“Christy Pratt will replace Bob Mundy as director of admissions, the University announced in a press release Monday.
Mundy, who has had a 36-year career at Notre Dame, will assist Pratt with onboarding to before he leaves in August, according to the release.
“Bob Mundy has provided Notre Dame with a deep sense of wisdom and thoughtful caring in his 36-year career. Bob’s stature in the national community of admissions leaders and high school counselors has represented exactly the type of intelligent, thorough and spiritual approach that matches the University mission,” …
Pratt has 18 years of experience in higher education, according to the release. She received a bachelor’s degree from Frostburg State University, and then a master’s degree from Hood College. Before coming to Notre Dame, Pratt worked in college admissions at Hood College, Frederick Community College, East Carolina University and the University of Virginia, the release said.
At UVA, Pratt served as the senior associate dean for undergraduate admissions, where she helped in “achieving UVA’s admissions and recruitment goals while increasing the academic and diversity profile of the first-year and transfer classes,” according to the release. She also serves on national and regional councils for organizations such as the College Board, Questbridge and Posse, the release said.”
https://ndsmcobserver.com/2019/07/university-appoints-new-director-of-admissions/
Well, maybe that’s good.
I wonder if ND considers an ED option…UVA just did for this year…
@DG Indeed. Another example is Boston College, introducing an Early Decision program for undergraduate admission this year, a shift from non-binding Early Action policy to a binding Early Decision program:
https://www.bc.edu/bc-web/bcnews/campus-community/announcements/early-decision.html
Notre Dame is in a somewhat different situation, however, with REA currently delivering positive outcomes for the university.
I am very surprised they haven’t done ED yet. I think every top 20 will eventually have ED option to help mitigate the game of applying to 20 schools etc…
I think 22 of top 40 do it already…ED that is.
I think it’s just crazy that people argue all the time about the only way to the top is the elite school option when comparing choices x over y. Especially when big financial impact is on the table.
The person in charge - yes in charge- of choosing who attends this elite university (ND) went to Frostburg State. So much for that requirement in this case.
It’s always about the person despite what is hyper competitive parents on CC think.
Good for her and ND
Don Bishop runs Notre Dame admissions (and some other things as well). He sets the tone, is a great communicator and has defined what Notre Dame is looking for in applicants. As long as he is there, I won’t get too worked up one way or another as to the team below him, and I am sure that whomever he empowers below him is well qualified to carry out his/her duties.
I do not believe that ND will move to ED. They do not have to. With a yield of approximately 70% of their REA applications and almost 60% overall, ND gets who they want…while still carrying out an application process that is neither coercive nor unnecessarily restrictive. ND ranks among the schools with the highest yields in the country which do not offer an ED option. Really only the ivies which do not offer an ED option and Stanford rank ahead of ND. Part of this is also the self selection that defines ND applicants. While the applicant pool is of the very highest quality, it does not include many students just “tossing in an application” because it is a top 15/20 university - due to its Catholic heritage. This means that the students who apply really want to attend, and that the application pool is not as large as non-Catholic peer schools who are faced with the burden of dealing with increasingly unwieldy application numbers.
ND does a great job in admissions and is, every year, building a more competitive, capable and outstanding class of students.
ND doesn’t need to go ED. ED fundamentally is about yield. And ND gets great yield by using just REA. Deciding to apply to ND REA means deciding against applying ED to any other top private school with SCEA (HYPS) or ED (Duke, NW, Vandy, Penn, Brown, etc.). So ND REA, as a practical matter, operates pretty much as ED by another name. Just like how SCEA at HYPS functions as a near equivalent to ED. The key is that REA and SCEA are “single choice”; the fact that they are non-binding is less important as a practical matter.
ND fills slightly over half its seats via REA – basically identical to the percentage of seats that the big ED schools fill in their ED round. Then add in the XL-sized legacy program at ND (which has substantial overlap with REA). So you’d expect that ND would get marginal benefit by moving from REA to ED. ND is pretty much there already.
I’m actually surprised that BC waited so long to go to ED. That move makes obvious sense for them, since they had the weakest brand/yield among the big 3 fancy Catholics, all of whom had continued to use REA.
This is great insight. I guess if i want to go to ND then the REA route is the right route. Am debating ND REA or WashU ED.
The rules are set up pretty much so that you can only shoot one early round bullet. But here’s some 2023 enrolled class data that might help you come up with the best strategy as between WUSTL and ND.
WUSTL is a fairly big ED school. You definitely max your chances of admission by applying ED. For the 2023 class, the ED admit rate was 36% (which includes ED1 and ED2). Overall/blended admit rate was 14%. 40% of the seats filled via ED. So the RD admit rate was likely high single digits and the ED1 admit rate might have been more like 40%.
ND’s most recent REA admit rate was 21%. Overall admit rate was 15%. Half the class comes in via the REA round. So again, the RD admit rate was probably high single digits.
ND tends to be a bit more conservative when admitting REA students, so there’s not as much admissions advantage going early at ND as there is for going early at WUSTL. The main advantage of applying ND REA is that you hear back sooner, which can really help move your overall process along.
Since ND REA is non-binding and WUSTL has ED2 (which is rare) here’s one unusual path you could take with these two schools that is not generally possible. 1. Apply to ND REA and see if you get in. 2. Once you have an ND REA decision back by 12/15 (admit, defer or reject) then you can consider whether to apply to WUSTL by 1/1 via RD (lower odds, non-binding, hear back end of March) or ED2 (higher odds, binding, hear back by 2/15). WUSTL doesn’t release separate data for ED1 and ED2, but conventional wisdom is that the admit rates are ED1 highest, ED2 next highest, RD lowest.
If you try the ND REA-WUSTL ED2 path, make sure you talk to your HS guidance counselor and perhaps ND to make sure that is allowed. No issue if you get denied ND REA; probably not an issue if you get deferred ND REA (since you now are in the RD round); maybe an issue if you get admitted ND REA.
Way too complicated! Good luck.
Thx for the feedback…i liked WashU but prefer ND so going to give REA a shot…probably a long shot but what the heck