<p>did anyone choose to attend notre dame instead of an ivy league? if so, how do you feel about that decision?</p>
<p>Notre Dame is the last large college where students are not ridiculed for going to church. The ROTC is honored and our country is revered. My son was so excited to be accepted because it meant that he would not have to go to Michigan.</p>
<p>Not to mention that the students live in Dorms-no social pressure, tackle dorm football, etc. The best compliment I ever heard about Domers is that "unlike the Ivy Leaguers, Notre Dame grads don't act like the world is owed to them".</p>
<p>well in my honest opinion, I think Notre Dame is more difficult to get into than Cornell and on par with UPenn and maybe dmouth. (for the non legacy, non urm canidate)</p>
<p>I won't mention them by name but I know a few posters on here who turned down Ivy League schools. They hopefully will be posting soon.</p>
<p>It all depends on what you value and what you want out of your college experience. I transferred in with a student from Princeton and as far as I could tell she never regretted her decision to leave Princeton.</p>
<p>My S chose ND over Y and a couple other top 20 schools. He is a sophomore now and very happy at ND. No regrets from him or us. I will say as a parent it is difficult to watch one's child turn down a top Ivy, even if we both loved ND and it was a better fit. Any specific questions, please feel free to pm me.</p>
<p>you'll get an excellent education no matter where you go, so I think it all comes down to choosing the place you'll be happiest!</p>
<p>just because you get into an ivy doesn't mean it's the right place for you.</p>
<p>for sryrstress, why did he chose ND over Yale? My son was just accepted to ND and is also applying to Yale, I might pay for Yale but not ND. My son is a legacy also.</p>
<p>It all depends on your values, I would be quicker to pay for Notre Dame than Yale. Then again, I believe that the Catholic atmosphere is important, I believe in the power of the Notre Dame family, and I think that the education at the two schools is similar overall. As someone who is working on a PhD and planning on going into academics, I can tell you that it is hard to get employed by either school. However, I believe ND focuses more on teaching than most other schools, whereas Yale likely focuses more on grants and research. If your son was looking for grad school, I would say Yale because that is where the research and grants are important. For undergrad, however, I would want the school which stresses teaching. </p>
<p>Just my $.02</p>
<p>ND is making a huge push toward research, so really it wouldn't hurt at all to go there</p>
<p>As someone who turned down Cornell for Notre Dame, I feel I can answer you question appropriately. No Cornell is not HYP, but it is still an ivy. Anyways, after one semester here as freshman, I do not yet have major regrets. Though I have not done as well as I thought I could have done (G.P.A. wise first semester), I feel confident that I can get a better G.P.A. next semester and beyond, something I'm not sure I would be able to say at Cornell, it being a slightly more competitive school. ND is challenging, but many kids who may not have been able to thrive at the ivies, thrive at ND are able to thrive at ND pushing them to be able to get into top grad schools, research opportunities, jobs, etc. </p>
<p>I don't mean to sound condescending, but while there are a lot of smart people here, many people do not come off as bright/exceptional. So if one of your main criteria for choosing a school would be to be constantly surrounded by bright, exceptional people with extensive vocabularies, incredibly high aspirations, and intellectually-themed conversations, then the ivies may offer more of that than ND, at least the top ones (I'm not sure about Cornell or UPenn). This is one of the few aspects that leaves much to be desired at ND, for a desiree (myself), although I've only experienced one semester here, so perhaps I have not yet found it. But, as explained earlier, this may be a positive, as it can allow one to succeed more easily. </p>
<p>I got a letter from ND telling me that I was in the top 20% of the class admitted. While this made me happy, and slightly pushed me away from ND, I now realize that such a statistic is motivating me to do better, something that might not have happened at an Ivy, where I might have happy to stay "afloat", so to speak. Because ND is slightly below the ivies, you will have more of an incentive to work hard, and you will be able to thrive more easily, combined with the fact that ND's alum network beats that of almost all, if not all, of the ivies because of the whole "family thing". We are ranked #3rd in alumni donation rank, per U.S. News and World report, if you want a stat for that.</p>
<p>All of this makes me feel as though, in terms of your future success, your may be helping yourself out by turning down an ivy, at least a lower one, i.e. not HYP, for ND. </p>
<p>In addition, if you like sports, you need to be here, but that is not to say that if you're not into sports, you can't be happy here. Though the football team was not as good as it should have been this year, the home games were still fun. And our basketball team is awesome.</p>
<p>I personally feel as though I have made a good decision. I'm being challenged here, but I feel, that at the end of my 4 years, that I will have been able to thrive in ways I may not have been at the ivies, at least not without giving up all forms of fun and a social/spiritual life, which brings me to another point: ND, unlike the ivies, will offer you unique and ample opportunities to grow spiritually as a person, though, again, if you're not a super religious, don't worry, most students here, like at most colleges, are not; the religious element is simply another possible pro, but not a factor that dominates at all, except for in the inherent friendliness of many people here.</p>
