University of Notre Dame Visit Report by vinceh

Visit Activities:

Information Session: Yes - Session opened with a 15 minute video that you can watch on YouTube! Why? Counselor spoke for 45 min. He was knowledgeable, but 15 more minutes with him would have been far more helpful than the video

Campus Tour: Yes - Two guides for 16 people. Campus is gorgeous and the guides well informed.

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Campus:

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Everyone we spoke to was helpful and friendly; all were more than willing to stop and give directions.

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Staff is very efficient. Things run on a tight timetable which made the "lost" 15 minutes of the video even more frustrating.

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The campus is gorgeous. All buildings, regardless of age look like they belong.

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Everywhere we visited was clean or being cleaned. The grounds were immaculate.

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Got a passing student to show us his dorm. Dorms are single sex and the rooms seem more than large enough.

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Very safe feeling. Campus is primarily surrounded by neighborhoods.

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This is the stereotypical Hollywood campus. The buildings, grounds and students are well cleaned and polished.

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Off-Campus:

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Surroundings are either residential or student off-campus housing. The student side is a bit seedy but not too bad.

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We were warned repeatedly to avoid South Bend due to safety concerns and the fact that "there's nothing to do there". From what little we saw, I agree.

Campus Visit Notes for University of Notre Dame

Visit Description:

Notre Dame was a bit of a (very nice) mixed bag. Campus is gorgeous. Buildings follow a strict architectural review that makes a brand new building look and feel like it's been there for years.

We were a bit put off by the opening video at the information session. There was nothing wrong with it, but you can see it on YouTube any time you like, so why waste time on it during an information session? This was especially a problem when the info session was cut short to accommodate the start of the tour. The time table seems to be strictly adhered to, so when the Admissions Counselor's time was up, that was it. He offered to answer questions after the tour, but why not drop the video and allow for more questions upfront?

Obviously ND is a Catholic school. My son noticed that during the video all the background "rock" music was from Christian bands. All the tour guides were double majors with one of the majors being theology. The Counselor and the guides were very quick to point out that attendance at Masses was strictly optional and admissions decisions were "religion blind". The undertone of religion was fairly strong until we moved out into the tour. It seems that as we got further away from Admissions there was much less emphasis placed on religion.

The guides were very enthusiastic and obviously loved Notre Dame (both were seniors). They were very well informed and could answer all questions. We didn't get to go inside a classroom or a dormitory which I found disappointing. After the tour, my son and I asked a passing student about the dorms and he very graciously showed us around his dorm while asking my son all sorts of questions and explaining how he might fit at Notre Dame.

There was one odd thing though. The school is very proud of the number of students who participate in Study Abroad programs. Sixty-five percent of students spend at least a semester off campus. What was odd was that in the largest program, (London, UK), Notre Dame students live in buildings owned by Norte Dame and attend classes will all the other Notre Dame students. What is the point of going abroad to study if you are going to spend all your time with other Notre Damers?

The other worrisome thing was the lack of diversity on campus. The guides admitted that roughly 80% of students are White, 10% Latino, 7% Asian with the rest being Internationals, African-Americans and Other. One guide "joked" that without the football and basketball players the African-American numbers would be "really low". Given the school's religious tradition and with whites and Latinos representing the largest Catholic membership, it's not surprising that they make up a huge percentage of the student population. The lack of diversity was just extremely noticeable during class changes.

Overall Notre Dame is a great school. The academics are first rate and the admitted student statistics are among some of the toughest in the country. The lack of diversity in the student population, the Notre Dame bubble of students hanging only with other NDers and the religious undertone left my son less than convinced it was the right place for him.