While non-Catholic students are welcomed at ND, it is a Catholic school and 80% of the students are Catholic, there are priests who live in the dorms, and there are some religion courses required. If you are wiling to accept that, fine, but if you aren’t then don’t go there. You will NOT change the environment, the health insurance, the Touchdown Jesus.
I think you are wrong that more people recognize Dartmouth than Notre Dame worldwide. ND, the Four Horsemen, Win One for the Gipper? Academically, they are both good and admired, but if you ask the average person, more will know ND than Dartmouth.
The whole idea that Dartmouth is a feeder for only investment banking is ridiculous, it has great name recognition among all companies (e.g. my cousin went there, majored in English and became a senior VP at Oracle). Dartmouth will give you a solid undergraduate education to go wherever you want.
In terms of fit, these are very different schools, but both wonderful in their own way. Can you afford the application fee to apply to both? If so, it might be worth it. I know Notre Dame has something called the Reilly Weekend where they cover expenses for certain top applicants to spend 4 days living on campus. Perhaps Dartmouth has a similar program. You haven’t given your stats, but if you see yourself in that group, maybe that would be a way for you to visit the campuses.
And just to slightly tweak an earlier comment, you won’t need to take “religion” classes at ND. You will need to take theology and philosophy courses, with options that run the spectrum from religious to non-religious. But you won’t be required to take any class in the Catholic religion.
If you are an investment banker especially on Wall Street or nyc you are in fact referred to as a “banker”. To say investment banker in ny would indicate to many you aren’t in the club. FYI.
“While non-Catholic students are welcomed at ND, it is a Catholic school and 80% of the students are Catholic, there are priests who live in the dorms, and there are some religion courses required. If you are wiling to accept that, fine, but if you aren’t then don’t go there. You will NOT change the environment, the health insurance, the Touchdown Jesus.”
All of this is true, but at the risk of being the broken record: my D is not Catholic and her religiosity - or lack thereof - has been a complete non-issue. She’ll be a senior there next year. The religion course requirement can be covered by studying any number of religions. They are really more like history/philosophy classes
@twoinanddone
The Christian environment doesn’t discomfort me. While I am an atheist, I go to a Christian high school and will even be staying with a Christian foster family on campus for my senior year (own family had to leave due to financial hardship).
Honestly can’t go wrong with either school. Definitely a different type of school, with Dartmouth being more liberal arts stye and NotreDame being a very academically rigorous large school with top tier sports. Both are very strong academically and student life may be one of the main determinants on which is better for you.
The numbers cited for Finance, Consulting, and Technology in #22 are high … but I’m not sure they are very different than numbers for some of the other Ivies. For example, of Harvard graduates entering the workforce in 2015, 48 percent of those surveyed said they were entering either consulting, finance, or technology/engineering. Ideally, we’d have a source that shows how many alumni actually entered those fields during the same reference period. Absent that, I think it’s safe to say that Finance and Consulting attract a large number (perhaps a plurality) of recent alumni from several peer colleges.
According to NSF/WebCASPAR data, for the years 2012-16 (inclusive), Notre Dame alumni earned 689 PhDs, while Dartmouth alumni earned 545. Notre Dame has almost 2X as many undergraduates as Dartmouth. It would appear that Dartmouth has a much higher rate of alumni per capita PhD production. For humanities and social sciences alone, Dartmouth alumni earned more doctorates during that time period (187 v. 160 for ND alumni), despite its smaller size and the apparently large flow of Dartmouth alumni into Finance, Consulting, and Technology.
In addition, Dartmouth apparently spends more on research ($199M v. $176M for ND, according to Washington Monthly 2017 data).
So far, I’m not seeing any empirical evidence that Dartmouth is a weaker research university than Notre Dame. If anything, the opposite seems to be the case (although, maybe the numbers aren’t so different that they should strongly influence a decision to apply to one or the other).
The question comes down to cost. If you can’t afford it, you’re not going there no matter how prestigious it is. Both schools have a 10% or less chance of getting in, so make sure you have a strong safety option that’s ABET accredited. The biggest problem I see this time of year with smart students is exotic reach-heavy college lists. What they usually end up with is a list of acceptance to schools they can’t afford.
Right now, this isn’t even a debate. Chances are, you’re going to get rejected to both schools. If you do get accepted, you may or may not be able to pay for it. That’s what you have to plan for when you make your college list. Gap years sound great on paper, but almost always end-up wasting a year working at Subway.
@coolguy40
Both of these are far more affordable than any safety or match school I’ve seen. In fact, I’d pay next to nothing to attend because of the generous financial aid.
I don’t know where you’re getting the acceptance rate from: Notre Dame’s is around 18%
These are two very, very different schools. One thing to note about ND is that the freshman year curriculum essentially had no engineering. There are a required theology and philosophy courses that all students are required to take. Volunteerism and mission work is also very important. That said, I don’t think “engineering” when I think about Dartmouth…at all. Where else are you applying?
@tk21769 : In agreement with you, I doubt that these numbers are high for Ivy League schools. I also think that many students want to attend Ivies because they are among the group of select schools targeted by the top financial & consulting firms.
If I have time later today, I’ll try to get placement numbers or percentages from another few schools.
@momofsenior1:Thank you ! Very high yield numbers–especially so when considering the other options offered to such outstanding applicants.
The article states that Dartmouth’s mean ACT was 33 & mean SAT 1497/1600.
Notre Dame article shares that of those applicants with a 33 to 36 ACT and those earning a 1510 to 1600 SAT, only 50% were accepted down from 80% a year ago in an effort to focus on holistic admissions.
Also, Notre Dame’s yield of 55.4% placed it among the top ten yields for National Research universities.
Just a quick look at the school of engineering pages on both college websites, it looks like the intro to engineering courses at Notre Dame start out first semester freshman year (one engineering course each semester that year). On the Dartmouth page, it says the intro engineering course is recommended to be taken sophomore year. @momofsenior1 When you say the ND freshman year curriculum has essentially no engineering, is that because most good engineering programs have multiple courses taken in engineering each semester of freshman year? Just curious, I’m not familiar with what the norm is for this major.