<p>In summation, ND offers certain advantages that the ivies don't, and for that reason, I have felt pretty good about my decision. </p>
<p>feel free to send me a private message</p>
<p>I just wanted to make myself clear concerning paragraph #2 in my response. People at Notre Dame are incredibly bright and exceptional. However, relative to those at HYPS, the people at Notre Dame who are like this are fewer in number. Not as many people want to the president of the U.S. or constantly chat about the impact of the economy in the last election at ND as HYPS, at least. However, given that I don't go to those schools, I can't say for certain, just an extrapolation based on selectivity numbers. And upon further reflection, I feel that number at ND of these types of people would be similar to Northwestern and some of the lower ivies, just not HYPS.</p>
<p>But, despite this, there are people willing to talk about politics or intellectual stuff from time to time, and this, in my opinion has not caused major regrets on my part.</p>
<p>There was a senior football player this year who transfered from Columbia to be a back up at Notre Dame. Kind of interesting. Maybe.</p>
<p>I turned down three of the best schools in the country in my field of study for Notre Dame, which is not one of the best schools in the country in that field. I regretted it for about 8 months, then I started hanging out on North Quad and everything's chill now. And I'll probably double major in a field in which Notre Dame is tops (philosophy, peace studies (really? did I really just say peace studies, that is such a chick major. But Rashied Omar and G. Lope are such ballers I can't help it. Props to D-Cort and JP Lederach as well. >>> kroc.nd.edu)) Late night chicos... Late night</p>
<p>The difference between ND and HYP, is that ND produces good citizens and HYP produces leaders (that admittedly aren't that good sometimes).</p>
1 Like
<p>Great comparison MiPerson80 and let's hope that ND also produces some leaders that are good as well. ND is indeed a special place!</p>
<p>yes but the dilemma here for me is that I might pay the $50K for HY but not for ND even though my son has been already admitted to ND this year (EA), HY really puts a bunch of diverse kids together and then you see what emerges to the top in 20 years, I think my son will keep his values but the exposure he would get at HY could be worth the financial burden....</p>
<p>MiPerson80--you asked why my S chose ND over Yale. I think Irish summed it up pretty well in post #8. I believe the academics are similar, with Y getting the nod somewhat. However, above a certain bar I'm not sure it matters all that much and that other aspects become tipping factors.</p>
<p>My S wanted the "school spirit/sports" that appeared much more evident at ND than Y. He played varsity basketball and golf and enjoyed the team atmosphere.</p>
<p>Another thing we really noticed is whether students were at their top choice college. This, to us as observers, and also as noted in studies, is very evident at ND. However, we visited Y two times and he went to the 4 day admitted student event. The mantra is constantly that "we're better than Harvard"...like they have something to prove. We heard this on numerous occasions (interestingly enough, we never heard the reverse mentioned one time at Harvard)</p>
<p>Something that really turned him off from Yale was the prevalence of drugs. I don't want to encourage a bunch of posts on this point or that drugs at Yale are nothing compared to state party schools. The bottom line for S was that drugs were much more observable at Y than ND.</p>
<p>He was not a legacy at either school. He bought into the idea of the ND "family". Initially I thought this must surely be partially hype. I am happy to report I was quickly the total convert and we have seen it evidenced in every part of ND.</p>
<p>We are from the midwest. We expect manners and friendliness, but like many things, I think ND takes that to an even higher level. People in South Bend are friendlier than people in New Haven and the east coast in general. (no nasty posts here either--just my opinion!) He has said several times he thinks ND makes all potential employees take a "niceness" test.</p>
<p>ND being more conservative than Yale was also a positive thing for my S. </p>
<p>The name-draw of Y would have probably been greater for an east coast student. However, if you were to draw a circle with a radius of South Bend to Chicago, I think one would find that the ND name has equal or greater cache than Y. We fall in that area and I was told numerous times, "Well if he doesn't get into ND, then I guess he can go to Yale." (he was SCEA to Y and RD to ND)."</p>
<p>I am curious why your S applied to ND if you are willing to pay for Y and not ND?</p>
<p>I turned down Dartmouth for Notre Dame and am really glad I made that decision. There is nowhere else like Notre Dame.</p>
<p>I've written a bunch of posts about this in the past with reasons/other reflections. It's a pretty common question here. If you look into my previous posts you should be able to find a few other threads on this topic, which should also have some input from other people as well.</p>
<p>Yale would give him the exposure of a lifetime, and my son would take advantage of it.</p>
<p>MiPerson-WHY did your son apply to ND, then?</p>
<p>I would be very careful about buying into the hype of an ivy league school. I believe that your son could receive the exposure of a lifetime at many schools.</p>