Notre Dame Class of 2023 REA Thread

According to the Fall 2018 Enrolled Students profile posted on the ND website, the ACT range is 33-35. I take that to mean a 32 is below the 25th percentile. I agree with @hpcsa that the review process is holistic although our GC told us that during the REA round, students need to be outstanding in all areas to be admitted.

@HM0527 Most colleges prefer to provide the “middle 50% range” rather than the mean standardized test score so that they don’t scare away applicants who might mistakenly see the mean (average) score as a cut-off. Think of it this way
 if ND accepted a total of 100 students, 50 of those accepted students would have scored between 33-35 on their ACT. 25 of them would have scored a 36, and another 25 of them would have scored a 32 or lower.

The key for ALL applicants regardless of their ACT/SAT score is how well did they “tell their story.” Some portion of those 25 students who scored 32 or below probably bring some unique talent to ND that made them attractive to ND when admissions was filling out the class. Maybe they are a great football or basketball player, maybe they are a virtuoso performing artist, or maybe they are from a socio-economic or racial background that ND wants to see greater representation from in the incoming class.

You absolutely stand a chance with a score of 32, but again, the “holistic” aspect is how well the rest of your application rounded out the picture that the admissions office has of you. Good luck!

@scholardad If you have a test score below mid-50%, this does not mean that all hope is lost! A quarter of current ND students scored below that number and they are on campus now. Nevertheless, with a lower test score, the student needs to shine on other aspects of her/his application and ND REA tends to be a more competitive sub-set, as compared to the total accepted ND student population, specifically as it relates to test scores. Conversely, a student possessing a 35 or 36 on the ACT may look competitive from a testing perspective, but still not receive admission due to other factors.

@GeronimoAlpaca thank you! Great info. My D applied so I’m just the mom but I whole heartedly appreciate your response. D doesn’t fall into any of those unique talents but other than that 32 is really a good applicant.

@hpcsa Not sure how you got that “all hope is lost” from my post. As both @GeronimoAlpaca and I stated, though, that REA round is filled with outstanding applicants and the applicants in the bottom 25% of that pool will most likely be bringing something spectacular to the college whether it be athletics, the arts, demographics, etc. So there is hope - but probably more hope in the RD round.

Well I guess “all hope is lost” since D applied EA and is none of the above and I thought the waiting was stressful before ?

@HM0527 Fact of the matter is that ND will not admit many of highest scoring applicants, based on test scores alone. Conversely, you will find that students with 25% percentile test scores and excelling in other areas will, in fact, stand a fair chance to be admitted at Notre Dame. I hope your daughter will become part of this group, which makes Notre Dame, Notre Dame. Best of luck and success!

approximately 22 days 8 hours and 15 mins until decisions

@hpcsa thank you!!! Sometime I feel like some people on CC can be so negative. I read the stats on the amount of kids that apply and for a long time I just thought every single kid was the best of the best and perfect at every holistic “category” but as my husband says, “most of the kids that apply are either throwing sand into the wind or just applying to apply and that will come across on their apps. Refresh my memory again, you are at ND, have a child there or are a grad?

@HM0527 You are very welcome! Normally the Notre Dame online threads are positive and supportive, unlike some others on CC, an expression of Notre Dame’s culture and values. Yes, on your question, we are Double Domers (a Notre Dame specific descriptor) and our daughter is a sophomore student at Notre Dame. Again, all the very best to your daughter! In case REA should bring a deferral to RD, please make sure she won’t consider this negatively. Many excellent REA student applicants get deferred and will ultimately be accepted to Notre Dame Regular Decision.

@HM0527 Personally, I’ve latched on to the admissions statistics that are published by the schools because those stats are tangible, quantifiable metrics that show me what I need to be competitive in the applicant pool. I find “holistic admissions” to be sort of a double-edged sword. On the positive side, the holistic review means that an applicant who is in the “bottom 25%” on GPA and test scores has a chance to be admitted if they really tell their story well and show how they will make a positive mark at the school and utilize the resources available to them. On the negative side, the holistic review also means that the applicant who is in the highest quartile ("top 25%) on stats can get rejected for reasons that can be difficult to understand on quantitative grounds.

One thing about ND that I respect is that they do not hide their admissions stats. In addition, ND has posted some useful videos on YouTube in recent years that explain the sorts of things that are important to the admissions team. A quick search on YouTube will bring up the video called “The College Admissions Process.” In that video, which is about 2 years old now, you can see for yourself just how much harder it is to get admitted to ND with a score of 31-32 vs. a score of 33-36. Not all schools publish that sort of detailed data, and I suspect ND has chosen to do so in an attempt to be a bit more transparent about just how tough it is to get in.

The other thing I would say, and I say this just because of what I saw last year at my school, Notre Dame (and similarly ranked schools like Vanderbilt, Rice, and Wash U) seem to put a very high emphasis on test scores. Last year, one of my best friends (a year ahead of me in HS) got deferred from ND in REA and then accepted in RD. He had a 3.8 unweighted / 4.2 weighted GPA, 7 AP’s, and a 33 ACT. His extracurriculars were just ‘ok,’ but I thought his essays were outstanding. When he got deferred in REA, he immediately contacted his regional admissions rep, explained in writing “Why Notre Dame and what he would contribute at ND,” and retook his ACT and scored 34. He was admitted in the Regular Decision round last March and just started at ND this fall.

