What are the chances I get into ND with the following qualifications?
Double legacy status
Desired major: Political Science
Academics:
GPA: 4.34 weighted (mostly As and A+s, 5 A-s/B+s)
ACT: 32 composite, 32 superscore
APUSH: 4
AP LANG: 4
AP BIO: 3
Activities/Leadership:
Newspaper - News Editor
Marching Band - Section Leader
Jazz Ensemble 1 - Section Leader
Iowa Youth Congress - Squad Leader
Model United Nations
Spanish Club - CoPresidente
Speech - Improv Captain
Drama (Club)
Concert Band - Section Leader
Pep Band - Section Leader
Show Choir Combo - Combo Captain
Pit Orchestra
Liturgy Ensemble
Cross Country - Junior Varsity Captain
Soccer
Key Club
Ambassadors
Mascoting
National Honor Society
Math Club - Relay Captain
Running Club - Officer
Spanish National Honor Society
XTrAS
Ministers of Hospitality
Senior Service Committee - Education Subcommittee Leader
Senior Mentors
Hugh O’Brien Youth Leadership (HOBY) - Junior Facilitator (JUFA)
Iowa Youth Institute - Borlaug Scholar
Honors/Awards:
World Leadership Conference Delegate Top 10 Finalist (Hugh O’Brian Youth Leadership)
Outstanding Delegate (Model United Nations)
Outstanding Position Paper (Model United Nations)
Solo Division 1 Ratings (Concert Band)
Letters/Pins (Band)
Outstanding Soloist (Jazz Band)
Rookie of the Year Award (Show Choir Combo)
Combo Spirit Award (Show Choir Combo)
Most Improved Award (Cross Country)
Band Achievement Award (Band)
Essays:
I overcame a speech impediment and became a successful public speaker.
I created and led a school-wide movement that emphasized the importance of mutual respect among all extracurricular activities (XC Equal Rights Movement).
I’ll be honest, there isn’t much to learn from these types of threads because the people answering you can only give you anecdotal advice, and I don’t think anyone from admissions has any presence on this site. You can get a decent gauge at your shot by looking back a few threads to the admissions ones from last year, to see what accepted/WL/denied student’s resumes looked like.I say this because I took the advice from random people way too seriously when I was in high school, and it probably caused me undue stress.
Your GPA and EC’s look good, and it helps that both of your parents are grads. Your essays sound cool, and outside of the cliches that a lot of people get stuck in. Your ACT is a little low but still respectable- even though it’s below the 25-75 mark, so is a quarter of the matriculating class. You’re definitely a strong contender for ND, but I’d recommend applying regular because most students accepted early have near perfect GPA’s and 33+ ACT’s.
If you know what your class rank is, or where you relatively stand, that in addition to GPA is a better gauge than GPA alone. At my high school a 4.3 was barely in the top 10%, while at other schools that could make you the valedictorian.
If you’ve already written your essays, great, let them rest for a while. Take a few weeks and read them again with fresh eyes, even after like 10 revisions I still found an error in my common app essay because I was so used to reading it.
Thanks for your helpful advice! I have some follow up questions if you’re willing:
What essay sounded coolest? (I’m trying to decide which to write about for my personal statement).
My parents seem to think that my application is strong enough to either get accepted or deferred EA. I am not really willing to take that chance and get denied. Is there any disadvantage to applying RD?
My GPA puts me in roughly the top 5% of my class, but my high school doesn’t provide class rank. Do you have any advice on how to show this in my application (to lessen the importance of my subpar ACT score)?
Me again, but now I’m so interested in your questions!
EA~get it done, your stats are great.
As for the essays, I like the school-wide movement as it is more positive and progressive. I’m always a little wary about the “overcoming issues” essays… just my opinion!
Notre Dame admissions will have a copy of your high school profile in front of them when they are looking at your transcript. In most cases this profile will show the GPA cutoff for the top 5% of your class and it will give a lot of information about just how competitive your high school is. I like your chances, great EC’s, Iowa which almost coutns for geographic diversity, double legacy the only reservation is that your ACT score is a little low. Notre Dame cannot publish a 33 - 35 middle 50th percentile without admitting a lot of students with extremely high scores
So I’m a current student at ND (rising Junior) and I do volunteer college counseling during the summer, particularly for UCs and ND (I’m from California). I agree with Ilikefencing when they say to not put too much emphasis on these threads, but it can give you an idea of my credentials and how you compare. I had a 4.5 weighted GPA and 3.9 non-weighted. I also did speech and debate, along with Mock Trial and water polo and swim. SAT was 2010 and ACT was 32. As you can see, my testing wasn’t phenomenal. I am also Mexican so, although some deny it, I do think that helped my chances.
I am a huge fan of your essay because that sets you apart. I also am biased because I did impromptu in high school. And the double legacy will probably help, although I wouldn’t bank on it because I have friends who are triple domers that did not get in.
Over all, I think you have a good shot and don’t be discouraged to apply EA. I applied EA and did not have the top scores of their pool by any means, but my ECs were good and so were my essays. The best advise I could give is to focus on your three favorite ECs. I think speech and choir and the Model UN would be good because it applies to your major. Obviously list all of them, but in the extra essays I would focus on the three you are the most passionate about. Hopefully this gives you some idea of your chances.
just a thought on your essays–try to consider you want the reader to get why ND is a good fit for you and why you are a good fit for ND. Take the experience you are writing about and how ND will create the opportunity for you to take it farther–why ND would want you to bring that experience to campus and make it better.
The school is going to have its pick of folks with all the same great numbers/activities like yourself–your task is to show what distinguishes you from that pack, how you will add to the ND community and how ND will make you better