“If a parent went to a 4 year college but did not graduate, does that count as “first generation” and does ND consider that?”
There’s many many ways to define “first gen.” No college degrees, no associates degrees, no post-HS education at all, for both parents, for either parent, for only the custodial parent(s), no degrees plus low income, etc. etc. etc.
I have no idea which one ND uses, or how much it uses it.
@havingfunismy@WineLover@northwesty Excellent advice and I wholeheartedly with your feedback and input to @katrina1. What we found, looking into various options for our daughter, is that her College of Engineering interest excluded some of the traditional alternatives to Notre Dame, as they do not offer this course of study. But then, there are several others, which Notre Dame regards as peer institutions as well, that do have strong Engineering programs also.
@northwesty I agree with your assessment. Many Notre Dame EA applicants also apply to other top Catholic schools that also offer Early Action (e.g. Boston College, Georgetown, Villanova, Fordham, etc.)
@katrina1 Don Bishop mentioned this at either the REA admitted visit program or Freshman orientation. Basically, 60% of kids who get accepted choose to attend ND. Of the 40% who decline admission to ND, 20% end up at state flagships with scholarships and honors programs while the other 20% end up at peer or above ranked colleges. He also mentioned (and confirmed anecdotally) that many ND enrolled students have turned down acceptances from Ivy League and other very highly ranked institutions. Don Bishop did not provide any names of schools in his talk but focused on the trend in ND admits and enrolled students - that is that more higher quality students are choosing to apply to and attend Notre Dame.
I can totally understand your concerns with respect to your daughter applying to just the state flagship and ND. As per hpcsa above, I have listed the other schools my son applied to or considered. Having said that, I can also understand the perspective that “if I am not going to go to Notre Dame, then I am fine going to my state flagship”. People choose Notre Dame for reasons that not many other colleges (none?) can fully address - with few easy substitute colleges out there.
I do hope that your daughter is admitted to Notre Dame!
@CCSavant, You nailed my daughter’s attitude: “If I am not going to go to Notre Dame, then I am fine going to my state flagship.” It’s somewhat comforting to me to know that 20% of the students admitted to Notre Dame decide instead to attend their state flagship.
I’ve pestered my daughter all fall about considering other colleges, and she has done some investigating because she told me, for example, that Northwestern uses a quarterly grading system which she thinks would be difficult when you are taking engineering courses. I think I need to give up being a helicopter parent and respect her choices. She told me once, “Mom, Notre Dame is looking for kids like me.” That really stuck in my mind. I hope they find her. We’ll know this week!
@katrina1 Take comfort in the fact that your daughter is focusing on Notre Dame for all of the right reasons, her reasons, and believes that she would be a great fit. If she communicated this well in her application, combined with her very solid test scores and GPA that you posted earlier, I would say she has a great chance. I will look forward to your positive post when results come out. Until then, hold your breath and hope/pray for the best!
As others have noted, since the portal link was given in a previous email, it’s very likely that the “week before” email is not coming out this year. It’s anybody’s guess when decisions come out, but it should be this week. My guess - only a guess - is either tomorrow night or Wednesday night.
Is it possible to not have an email? I think two years ago decisions came out on the 19th? So maybe the email letting us know about decisions comes out this week? And decisions are next week?
“It’s somewhat comforting to me to know that 20% of the students admitted to Notre Dame decide instead to attend their state flagship.”
Studies show that most college enrollment choices come down mostly to two things – prestige and price. ND has a strong prestige/price ratio, hence its very high 60% yield. The accepted kids who don’t enroll at ND will typically be picking (i) higher prestige, (ii) a lower price, or (iii) combination of (i) and (ii). Kids who don’t get accepted at ND will also typically pick their next best available price/prestige option.
Depending on your state, the price/prestige/value proposition of your flagship can be pretty awesome. The yield on in-state acceptances at UVA, for example, is a bit higher than ND’s yield. Stanford and Harvard have 80% yields – because they are tops in financial aid and in rep.
But the highest yields, year in and year out, are USMA and USNA. They’re not really “free”, but there’s no tuition to be paid.
I totally agree with this. Except that yields are grossly impacted by early decision or similarly restrictive admissions options (SCEA). Notre Dame manages to maintain an incredibly high yield without relying on ED for half of the class. Probably top five or so for those schools without ED. It is really instructive to look at the RD yields (and acceptance rates) for top schools with ED comprising 50% of the admitted class. Yes…RD admissions rates are low…but so are the yields…comparatively for a top school.
ND offers something truly unique to its students (at least the one who get it), and is rewarded accordingly. To reprise Lou Holtz (reprising other sources), “For those who know ND, no explanation is necessary. For those who don’t, no explanation is sufficient”.
Like the military academies…self selection drives the applicant pool who overwhelmingly attend if accepted.
This is finals week at ND. Last year the decision came out the Wednesday of finals week. The two years before that it came out on the Monday of finals week. It’s just a guess though.
I don’t know how long this webpage has been up, but it looks like they have info for admitted students available online. https://admissions.nd.edu/information-for/admitted-students/ Does anyone know how long before decisions came out that this page was available? I know I am being a little crazy obsessive now lol.
@WineLover I saw that site a least two weeks ago. I think they begin the process of updating stale info in prep for the announcement. No doubt the announcement is this week. The school will basically shutdown on Friday.