@DadPayingCollege I believe this answers your earlier question on ND legacy admission for the class of 2024:
“Although 15.2% of admits are children of alumni, legacy students will likely compose 21% of the incoming class, as they have a higher yield percentage than the general class, Bishop said.”
Source: https://ndsmcobserver.com/2020/04/university-admits-3507-students-in-the-class-of-2024/
Seems lower than recent years.
@DadPayingCollege Maybe slightly. At the 21% class target for the upcoming academic year, Notre Dame’s student body intentionally will include a higher number of legacy students, as compared to a sampling of some of the peer schools:
Princeton 14.4%.
Penn 16%.
Cornell 15%.
Yale 11.9%.
Stanford 10%.
Brown 10-12%.
Duke 10-15%.
Dartmouth 11-14%
Georgetown 7.6%.
Chicago 5%.
PS: Some additional facts on ND legacy admissions:
“Fortunately,” says Bishop, “our alumni produce pretty bright kids. The academic profile of that group is quite good.” The admit rate for these applicants is about 45 percent — as opposed to an admit rate of 19 to 20 percent for everybody else. This fulfills a University commitment made some years back to maintain a legacy presence of 20 to 25 percent of the student body, a percentage, he says, about twice that of other highly selective institutions, including the Ivies, Duke, Stanford, Northwestern and Vanderbilt.
Source: https://magazine.nd.edu/stories/having-coffee-with-don-bishop/
The 21% target number for 2020/2021 therefore is right in line with the legacy objective and commitment.
One of my questions about ND that hopefully someone will know more about than I do is regarding honors colleges/scholars programs. I’ve seen that there are a few on the website and they look to be extremely selective, with few participants. Are those invite-only when a person is admitted to ND or can a student apply/opt to join once they are attending the school? I bet they’re very competitive, as all ND kids are bright and talented!
@whiterose788 Notre Dame has no honors college, the undergraduate program is regarded as such. Notre Dame has scholars’ programs, some selected links:
https://scholars.nd.edu/awards/
https://cuse.nd.edu/
https://cuse.nd.edu/sorin-scholars/
ND Scholars are either being invited to apply from the First-Year admitted student pool, or will apply during the Spring semester of their First-Year of studies and will join the program for their Sophomore year, i.e. Sorin Scholars:
https://cuse.nd.edu/sorin-scholars/application-process/
Will you be joining Notre Dame in your sophomore year through HCC/ND Gateway?
@hpcsa Thank you for your response! Haven’t decided about Gateway yet, but hoping to decide soon.
@hpcsa “Although 15.2% of admits are children of alumni, legacy students will likely compose 21% of the incoming class, as they have a higher yield percentage than the general class, Bishop said.”
This is a very important statistic. I know that Notre Dame gets assailed regularly for having a relatively higher legacy component in its enrolled classes, but it is important to focus on the percentage of admits that are legacies. These are “the seats” that people argue are being taken away from other qualified applicants (though that is a fairly spurious claim given the quality of the legacy applicant pool). The fact that legacies enroll at a MUCH MUCH higher percentage speaks to their buy in to what Notre Dame is all about - which is what Don Bishop is looking for in ND students (in addition to being entirely qualified).
I wonder if you could look at similar admit rather than enrolled data for the ivies (percentage of admits that are legacies), and see if it is closer to ND’s level (15.2%). That is, there may not be as large a yield difference between legacy and non-legacy admits.
My exposure to Notre Dame is relatively recent (son is Class of 2022). But I believe that legacies are a core strength of Notre Dame and I am glad that Don Bishop does not shy away from addressing this.
@CCSavant Congratulations to your son, glad he is doing well! What is his Major?
Some additional tidbits of information, as objective, comparable data on legacy admission is nowadays being shared less and less across US universities and colleges:
According to court documents filed recently in defense against a lawsuit, among white applicants who were accepted to Harvard, 21.5% had legacy status.
Naviance recently gathered data on legacy applicants to 64 colleges. They estimated that on average, the admissions rate for legacies was around 31% higher than the official admissions rates for all applicants. (Naviance did not account for other variables, like the overall education level of parents, that may have given those students a boost).
Princeton has reported that legacy applicants are admitted at roughly four times the rate of applicants overall. Notre Dame and Georgetown announced that their legacy admissions rates are about twice their overall admissions rates.
All being said and done, alumni are critically important contributors to Notre Dame in every respect - one of the key reasons for the university’s commitment, made some years back, to maintain a legacy presence of 20 to 25 percent of the Notre Dame student body.
@whiterose788 All the best for your decision! Have you been able to attend one of the Gateway Visit Days? Please let us know what you will decide.
@whiterose788 PS: Gateway students are eligible for the Sorin Scholars application during their Gateway year, before officially transferring over to Notre Dame, and they will receive the CUSE invitation e-mail in preparation of Spring 2021 applications:
https://cuse.nd.edu/sorin-scholars/our-scholars/
Based on your interest mentioned in your posting above, it is possibly something you might want to consider.
Does DS stand for Driscoll Scholars?
No, it stands for dear son i think
Sorry to ask this question again…do you know if ND unweighted the weighted grades? What happens if you are applying from a school where there are no rankings, no weighted grades, no “bump” for taking AP’s or Honor classes. My student’s 3.9 looks LOW in comparison to the accepted students on here who have high weighted GPA’s. Thanks for your help!!
@Golfgr8 No need to worry, the regional AO for your daughter will review her application in the context of her high school. Given that she attends a well known boarding school with no grade inflation, the office of undergraduate admissions will have a good understanding of the strength of her academic profile. Weighted GPA’s differ vastly across the US and selective colleges therefore have a good understanding of the high school context, specifically yet not limited to traditional feeder schools. You might want to look in Naviance, or whichever program your daughter’s school uses, and look at her GPA/Test Scores in the context of admitted students from her school!
Thanks @hpcsa!! Any hunch @ students hoping to defer starting ND in the fall because of the COVID virus and travel restrictions?
@Golfgr8 The picture in terms of yield will become clearer after the May 1st confirmation deadline. Deferring for a year in reality is not a very attractive option, as many meaningful alternatives for a gap year are just not there right now. Also, deferral applications need to be approved, based on presented reasons and a plan for the year after admission, before enrollment. No, I currently don’t foresee this happening to a much higher extent than normal. Summer melt might be a larger risk for some colleges, Notre Dame might simply need to go deeper and possibly longer into the waiting list this year, yet then again all of the students on there are highly qualified and many at current in the process of confirming their continued interest in Notre Dame and eagerness to attend. We will see shortly after the deadline beginning of May whether or not there actually will be significant change this year. Nobody knows for sure right now.