Gotta keep our hopes up… let’s talk.
Was also deferred from REA. Hoping I’ll have better luck in RD. Does anyone know the rate of deferral from REA?
Deferred from Mendoza School of Business, ACT - 35, GPA - 3.9
@belovedbytoni Last year was around 19%. Apparently during RD we have around the same chance with the rest of the RD applicants.
As much as this sucks for all of us, last year only 19% of applicants were deferred, so I’m guessing the stats for 2024 are similar, meaning it is more likely to get flat out rejected than to get accepted or deferred combined. While the deferral stings, we should still all be proud for getting this far.
Deferred here. I get the feeling the committee perhaps didn’t like my untraditional “impact on your community” response or promptless, wordy common-app rambling. 1580. 800 math II. Mechanical engineering.
Deferred as well. Does anyone know if we can take February ACT and submit that score.
Hey everyone. Last year (i’m class of 2023) I was deferred in Early Action, and ended up getting in in RD. If you want to reach out, DM me on instagram (@ethanzzz22) or twitter (@ethanzane_). I may have some of the answers you are looking for, and advice for what you can do in the meantime to boost your application. Go Irish and best of luck!
1 Like
Thanks Ethan. Glad to see you’re from Southwest Michigan too!
I used to be a frequent poster on the ND board when I went thru the application process last year. I haven’t been on cc all Fall because, well, college (a) is fun, and (b) involves some actual studying. 
Anyway, Fall semester finals are over, so…
For the students who got deferred this year, there’s an interesting video with the admissions chief, Don Bishop, that ND Admissions just uploaded yesterday, Dec 19th. The video is on the following webpage, right at the bottom of the page:
https://admissions.nd.edu/visit-engage/webcasts/
Around the 26 minute mark, Bishop states that in last year’s applicant pool, 980 applicants were deferred, and of those, 211 were admitted. In this year’s pool, 933 applicants were deferred. So, for those who were deferred, sounds like the chances of getting accepted in the Regular Decision round would be about 21-23% or so. The video offers some helpful tips to deferred candidates… worth a listen.
Bishop also noted that ND got around 7,300 REA applications in this year’s pool, of which “almost” 1,540 were accepted. Those figures are very similar to last year’s REA pool (the one I applied in), where ND had 7,334 REA applicants, and admitted 1,534.
Anyway, best of luck to all of you, and I hope it works out for you in the RD round.
The head of admissions did a webinar this week. He said 933 students were deferred this year. He said last year that about 990 were deferred and 211 of these were admitted in regular action–that is a 21% admit rate and ND’s admit last year was about 15% overall. He said the best action is to send the admission regional person a nice email restating your strong desire and then later in February update your record with any accomplishments you have had in your senior year and your fall semester transcript. ND likes the erred group because they showed a special interest in ND by applying early. They also said that applying early does not affect your chances for admission. The early admits as a group had higher credentials and that is why they got in. If they admit over 200 defers it seems to make sense…they don’t know yet what the whole pool will look like since the application deadline is January 1. They have to hold out spots for regular action. They said about 55% of all admits are given to regular action applicants and that includes the defer group.
To the best of my knowledge, all colleges state that higher REA or ED admission rates are attributable to “a higher quality REA/ED applicant pool”. This may be true at some schools, particularly those that end up receiving lots and lots of speculative applications in the RD rounds because it is an easy submission (zero or limited essays, etc.) and is the type of school that has broad appeal for a variety of reasons. Notre Dame receives a more limited number of applications overall for the quality of institution that it is - reflecting its strong Catholic heritage. There is a lot of self-selection among ND applicants - with few just lobbing in an application because it is a top 15 school.
I think the higher admission rates in ND’s REA round are more attributable to:
- Strong commitment to ND demonstrated by REA applicants as they have had to forgo their best chance for admission to many other top universities by not applying ED or SCEA. These students are essentially saying that ND is their top choice, or very near their top choice.
- High yield of REA admits, consistent with point 1. These kids, by and large, really want to attend ND.
- Athletic admits, which typically are run through the early round
- Legacy admits, who are more likely to get "credit" for their ND ties by applying early and demonstrating commensurate commitment to the university
These factors play out at other universities as well.
No matter how strong the pool is, ND has far fewer places to hand out than qualified applicants in any round. The the quality of the REA applicant pool would have to be much much higher than the RD applicant pool to justify the large difference in admit rates. Remember also that the RD pool will include a large number of students who may have tried ED/SCEA at a top 10 school and therefore could not apply REA to ND - potentially boosting the RD pool.
Having said all of this, I have immense confidence in Don Bishop and his team when they say that a strong applicant will get fair consideration in either round. He consistently makes the point that the quality of the ND applicant pool (REA and RD) is increasing every year at a much faster rate than overall application numbers - and it is this cohort (the very high quality applicants) that each individual applicant is actually competing against rather than the overall application numbers. The result has been that while overall admission rates have certainly gotten more competitive, the admission chances for the best applicants have probably declined at a greater rate as they face increasing competition. This can also be seen in the increasing quality of the admitted and enrolled classes at Notre Dame including many students, in Don Bishop’s words, could not have gained admission even 3 - 4 years ago.
Don Bishop goes out of his way to share his thoughts and perspectives openly with applicants. His videos are well worth listening to!
Best of luck to all deferred candidates. You are already among the best candidates that Notre Dame will see this year!
do we get results when the regular decisions come out?
Yes