ND Legacy

Any sense of how ND currently weights legacy candidates? My husband and I are both grads, and I was a legacy myself. Convinced that’s what made the difference for me in gaining admission. It’s my understanding ND still evaluates legacies in their own pool? Is this true?

From the horse’s mouth.

ND legacy admits overall are very smart kids. And ND rejects more legacy applicants than it admits. And ND legacy kids are pretty highly likely to aspire to attending ND given how intoxicating the green Kool-Aid is.

But having said all that, the ND legacy card is the strongest by far among the top 25-ish schools. ND’s legacy enrollment percentage is double that of its peers (triple in the case of Georgetown).

“There also are “different cohorts who enjoy added consideration” — the sons and daughters of faculty, staff and benefactors, the nieces and nephews of Holy Cross priests, athletes and the children of alumni.”

“Fortunately,” says Bishop, “our alumni produce pretty bright kids. The academic profile of that group is quite good.” The admit rate for these applicants is about 45 percent — as opposed to an admit rate of 19 to 20 percent for everybody else. This fulfills a University commitment made some years back to maintain a legacy presence of 20 to 25 percent of the student body, a percentage, he says, about twice that of other highly selective institutions, including the Ivies, Duke, Stanford, Northwestern and Vanderbilt.

http://admissions.nd.edu/connect/news/lunch-with-don-bishop/

This year’s incoming class is 24% alumni children, and 16% with ND siblings. ND is a family more than any other top school.

Omitted the punch line:

"That means, he continues, “there are about 1,000 kids walking this campus today who are alumni kids who, if we did not have this commitment to the alumni, would not be here — about 250 per class.”

That suggests to me that 250 per class of the alumni kids would have gotten in anyway.

ND shows that its class included 24% legacy. http://admissions.nd.edu/apply/admission-statistics/ Being a legacy can be a boost to an application, but it won’t get a person in who is not otherwise qualified to attend.

Legacy is a huge boost for ND on paper. Anywhere from a fifth to a quarter of any incoming class is going to be legacies. The thing is though, children of alumni from top schools like ND are generally mroe qualified than the average applicant, so this accounts for some of the perceived favoring given to legacies.

There is, however, still an undeniable advantage to being a legacy at a top school, and Notre Dame, from what I can tell, seems to give a bigger boost to legacies than just about anyone.

Basically, it will definitely help, but not as much as it might appear to from looking at statistics that say 24% of the incoming class is legacies.

ND is huge on legacy. I’m a current ND freshman and I personally know several other students who would not have gotten in if not for their legacy status. The most powerful “legacy” status would be having an uncle who’s a holy cross priest, followed by having a sibling currently enrolled in the school, then having parents who’ve gone, and lastly other family.

@OwlEyes17 are you saying that having a sibling currently enrolled is better than having parents who went there?

I also thought a saw something that said the accepted legacies had equal stats to the accepted non-legacies.
I loved northwesty’s comment about the green kool-aid. Anecdotally kids with ND legacy seem much more likely to apply to ND than kids with legacies elsewhere seem to apply to the school at which they would be a legacy.

I have a friend (whose kid is a freshman at ND) who calls the green Kool-Aid syndrome having a Domer b _ _ er (rhymes with loner).

@ak9800 yes

@ak9800 and @OwlEyes17 That information regarding legacy admissions is untrue. ND considers you a legacy if and only if your one of your parents received a degree from the University. Having a sibling attend does not count as a legacy. My older daughter (ND '17) was a sophomore when my younger daughter applied, and my younger daughter was not considered a legacy. (She did get in though and is currently attending.) That being said, ND does have an unusually large amount of siblings attending. As far as being the niece or nephew of a CSC, that will give a boost, but nowhere near the boost that legacy does.

Agree with ejcclc. Only parents matter in legacy.

My daughter was just accepted into ND. Product of double Domers. She was very well qualified, but I am virtually certain the legacy status was the difference maker.

It definitely plays a role. We did not attend ND. Our son is a freshman and at Welcome Weekend back in August we met more parents who attended ND then parents who did not.

I have a kid there already. yesterday middle sibling got in as well. sibling’s BF who has a sister there got in as well. I think ND is very much about accepting highly qualified family members. they promote and cultivate a ND “Family” ideal.

According to website about 1/4 of each class is legacy;

One of Fr. Hesburgh’s own family members was not accepted and transferred in from Marquette as sophomore.

can someone chance me?? 32 ACT, 4.42 GPA , top 2% out of 462 at a very competitive high school, president of habitat for humanity, VP & leader of community events for national honor society , VP of Spanish honor society, treasurer of student council, member of math, English, social studies honor society, captain of varsity swim, varsity track , 4 year scholar athlete, ap scholar with honor, reallt involved in food pantry…ran many food drives in neighborhood, school, and sports, legacy (mom went to ND) …decided to apply regular because I was scared about my ACT

Also white female

Also white female