<p>I would be willing to be that Notre Dame is a FIRST choice school for a far higher percentage of college applicants than any Ivy except for Harvard, Princeton and Yale. And, show me proof that Yale and Harvard are chosen in those percentages over ND.</p>
<p>The fact of the matter is, the “ivy wannabes” tend to be students who are focused only in getting into “some Ivy” and thus tend to apply to almost all of them, because they have been fed and believe the media koolaid that the Ivies are so much better and you HAVE to go to an Ivy. Much of this is perpetuated by eastern wealthy families who force feed this mentality to their kids and its institutionalized by Eastern prep schools. Those types tend to apply to a bunch of Ivies and many have to settle for their 3rd, 4th choice etc. </p>
<p>Notre Dame students on the other hand tend to be, to a very large degree, students who WANT to go to ND and consider ND far and away their top choice or dream school. So for many, including obviously many Catholics, ND is a clear #1 choice and they don’t bother with “just settling for a second rate Ivy”, ie Cornell, Brown, Columbia just so they can say they go to any Ivy.</p>
<p>And obviously there are a large percentage of students who aren’t Catholic (Jewish, Asians) who self select and don’t consider Notre Dame only because of religion and geography (ie not because of academics). So to presume that ND is inferior simply because a large percentage of Jewish and Asian kids aren’t ever going to consider ND for non academic reasons is the epitome of arrogance, elitism, moronicism and idiocyism.</p>