My junior son wants to apply to Notre Dame next year, but he is uncertain about whether to apply restrictive early action or regular decision.
When we visited, the admissions staff stated that if you feel your application is as strong as it could be, submit it for REA. I imagine that there are a lot of athletes and legacy applicants who are accepted through REA. With that in mind, I’m not sure if there is much of a difference between the acceptance rate in REA and RD.
My son is a strong candidate, and I don’t see him dramatically improving his profile from the November REA submission versus the January RD submission. Having said that, for whatever reason, our high school does not have the best track record at Notre Dame–they’ve rejected/deferred a lot of students who have excellent GPAs and scores.
We would love to know if anyone has any thoughts/experience with applying to Notre Dame. Are there any downsides to applying REA? Are there any benefits besides knowing your application status in December? Thanks in advance for any insight!
IMO, if ND is your son’s top choice, I’d apply REA. He has nothing to lose if that’s his #1.
There is only a slight admission bump for REA at ND (unlike some other schools) - 12% acceptance rate vs 9% (the RD rate from last cycle), but they do fill about half the incoming class in REA.
Here’s some info from this year’s REA cycle from ND:
”The University of Notre Dame reviewed 13,711 Restrictive Early Action (REA) applications for the Class of 2030, an increase of 6 percent from last year’s total of 12,917. A total of 1,617 applicants (12%) were admitted during this cycle, each of them representing impressive academic preparation and a commitment to Notre Dame’s mission as a Catholic research university. An additional 2,608 applicants (19% of total REA applicants) were deferred for reconsideration in the spring. “ Notre Dame Welcomes the Restrictive Early Action Class of 2030 | Stories & News | Visit & Engage | Undergraduate Admissions | University of Notre Dame
It’s your top choice so it binds you from ED1, which you wouldn’t use anywhere anyway.
For you, you get an early decision and aren’t bound and aren’t precluded from other EA or ED2.
I think the trick would be - to ensure you still meet the deadlines of other schools of interest. Many have a November 1 so - not sure where you live, but let’s say your safety was the in-state public and they have a Nov 1 deadline for EA, where they fill most the class. You need to ensure you get that in plus maybe your #2 and #3 schools.
In other words, don’t be one who does REA and forget the rest (at least the critical rest) until you get a decision.
But reading it, it seems little downside to doing - short of you are full pay and not willing to pay the cost of the school.
It’s not really restrictive - given ND is your top choice - because you wouldn’t ED1 to a school that isn’t your top choice. It’s very fair of them.
UND’s REA restricts only against applying ED to other schools (unlike some other schools’ REA). Since UND is the student’s first choice, presumably he will not be applying ED anywhere else, so that is not really a downside for him.