My son applied to Notre Dame over the weekend. He applied Restrictive Early Action.
Here are his stats:
GPA 3.889uw/4.0w
ACT 32 (English 30, Math 33, Reading 32, Science 34, Writing 26)
Rank: 27/402
Taken 3 AP classes so far (AP US History, AP Lang, AP Gov)
Taking 3 AP classes this year (AP Litt, AP Calc AB, AP Chem)
EC:
NHS All 3 eligible years - Officer this year
Varsity Swimming - All 4 years
Marching Band - All 4 years - 2nd in State and 3rd in State - Section Leader - 2 years, Field Conductor 1 year
Wind Symphony - last 2 of 4 years (Top band, State level honors)
Symphonic Band - first 2 of 4 years (Middle band, First Chair, State level honors)
Northern Colorado Honor Band - Regional Honor Band - 2 years (3rd year not yet selected)
Colorado State University Honor Band - Regional Honor Band - 2 years
Boy Scouts of America - Eagle Scout, Bronze Palm - Multiple leadership positions including Senior Patrol Leader (2), 150+ hours of community service
City of Loveland Youth Advisory Commission - 4th year. City Government position. - 100+ hours of community service
who knows; its a crapshoot. My S is almost identical to yours on paper. He had a 33 act, 3rd in his class of 104, was Lodge Chief for two terms(is now section vice chief)and had over 1,000 service hours, but otherwise very similar to your son and he didn’t even make waitlist. I think your S is of the caliber for ND, I would advise he write a phenomenal essay!
ND is my#1 for him, but I am not super optimistic. It is very competitive so everyone has a similar, if not better resume. He loved ND but his heart was captured by U of Wisconsin. ND is his #2.
I’m in the same boat. I figured the only way to standout was to take a risk on every essay. Didn’t see much downside only upside. I’m curious to see what the results will be.
Getting admitted would be the surprise. If you don’t try there is 0% of getting in, unlike the .05% chance I have now
jpc, ha! exact opposite for my Scout! I tried to get him interested in UW, but no dice(if I had discovered Madison before I went to college, that’s where I wouldve went!) He is in love with ND and is going to try to transfer from Oklahoma State. We will see…
Given the ACT is below the middle 50% of admitted students and class rank is around 7%, it would seem unlikely. Not saying that it can’t be done, but I think he would need to be in the top 1-2% of his class to give himself a legitimate shot with a 32 ACT.
With respect to REA, the ND rep said they don’t recommend even applying REA unless you are in the top 25% of the applicant pool. Which they said STARTED at ACT 35 and SAT 1550. Nuts!!
They said that the standard is to only accept kids at REA who they would be certain to accept no matter what. So they can be comfortable accepting a kid now without knowing how strong the overall applicant pool eventually turns out to be. So pretty much 180 degrees opposite of how at many schools it is easier to get in if you apply binding ED.
Also said that kids should get the same decision ultimately regardless of whether they applied REA or RD. So the only downside to applying early is if your application at 11/1 would be weaker than your application at 1/1.
@northwesty I know you said a rep from the school said apply RD, but with a basic amount of research, I found some conflicting data that shows the acceptance rate is higher with REA.
From the ND website:
Notre Dame has admitted 1,610 Early Action Applicants to the Class of 2020. 5,321 students were reviewed under the University’s Restricted Early Action program. Early Applications were up 21% over last year.
That means the acceptance rate for REA was 28.4% last year.
From the official ND common data set:
total applicants: 18,157
total admitted: 3,595
We can see that the regular decision deadline was less beneficial. This can obviously be from strength of the applicant pool, but it is highly unlikely that all of the best applicants only applied REA.
The past postings from ND show that they like nice round numbers from REA (1610, 1400). This can obviously mean that they have a set number that they will accept based off of projected applications, which seems to be about half of the slots. From that, I agree that it COULD be a more difficult applicant pool in November. The rep also seems to have contradicted herself by saying that you should only apply REA if you’re a near perfect, then saying that you’ll get the same decision either way, then saying that your application is weaker during REA. If it’s weaker, then the odds are that your decision might be different.
Of course, take what I say with a grain of salt because I know nothing other than what I found online in 5 minutes. I’m not an adcom, just a senior nervously applying.
jpc, I would say that your son has, like most applicants, a somewhat low chance of admission. If I had to guess, I would say either admission or deferral then admission. I don’t think they can deny him. Good luck!
Would being from Colorado help? I know that ND is one of those schools that likes to have 50 states represented. It says on the ND website that they have 23% of the undergrads from the West/Southwest, but that is probably heavily skewed by California students.
Also, OP’s kid should probably take the ACT again in the event of a deferral.
@as1799 I can understand why you would think that people have a better chance of getting admitted REA because that’s what the percentages indicate. However, it is because the applicant pool for REA is significantly stronger. If people are contacting their admissions reps for guidance about when to apply and the admissions reps encourage a significant portion to apply RD because of their credentials aren’t “top notch”, then of course the admit rate will be significantly higher if most of those people take the admissions rep advice.
1610 is not a nice round number.
In regards to the rep contradicting herself, their is no real contradiction. The reason that the rep encourages people to apply RD is because it gives people without “top notch” credentials to improve their resume by taking the standardized tests again or to have the first semester grades from their senior year for their file. With that said, I believe what the rep told @northwesty is accurate that IF your credentials don’t change, you should get the same answer whether you apply REA or RD
If you believe that your credentials are as strong as they will get and will almost certainly not improve, then apply REA. If you think your scores, GPA, or any other item on your resume can be improved, then you should apply RD.
The ND rep said they are more conservative making decisions at the REA stage. So they only encourage kids to apply REA who are in the top 25% of the applicant pool. They are pretty obviously trying to target kids at the REA stage that might otherwise be tempted to go binding ED at another top school.
If the pool is stocked in that way, then you’d expect the admit rate to be higher than the overall admit rate.
If your credentials won’t be getting any better, go ahead and apply REA. If you’re a more average applicant, you may get deferred into RD. Or you’ll get an early reject, which will help to move the process along.
“Would being from Colorado help?”
As someone from Colorado, my view is that people in the northeast and Midwest vastly over-rate the strength of geographical diversity in selective admissions (except for kids from Alaska or South Dakota maybe). The suburbs around cities like Denver and Phoenix are chock full of kids with great credentials who apply to the selective schools. They are not rare beasts and are pretty much indistinguishable from the suburban kids from Boston or Philly or DC or Chicago.
The message is pretty clear that ND wants only the strongest applicants to apply in the EA pool. That ship has sailed for this year’s class, but there really is no downside to waiting for the RD pool if you don’t have topnotch class rank and test scores. It seems that ND wants to limit the percentage of the class admitted early, and as more students decide they want to apply then, the competition is bound to be more intense. Why risk getting an outright denial when you might have had a shot in the RD pool, the strength of which simply isn’t known in November?
Certainly, an applicant who would have been a no-brainer EA admit will also be a no-brainer RD admit, because the admissions office has already seen the majority of the best applicants by that point and has a good idea of the upper bound of the pool. The lower bound of the pool isn’t going to be apparent from the EA group.
Thanks @northwesty for clarifying! Actually, it’s NORTH Dakota that is underrepresented. I visited 3 East Coast schools this year that said in the Info Session “we’re looking for you North Dakota!” as they had no ND kids. Then at the next school we visited, our tour guide was from North Dakota. Go figure!