Just Curious....Notre Dame

Parents Forum
1

<p>DS will be a senior this year. We have been looking mostly at smallish privates in Ohio. Recently, he has expressed a lot of curiousity about visiting Notre Dame. Of course, we can go look, but I know how selective their admissions are that I don't want him to put too many eggs in that basket.</p>

<p>Some of his stats:
Top three for sure in a public with about 300 in his class.</p>

<p>4.5ish weighted, 4.0 unweighted. Mostly honors classes, several AP classes.</p>

<p>30 ACT (he's pleased, cause timed testing not his thing!)</p>

<p>EC's - Captain soccer team, Co-Captain Tennis, Indoor Soccer, Catholic Youth HS Basketball, VP Student Council, Band/Marching Band(a newbie, learned how to play instrument his sophomore year), active in our Catholic Church (volunteers, altar server, lector), Latin Club, NHS, etc.</p>

<p>Major - uncertain - considering education, something math related, sports business/management.</p>

<p>A vibrant sports scene is important to him socially. Wants to continue to play sports at least intramural. Faith and service important to him. </p>

<p>The price tag of ND scares me! Mostly I just want him to have realistic expectations. He is a simple, caring guy who can be put off by over-preppy, braggy kids. He is the kid who is well-liked by everyone, all groups in school. </p>

<p>Thoughts?</p>

2

<p>Well when DD and I stopped by the ND booth at a college fair we were told they give no “merit only” scholarships. Depending on your EFC, you may have to foot the whole bill yourselves. We chose to look elsewhere where DD can hopefully score some merit aid. Good luck.</p>

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<p>Ahhh…good point. No, our EFC is NOT high enough to have to foot the bill (especially THEIR bill!) but that is good info to pass onto son as well…</p>

4

<p>ND alum here, with an son waitlisted at ND a couple of years ago. S2 will also apply next year for fall 2010. Your son’s stats look good and I’d say go ahead and apply. But caution S not to fall in love, even tho it’s Notre Dame. My impression is that their selectivity rivals the ivy-league and that even good stats will not ensure acceptance. My impression is also that an emphasis is placed on service-oriented ECs (in addition to athletics, leadership, and academic honors) for admissions, so keep up the faith-based activities. And as spring points out, ND awards no merit-based scholarships, but many families pay full-fare to get the ND experience.</p>

5

<p>archiemom, can you speak to the preppiness factor? Ds is applying to ND via Questbridge as it’s nonbinding. I was really surprised while researching it how selective ND is and seeing as how it doens’t give a lot of merit aid, I fear it’s filled with lots of rich, preppy kids.</p>

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<p>My experience with Notre Dame is from some time ago, but for what it’s worth, here goes: at the beginning of his career, my husband was on the faculty of ND. At that time, I was “between degrees” and considering a radical change of fields. I enrolled in several undergraduate courses as a “post-grad” student, which was not a normal thing to do there. Within the context of the classrooms (all the courses were lab-intensive, so lots of interaction), the students were unfailingly kind, helpful, entertaining, smart and amusing. They were respectful of faculty and a pleasure to be around. </p>

<p>Obviously, I can’t speak of how it would be to share a dorm with them, or socialize outside of classes, but I did not get that “rich, preppy” vibe at all.</p>

<p>We left ND voluntarily, but not because of the students or the quality of the educational program. I have nothing but good memories of those things.</p>

7

<p>

Not really. When S2 visited last year, his impression was that everyone from staff to faculty to students was friendly and helpful and wildly enthusiastic about their experiences, and he felt he would be pretty comfortable there (he’s now at a suburban, new england public hs). My guess would be that ND would not have a “rich, preppy vibe”, although I’m not sure there’s a ton of cultural diversity either. ND does have a reputation for awarding significant need-based aid; just not sure how “needy” one must be for ND.</p>

<p>My personal experience at ND is 30 yrs in the past. There was no preppy vibe in the 70s; but then again, women had only been admitted for three years when I arrived.</p>

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<p>Notre Dame only looks preppy because the kids tend to dress neatly. ND is a warm and caring community, from the kids to the President. Most welcoming campus I ever set foot on. (We visited recently, and I did research there about 15 years ago. Same experience both times.)</p>

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<p>First off, I am not a ND detractor and had to make a very difficult decision 40 years ago about accepting an offer of admission there.</p>

<p>We know about 10 students who are either currently there, recently graduated or who were accepted and chose other schools. One thing to take into consideration about Notre Dame is that it is one of the most conservative Catholic colleges in the US. Their student life policy book “du Lac” is 304 pages long!</p>

<p>[Residence</a> Life & Housing: du Lac](<a href=“http://orlh.nd.edu/dulac/index.html]Residence”>http://orlh.nd.edu/dulac/index.html)</p>

<p>For example, there are no coed dorms and they still have scheduled visitation hours. From “du Lac” their Policy Guide:</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>I am not saying that this is necessarily a bad thing but I know several students who after visiting and learning about this turned down admissions wanting to go to a school that offered a less restrictive living environment.</p>

<p>I would describe many of the ND male students as being former “jocks” and that preppy would only describe their attire. ND has a large number of Catholic school grads who were very good athletes in HS but not good enough to play Division 1. ND is the only school that I know of that actually has an intramural TACKLE football league that plays games in full football pads and equipment.</p>

