or so were admitted to Notre Dame from the local Catholic High School. Now granted the average ACT score of this shool’s graduates was over 28 but I was surprised at the numbers. If you are looking for where applying early would have the greater impact, I would say Cornell and not Notre Dame
I think you are off base though on “gaming the system”. It is not gaming. It is using facts and understanding of the landscape to make the best possible decision.