<p>Irish Mary,</p>
<p>What sealed the deal for us was the Catholicity of ND. There are many fine athletic, academic, and alumni programs at secular universities. And at schools known as Catholic you can find varying degrees of Catholic culture, or lack thereof. And no other Catholic University, widely recognized as faithful, is as highly regarded as ND in academics. Add in the excitement of national recognized (notice I didn’t write nationally ranked… <em>sigh</em>) sports, Notre Dame is the whole package. It combines a first rate undergraduate education in the context of a Catholic world view. Does it do this perfectly? No. Is this for everyone? No. And for those of you reading this who do not know ND personally, it is not so present that it is palpable to those not seeking it out. Yet it is undeniably still a Catholic school, and not in name only.</p>
<p>I am thrilled that every dorm has a chapel, that dorm Mass is something no one wants to miss, that his rector is a priest,and that two of favorite professors his first year were priests, brilliant men living faithfully.And it is pretty cool that there is a Golden Dome that pays homage to Mary and Touchdown Jesus that is part of his daily venacular. There is a grotto and a basilica and images of Christ and Mary are almost as ubiquitous as cans of Natty Lite.</p>
<p>So many of our son’s friends are bright, engaging students who have a Catholic reference point. This is not to say they are choir boys or seminarians or novices. They are far from it. Typical college kids really. And there are plenty there who are not Catholic, or religious at all. And they do just fine.</p>
<p>DS left money on the table from other schools (2 of those offers from other Catholic schools) and 1 offer of admission from a higher ranked school), but for him there really was no place else like Notre Dame.</p>