<p>Alums are die hard and school spirit can practically be felt the minute you walk onto the breathtakingly beautiful campus.</p>

<p>It’s a great school that has worked hard to shed that male dominated jock image but it is still a place with lots of testosterone in the air. :)</p>

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<p>eadad, your post made me :)</p>

<p>My son while a sports fanatic (both playing and watching) is not what I could consider a “jock”. In fact, the kids at school who show off in that way annoy him! </p>

<p>I would also consider him (at this point anyway) conservative in nature re: dorms/visitations you mentioned - he’d probably be ok with that. Will have to see if that still exists.</p>

<p>Thanks for all these tidbits - great stuff for me to have conversation with him about!</p>

11

<p>I would just caution you not to confuse “conservative” with “oppressive”. ND is conservative in the sense that the people are low-key, polite, and don’t protest much. (They were really uncomfortable with the anti-abortion protests surrounding President Obama’s graduation speech, protests that were organized and attended largely by outsiders.)</p>

<p>It’s nothing like Liberty or Oral Roberts. At ND they don’t use religion as a hammer. It merely informs their principles, and they are very principled. There are openly gay students on campus, as well as foreigners and non-Catholics of all kinds. They have fun in most of the same ways that students do at other colleges. It’s just a little cleaner and friendlier.</p>

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<p>I’m always interested to read posts like eadad’s. It’s apparent that things have really changed on the ND campus in 30 years. Not in the rules (cause we also had parietals), but in the reaction to them. Not many were intimidated by the single sex dorm restrictions or the “visitation hours” when I was there in the 70s.</p>

<p>When I was there, the atmosphere was very low-key academically; the kids were smart, but not particularly competitive. We knew we were at a Catholic college, but there wasn’t much talk of religion. I had plenty of friends who were not Catholic and I can barely recall what I took for my 2 required “religion classes”; I think one was a class on church architecture while I was in Rome for junior year.</p>

<p>As for testosterone…I’m hoping that ND has made advancements in that area since 1975 when the ratio of guys to girls was 7:1!</p>

13

<p>I was going to write:</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>But then I thought about it and decided not to.</p>

14

<p>abasket, my S will be a senior at ND this year. It is a unique place (we and my S have been very happy with the school and his experiences) and I would encourage your son to seriously consider ND. Definitely visit, if you can. My only caution is the ACT score, although I can understand your S’s hesitation in retaking it. The ND admissions website is reporting the following for the 50% mid-range for the incoming class of students (not sure if that is incoming for 2008 0r 2009):</p>

<p>Incoming Class Academic Profile (mid 50% ranges)</p>

<pre><code>* 1370 – 1490 on the SAT I (including Critical Reading and Math sections; excluding Writing section)

  • 32 – 34 on the ACT
  • 1% – 5% rank in class
    </code></pre>

<p>Come visit the ND forum anytime, too!</p>

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<p>He has talked about taking the ACT again, but honestly, don’t know if he can top his 30 - but it doesn’t hurt to try.</p>

<p>His rank is fine. The val at his school when my daughter graduated applied and did not get in - but she did not have good ACT’s.</p>

<p>Where is the ND forum???</p>

16

<p>Look under colleges, top universities, University of Notre Dame. Have to agree w/Greta about that ACT score! Come visit!!</p>

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<p>Ds is a varsity athlete so he’d like the rah-rah stuff there. And he’d probably be OK with the dorm rules, too. </p>

<p>I always think of the stated culture and then the reality; ds’s principal is a ND alum who talks about his drug-dealing dormmate who is now famous! I’m sure the kids find a way to break the rules in all sorts of ways.</p>

18

<p>Lies! All charges against Regis were dropped!</p>

19

<p>D was accepted EA to ND last year. I did not think we would qualify for financial aid. Some schools offered $10,000 to $15,000 and most schools gave us $0. Our EFC I believe was $42000. D was named a ND scholar (34 on ACT) and I have no idea if that has anything to do with it, but they were very, very generous. They almost doubled our highest offer and D has an opportunity to earn a $10,000 alumni scholarship. I was thrilled with the ND package. </p>

<p>After her visit, unfortunately, D was not as thrilled as I was. She did not have a good overnight experience, her hosts were not overly friendly and left her alone in the dorm for hours at a time while they had other appointments. She said the dorm she stayed in was terrible, very small, and I found it suspect that there were no dorm tours and parents could not see the dorms. It also turned out she wasn’t thrilled about taking a plane to school, and decided she would rather be on the east coast. I felt, as did she, that there were a lot of athletes on campus. We saw lots of joggers, students going to intramural sports, etc. I also did not like the fact that Notre Dame has a sister school (and no brother school?) for an abundance of females at social events. I definitely think my son would love Notre Dame, but can understand why my daughter didn’t fall in love with it. I think I cried when I mailed that card back to ND turning them down. :frowning: Anyway, She is at Georgetown and I do feel it is the perfect school for her (and she’s not preppy!). She loves it and so do I. My son, on the other hand, would love to go to ND and I’d be thrilled if he did.</p>

20

<p>Neighbor boy was in love with ND…Catholic…34 ACT…top 10% at large competitive HS…GPA 3.98…Captain track team, all-State track, great all american kid. Didn’t get accepted. Now attending Wash U. Parents believe it was because he didn’t do an official visit though he did do unofficial. Just make sure he visits!!!</p>