<p>This might be random.. but I saw that ND was 55% male and 45% female. As a female, do you guys think I might have a slight, even super slight, more chance of getting accepted than a male because of that?</p>
<p>Possibly, as colleges generally prefer 50/50; though the fact that Notre Dame still isn’t 50/50 after all these years may prove that they don’t do it. I imagine that the ones who do it already have 50/50 and do it to maintain that.</p>
<p>Well, there is a thread somewhere on this forum where 2010/2011 applicants posted their stats and their accept/wait list/reject status from Notre Dame. I spent considerable time reading through the many submissions from posters and was trying to figure out why my son was wait listed compared to other kids. I was a bit dismayed to see that there did not seem to be a whole lot of rhyme or reason to who was accepted and who was not. All accepted and wait-listed kids had exceptional stats. My son’s stats were generally equal to and in some cases better than students who had been accepted.</p>
<p>I did notice that legacy, female and minority applicants seemed to have been given an edge. For example, there were a number of women who had scores along the lines of 3.7 - 3.8 GPA, ACT of 30-32, many activities and accomplishments and they were accepted outright. My son with a 3.93 GPA, 34 ACT, and many activities and accomplishments was wait-listed. This is not a complaint, but an observation. My son likely would have ended up elsewhere regardless.</p>
<p>So in my opinion, based on observation, I do believe being a female has an advantage - even if its only minor.</p>
<p>I have heard that the uneven ratio is attributed to the fact that ND has more male dorms than female dorms and therefore has to have more guys than girls. If that is the case, than applying as a girl would give you a slight disadvantage.</p>
<p>Can’t really say unless we know the gender breakdown of applicants. But notredamegirl93 is right in that there is one fewer female dorm; female dorms may also hold fewer students. 45% of those applying may be female, or 50%, or above. I don’t know if we have access to that data.</p>
<p>also depends on the major…ND loves female engineers for example (I know that they don’t select based on major but trust me they do look at it to some degree)…</p>
<p>ajax1983, honestly it’s just a crapshoot sometimes. Perfectly qualified people get rejected or waitlisted all the time, especially as the university gets more and more selective. You’ll find people who had “worse” numbers that got in and find some who had better numbers who didn’t get in. </p>
<p>I got waitlisted and had friends that had worse stats than me but they still got accepted. Oddly enough, all of those people happened to go to private Catholic schools while I went to an ok public school. I have no idea if that has any bearing except for the fact that their curriculum could be harder but as someone who took the hardest schedule possible at my school, I don’t see how there could have been that big of a difference. </p>
<p>When I transferred to Notre Dame, at orientation, I talked to one of the admission counselors and he said that when it gets down to it, after reading so many applications that sound basically the same, sometimes it’s just a seemingly random thing on an application that can stick out and gets the student accepted. And at times, these are things that the student just barely mentions and doesn’t put a lot of emphasis on it while he or she will spend a bunch of time talking about being the captain of a sports team (even though tons of applications have the same thing). </p>
<p>He said it may not seem fair but if you’re reading application after application with people who have 30+ ACT scores, 3.8+ GPAs, and a boat load of extracurriulars, it gets tedious and people tend to blend in, so anything that sticks out (even if there’s no rhyme or reason) can make or break an application. He said besides the “basic qualifications,” there’s nothing specific that they look for to pick one applicant over another.</p>
<p>^I never had someone within the office but I figured that this is what happens. Thanks for the great post…i know that it seems unfair, but like they said, it really comes down to the things that differentiate yourself…</p>