Good morning @goodjob ND chooses only a select few of students who apply REA and Reg decision. If you get deferred from REA you also have a chance to be offered a spot. As far as letting them know, I mean I guess you could let your AO know that you are aware of the program and would love to be a part of it if given the opportunity. Our D was offered a spot this year. @hpcsa is SO incredibly knowledgeable about ND so if he chimes in you can guarantee he’ll be spot on. Good luck to you in the regular round decision process!!!
@goodjob As @HM0527 rightly suggested you might include in your forthcoming communication with your AO that you have heard about the Gateway program and would be quite interested to pursue this option, if given the opportunity.
However, my strong hunch is that Gateway students are being selected exclusively from the respective REA and RD applicant population. REA applicants have already been reviewed for Acceptance, Gateway, Deferral or Rejection during that round and therefore a more likely outcome for a REA applicant, deferred to the Regular Decision round, will naturally be REA → Deferral RD → Acceptance, or REA → Deferral RD → Waitlist, or REA → Deferral RD → Rejection.
Hence, in communicating with your AO on Gateway you should therefore ensure that any expressed interest in the Gateway program as a REA applicant in the RD round will not in any way weaken your argument why you are an optimal choice to be considered for direct admission to Notre Dame during this round. Also, purely statistically, your chances for direct admission during Regular Decision are quite a bit higher, i.e. around 100 or 7.3% of 1,375 REA deferred applicants, compared to just a few dozens Gateway students from a much larger pool of Regular Decision applicants. Very best of luck and success!
@lastof10 Excellent! Generally, I would expect your student to hear from the Holy Cross Office of Financial Aid in February, however you might want to review previous years Gateway threads for more exact information, if available. One reason it is always a good idea to post this type of information for current and future cycle applicants, and their parents 
Thanks for all of the information. If you don’t mind will you please post your stats so we can see what was needed for Gateway? That is if you don’t mind sharing. My son would love to know if he is anywhere close to the needed numbers. Thanks so much for your time and help.
@goodjob just sent you a message
Thanks hpsca! We are hoping for a good outcome and feel like everything will fall into place if it’s meant to be. Just having an end date for the answer is comforting. Thanks again and Go Irish!
@lastof10 looking forward to hearing about yalls visit!!!
Hahah! Thanks!! As we are yours! Going on 1/25, will let you know how it goes!
@lastof10 Daytime temperature will be around 7° F on Friday, dress warmly & have a successful visit!
Thanks! Will bundle up. Glad it will be cold though as we want to experience everything about ND, including the snow and cold. Weather is part of the package. Will help our D make a better informed decision.
@lastof10 Yes, it seems your daughter will get a good impression of Notre Dame winter weather tomorrow:
“…WIND CHILL ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 3 AM EST /2 AM CST/ TO 1 PM EST /NOON CST/ FRIDAY… * WHAT…Very cold wind chills expected. Wind chills as low as 20 below zero expected. * WHERE…Portions of northern Indiana, southwest Michigan and northwest Ohio. * WHEN…From 3 AM EST /2 AM CST/ to 1 PM EST /noon CST/ Friday. * ADDITIONAL DETAILS…The cold wind chills could cause frostbite on exposed skin in as little as 30 minutes. PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS… A Wind Chill Advisory means that cold air and the wind will combine to create low wind chills. Frostbite and hypothermia can occur if precautions are not taken. Make sure you wear a hat and gloves.”
Safe travels!
@lastof10 can’t wait to hear how it went yesterday!!!
The visit was fantastic. VERY COLD, but nobody was paying attention to that (except my feet). This is my take, as a parent.
The program was well run and informative. ND/HC are both on their game. We also got our first up close look at HC and we all liked it very much.
Meeting and talking to current Gateway students and last years Gateway students now in their 2nd year at Notre Dame was the key to everything for us. They exhibited the “spirit” of HC/ND mightily. The students showed a care for each other, the community, the Gateway program and themselves. They were all excellent students, but more importantly, they were all excellent people!
Our daughter is thoroughly impressed and told us that she was wowed by how kind, open and fun the other admitted students were and how they shared many characteristics. She genuinely liked all the Gateway kids and felt they were being honest and forthright about how everything works. She came away with Gateway as her 1st choice and so did her parents!
It is hard for me to describe the “feel”, but we definitely felt good karma. Seemed to me that students who are flexible and team players would fit in well. The visit gave us a very positive outlook on the Gateway Program and how it fits in with the Tri Campus Community. It seems to be a hidden gem.
If you’re not sure, go visit! Hope that helps and best of luck to all the Gateway families!
@lastof10 I can’t tell you how happy I am to read this!!! Sounds like everything posted on CC about the program is spot on. I have seen another post where it says as long as students are flexible they’ll fit in…what do you mean by that? Thank you again for taking the time to post your view!!
@lastof10 I thought your “hidden gem” observation for Gateway was right on the money - it would be a good approach, I believe, to build up this program further, to the benefit of additional students being admitted into Gateway from ND REA & RD, while supporting Holy Cross College and all it has to offer in conjunction with the University of Notre Dame. This will mean that an even higher number of limited available Sophomore Transfer slots (high 98% of ND First-Year Students do return) will be filled by Gateway students as opposed to traditional Transfer Students from external institutions, a net gain given the long term commitment and contributions of Gateway Students, I believe.
Flexibility is required from the start. You have to be flexible enough to go to Holy Cross when you applied to Notre Dame. If your student is flexible enough to do that, they will probably do well. I believe ND does a good job of choosing Gateway students who will be able to adjust on the fly. They intentionally choose applicants who will accept the Gateway offer. There are a lot of kids that would turn this down as they didn’t get what they wanted…admission to ND as a Freshman.
You have to be willing to go with the flow with the whole process. Start at HC, work to transfer to ND, go through the transfer process, move over to ND etc. The program is very well defined, but you still won’t know some specifics until it’s time to actually do them. This is a positive to me as kids need to learn how to adjust in life so some practice now will help later!
If parents or students have any doubts about the Gateway program they really just need to visit.
I agree with everything @lastof10 said. Our daughter just officially accepted her Gateway offer this evening. We loved our visit this weekend and were impressed by the Holy Cross students and administrators, and the Gateway students past, present and future. There is just a genuine warmth to this program. The incoming Gateway students that met this weekend are already on a group text (probably not the right term for it) and our daughter kept giving us updates as we sat on snowy airport runways - this one is at the basketball game…so and so just committed! It’s like they are old friends already.
Every parent/student we spoke with seemed to have the same story about how they found out, the initial disappointment and questions, but I am seeing now that is all part of the beauty of this program and we are excited to be part of this awesome group!
@TXDad23 this makes me so happy! Our visit is in April but reading yours and @lastof10 impression on the whole thing makes me want to go earlier. I hope eventually the group text will merge with the other kids visiting at a later date. Can’t wait!!!
Does anyone know what the cap will be this year for the program? Also, did they give any idea on how many of the current cohorts are transferring in?
How can we get other Gateway kids who haven’t visited yet in this group text??