Daughter was accepted to her top two but seems very conflicted.
She has good stats, 4.0, 34C ACT with great EC. Engineering major but will probably
end up getting her MBA. She attends a challenging catholic high school. I thought she would
be thrilled with the ND acceptance but instead it has caused more stress. My confident daughter now
seems to think she can’t succeed at a school with such academically bright students. Nova will be a bit
easier academically while ND will challenge her more. We have visited accepted student day at Nova and
are heading down to ND this weekend. How does a bright student who is use to being in the top 5% handle
being middle of the pack at a school like ND? She can afford to attend the school of her choice. She also wants
to be at a Catholic School.
My S went to a school that was a reach for him and was nervous. He spoke to his guidance counselor and she assured him that college admissions officers do an outstanding job of accepting students who they feel confident will thrive at their school. My S took that to heart, went to his top choice reach college and did just great. You D should attend whichever school she prefers, but try to not let fear rule the choice. There will be very smart kids at both schools. Congrats and good luck making a decision.
If ND accepted her, they are confident that she will succeed there. Engineering is going to be difficult at every university, at the very best ones like ND stress students more than others because that is how you create a great engineer. They force them to work in groups so they learn to divide and delegate, just like the real world. They also provide lots of support so she will succeed as long as she puts in the time. When she visits, I would ask a lot of questions about support. But the choice between ND and Villanova seems pretty easy to me.
disclaimer: current nova engineer
Every school teaches the same thing, it’s not like notre dame has special knowledge that no one else knows. I don’t know how it as at ND but here we work together to challenge eachother to make eachother better (I’ve heard of other schools being uber competitive and it’s not as fun)