<p>“A ND alum friend warned me not to take S to see it unless it was a possibility, because he would simply have to go there once he saw it.”</p>
<p>Really? I visited ND while I was traveling cross country earlier this summer. Maybe my expectations were unrealistically high, but I actually found the core of campus to be rather uninteresting, constructed mostly of boring beige brick. On the other hand, the war memorial with its fountains and rainbows was quite interesting.</p>
<p>As a New Englander, I found the campus confusing in all of it’s flatland beige brickness – but the energy, the tradition, the soul of Notre Dame transcends all of that. I’ve been there twice – once on a recruited athlete visit with my son, and once for a football game. It is a pretty amazing place – and for a young man with an interest in big time sports and top notch athletics – hard to turn down.</p>
<p>My middle son visited, was accepted and chose somewhere else. It’s not for everybody.</p>
<p>Curious - for those accepted but deciding to go somewhere other than ND, where did they end up going? If you don’t want to be specific, a general idea (large public, well-known private, unknown, etc.)</p>
<p>My D chose a top 12 private. Although she is liberal in her ideas, she is very morally conservative and thought that ND would be a good fit. She loved the idea of the single sex dorms, even parietals didn’t bother her. The new science and performing arts buildings are amazing!! It just ended up being a bunch of little things that added up to a lot that pointed her in the direction of another school.</p>
<p>Notre Dame is a very unique school and despite the fact that we are not Catholic we are excited that our kid has chosen to go there. We just got back from a welcome to ND get together put on by the local ND club with about 12 Freshmen, their families, and there had to be about an additional 100 upperclassmen and club members. This was the third event we have been to put on by the local club since our kid was accepted.</p>
<p>I’d be the first to say ND is not for everyone and if it hadn’t been for a friend’s suggestion we would not have looked at it. I am really glad we did.</p>
<p>Mine chose Michigan. Still had the tradition and the athletics. He wanted a bigger campus and not so “preppy”.</p>
<p>Top-20 LAC with full ride merit scholarship. Money was a prime consideration in turning down the great schools he was accepted to (ND, G’town, UChicago). Since he chose a school with a full ride, we will contribute 4 years’ worth of EFC for law school. </p>
<p>(Dh owns his own business. We were only familiar with FAFSA, since older S attended a state school. We didn’t know how the privates would look at his business. We didn’t feel comfortable with their finaid packages, even though all met 100% of demonstrated need.)</p>