And here’s the crazy thing: your daughter scored a 32, which is 97th percentile nationally, and you’re concerned that her test score might hurt her. This is how nuts this whole process has become! At this point, what’s done is done, and hopefully around mid-December, you and your daughter will be singing the praises of the holistic admissions process!

@HM0527,

I want to chime in and give you something else to consider:
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-average-number-of-college-applications-per-student-in-the-United-States

Here is an excerpt:
"the average number of colleges that graduating seniors who are applying to colleges that have selective admissions has skyrocketed.

In 1990 only 9% of college applicants applied to 7 or more colleges

In 2005 17% of college applicants applied to 7 or more colleges

In 2015 36% of college applicants applied to 7 or more colleges

Among students in the top 5% of graduating seniors, the inflation in the number of schools is even more dramatic, with many (if not most) students who are applying to the most selective colleges applying to 15 - 20 schools, with some even submitting 25 or more applications."

My daughter attends a public high school, and some of the students are submitting 10 or more college applications!

It occurred to me that some students may end up creating a generic “Why I want to attend this college” that has such broad criteria as “It has a study abroad program.” I wouldn’t be surprised if Notre Dame gets some applications with the wrong college name in the essay! Notre Dame has a lot of unique aspects to it. My daughter was really impressed by several of them. I know she put in her essay that she liked the idea of volunteer activities in her field of study, something that is probably not offered at a lot of colleges. It showed she is thinking about Notre Dame.

I’m just never going to forget how my daughter acted on the college tour. It literally brings tears to my eyes. She was just so happy and so excited. She’ll do fine at the state college, but it would not be the same as if she got into Notre Dame. She fit there, she knew it, and my hope is that she was able to convey her excitement and interest!

I suspect your daughter already aced showing interest in Notre Dame. We just have a few more days to get the news on the first round of acceptances!

@katrina1 it sounds as if our D’s are the same exact child. When we took our D on a tour the only way she could explain it to us was like an out of body experience for her. She also shadowed a student for the day and didn’t really talk to us for about an hour after. She just sat in the back of the car and smiled. When our D finally did talk she said it was the most amazing day and it just solidified her complete desire and hope to be a part of the ND family. Her words not mine. She has no hook which I keep hearing is so important if her score isn’t “outstanding” I wish nothing but the best and God’s graces on you and your daughter.

@katrina1 @HM0527 Thank you for sharing the experiences of your daughters on this forum - it is clear that both are a very good fit and would clearly excel at Notre Dame, as would @GeronimoAlpaca, whose postings on the Notre Dame CC forum are just consistently outstanding.

Notre Dame Admissions does an excellent job in assembling incoming ND Undergraduate classes - some more recent student profiles: https://cuse.nd.edu/sorin-scholars/our-scholars/

From the Don Bishop video at the 33:00 mark referred to above. Since that video is from May 2016, the data is probably even tougher for the current cycle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DQOPx1EGE8

Kids with an ACT 31-32 had a 15% admit rate at ND.

Kids with a 33-36 ACT had a 50% admit rate at ND. And presumably within that group, the 35/36 kids get admitted much more frequently than the 33/34 kids do.

It is holistic, it all matters and you never know. But schools of ND’s rank (like Rice, Vandy, WUSTL) really dig the high test scores. Which is why/how they can produce test score ranges as high (and sometimes higher) than HYPS.

Good luck to all.

In addition to the high ACT stats posted in the 2016 video, I imagine the scores of the Class of 2023 students will be even higher given that ND is now superscoring the ACT. Many students will be taking the ACT more than once to achieve a higher superscored composite. It will be interesting to see where the “very top” of the ACT range will be once the results are released.

“Because the Admissions Committee is unable to extend all of its offers of admission in the Restrictive Early Action process, it is highly conservative when making Early Action admission decisions. The Admissions Committee advises students to apply in the Restrictive Early Action process only if they are in the very top ranges of our applicant pool.”

@northwesty D falls in the 15% category SO you’re saying she has a chance. Thanks for the feedback!!

Although very important,there are so many factors that go into theses decisions other than grades and test scores. Strength of high school, geographic location, intended major. There’s really know way to know what the outcome for most applicants will be. With 21,000+ applicants and 8000+ in top 1% of test takers, so many factors come into play when building a class. I also read an article that said there is added consideration for children of faculty, benefactors, legacies, nieces and nephews of holy cross priests. Best of luck to everyone. Second year in a row of waiting and wondering
it’s tough.

During our ND visit last summer, a representative mentioned that many essay writers will mistakenly mention “Notre Dame College” (which is in Ohio) or “Notre Dame University” (in Maryland). It’s something the University of Notre Dame notices


@HM0527 – sure she’s got a chance. If I told you you had a 15% chance of winning the lottery, you’d definitely buy a ticket, right? Good luck. You never know