2009 admission statistics - Page 3

Getty59 · 05-16-2009, 07:53 PM

MiPerson

Not sure what data you are referencing that they are taking alot off of Wait List....yes, there are some posts within the ND thread of accepts off WL, but hard to translate that into a total number of what they are taking off the WL.

hawkswim09 · 05-17-2009, 07:15 AM

While there have been probably 10+ people on this website, no one can use this to predict anything about total wait list.

additionally, it appears that the waitlist has gone cold with only maybe one to two waves.

domenicpan · 05-17-2009, 12:18 PM

One quick question regarding the Admission Statistics - On the first page of this discussion the total-score SAT middle 50% was listed. Does anyone know what the specific breakdown of the individual math & reading SAT scores were? ex: Math middle 50% and Reading middle 50%?

mhc81 · 05-17-2009, 09:32 PM

Just checking in and I wanted to mention that my daughter was told on Wednesday the 6th that she was being granted admission off the wait list BUT that she had until May 15th to make her decision. She received her (very generous) financial aid package two days (on a Friday the 8th) after notice of admission. Though we made our decision once we had the finaid, Notre Dame was great in giving us time to weigh the decision.

My point here is that the 15th has come and gone and ND Admissions now knows who accepted their offer and they can move on the list. I wouldn't say it is over by any means.

Good luck to all still waiting for the good news.

numbersguy · 05-20-2009, 08:52 PM

The original numbers in the first post were released to ND clubs around the country. We have not seen any further detail since then.

MiPerson80 · 05-21-2009, 07:28 AM

what I know is distressing to Notre Dame admissions office is that they did not get the 3000+ more applications they expected this year when they moved to the common application....and they are bothered how Duke keeps moving up in the rankings . while ND is stagnant around 18th....

irish68178 · 05-21-2009, 11:00 AM

I truly believe being stagnant in the rankings is due to the poor graduate school. The rankings are created by those in academics, and we judge a school by their alumni. Even though I am a proud alum, few people will know (or care) where I went to undergrad, what is important is where I got my doctorate. Academics are seeing scholars coming out of Duke's grad schools, so they have a high impression of Duke. However, they aren't seeing anyone coming out of ND's. Therefore, how are they going to compare the two?

That being said, the Princeton Review rankings are undergraduate rankings. I believe the peer assessment score is highly flawed for the reason I just outlined, it is judged by people who know more about graduate rankings than undergrad. I honestly would put ND's undergraduate education against any school in the nation, seriously, anyone. The reason why (and so few people understand this unless they have been outside of ND) is that at other schools the emphasis is on the graduate schools. Undergraduates are people you have to deal with, they don't get the attention and they surely don't get the opportunities they have at Notre Dame.

I had weekly meetings with a faculty advisor and published as an undergraduate at Notre Dame. Those things are very hard to do elsewhere. Heck, there are faculty members I know who don't meet with their grad students, let alone their undergrads. This isn't factored into the rankings, but I think it should be. You can go to Harvard, Yale, Duke, Stanford, anywhere with a grad school, you will always be second to the grad students. ND is one of the few places that that isn't the case (and, ironically, I think it is because the graduate programs aren't stellar). I heard my ND advisor say several times that she preferred to work with her undergrads because they were more serious students than her grad students. It isn't like that at other places.

claremarie · 05-21-2009, 01:36 PM

It takes a LONG time to turn a graduate department around. First, you have to recruit faculty from other top schools, who already have great research and publication records, to a department that isn't even on the radar screen for grad programs. Once you have them in place, then you have to convince the best grad students to take a chance on an unknown department (which is why you need to recruit the faculty with established track records first) -- this involves convincing their undergrad advisors as well. Then you have to get those students placed in good academic or industry positions, which helps establish your credentials as a serious department, and those students need to produce and get tenure down the road. All of this takes time and money, but Notre Dame is already in the process of making major improvements in a number of departments.

MiPerson80 · 05-21-2009, 04:27 PM

but the problem for ND with trying to improve any of the hard sciences or engineering, is that it is very expensive and thye have to get a lot of grants. The problem for ND is that it is hard for a religious instition to be perceived as being open on research issues (think stem cell), so peers won't vote for them in the rankings, so I don't see how they can ever get top echelon for rankings....because it is grad school related.

ND should mimic Dartmouth, emphasize undergrad and not get into the expensive arms race for grad schools.

hawkswim09 · 05-22-2009, 06:33 AM

i do believe that their intention is to focus on undergrad, even if they are devoting some more money to grad. when i visited there last summer, the admissions counselor specifically said that ND was an undergraduate institution.

claremarie · 05-22-2009, 07:16 AM

The vast majority of graduate-level research, even in the hard sciences and engineering, have nothing to do with embryonic stem cells. Notre Dame professors are already getting research grants, and that funding source is increasing as more research-minded faculty join the university. There is no reason that Notre Dame cannot continue to be a first-rate undergraduate institution while it builds stronger graduate programs. There are many faculty members who enjoy working with both populations, and who see many benefits to their undergraduates from having a better graduate program.

MiPerson80 · 05-22-2009, 11:05 AM

but explain to me why Duke continues to climb in the USNWR rankings, and get much much more applicants, while ND is stagnant?

toast eater · 05-22-2009, 11:32 AM

Duke climbs in the rankings because David Gergen, its former executive editor, is a Duke trustee, and will help US news to adjust the metrics so theyshow Duke in the best light. Another "prejudice" in the US News system is that the Publisher, Mort Zuckerman is a Penn alum.

irish68178 · 05-22-2009, 11:42 AM

I don't think that ND is limited in its ability to get grants by being a Catholic school, but I think the faculty does hold it back some. When it comes to getting grants the environment and the applicant are just as important as the idea (for NIH and NIMH at least, which are the groups I am most familiar with). ND has made steps by building a new science building, that is a start, but Clairemarie is spot on about the faculty. You have to have very good faculty to compete. Schools can transform into grant-writing machines, my grad program is in the middle of it. You have to recruit junior faculty who are recent graduates from top labs and who have had their grants funded in grad school. Then you build upon them receiving grants. It is going to be VERY hard to get a big name to jump to ND, it just doesn't happen often.

I don't often agree with MiPerson80, philosopical differences, but he is spot on in terms of ND mimicing schools focused on undergraduate education. They won't do this, and I think in the long-run it will improve the grad schools, improve ND's rankings, but also weaken the undergraduate education at ND.

Clairemarie, I somewhat disagree. I think to be a great undergraduate institution you have to have professors who care about teaching. You don't get to an elite level as far as research and research funding by caring about teaching. In fact, many professors (including my advisor) use research funding to pay the university so they don't have to teach (aka buying out of teaching) and can do more research. This is great for the reputation of the school as far as research and good for the grad students (they buy out of undergrad teaching, usually not grad teaching) but it deprives undergraduates from interacting with your top faculty members.

One must remember that Duke is a very different school. While they technically are a religious school, they really aren't, and they recruit different students than ND does. There are a lot of great students who would apply to Duke but not ND because they don't want an overly religious environment, and that is fine. I think comparing them is slightly apples to oranges.

MiPerson80 · 05-22-2009, 12:51 PM

my son was accepted by both Duke and ND this year, but is going to U of Michigan. We almost bought into sending him to Duke because a lot of people said Duke was very quickly increasing their ranking (they brought in Brodhead from Yale to do this) and somehow have a strategy that seems to be paying off. But also the frat culture did turn us off.