Along with nodito, I’m an ND grad–Class of 2009.
I love Notre Dame and am so grateful for my experience there. I studied political science and theology and found authentically Catholic, very orthodox professors in both departments. I am grateful for the friendships I formed there and the Catholic community I found at ND, and I’m sure your son or daughter could find the same. Like nodito, I met my husband through ND. It’s just a great place…
Someone recommended the Project Sycamore website–that is more of an alumni perspective on things at ND, so what I would recommend as well is
The Irish Rover, which is a student-run independent Catholic newspaper at ND. A lot of my good friends on campus are on the staff of the Rover, and they do an excellent job of giving a window into student life on campus and spotlighting some of the less-noteworthy Catholic events on campus.
To add my 2 cents about your specific questions…
- Is it really the cozy “family” atmosphere I’ve heard about?
YES, it is. The dorm life really does help create that atmosphere, like nodito said, but in addition to that I really felt like the theology department in particular was a great intellectual
community, where all of the professors and students care about one another, support one another through their struggles, and really enjoy being with one another, both inside and outside of the classroom. Notre Dame really fosters a “we’re all in this together” attitude and there are many ways in which faculty, staff, administration, and students all reach out to one another to make them feel at home. Within the first semester, most freshmen start to call ND home…that’s just how we feel about it.
- Do they make a point to admit more Catholics than non-Catholics, or does religion not play a role in the admissions process?
Yes, actually, they do. The admissions department several years ago decided that it would shoot for around 85% of each incoming class to identify as Catholic, and that’s pretty typical for the numbers each year. That doesn’t mean that all of these are ‘perfectly practicing’ Catholics, but from what I saw on campus of daily and Sunday Mass attendance, Eucharistic adoration, lines outside of the confessionals three times a day in the Basilica, involvement in campus ministry, etc., those who don’t at least go to Sunday Mass are in the minority. Every dorm has a chapel where Mass is said on Sundays, Holy Days, and in the men’s dorms where there is a priest in residence, daily, and Mass becomes the central gathering of the community each week.
- Did you feel it was worth the money?
This is really a sticky question. On the one hand, I believe a Notre Dame education–experience–is priceless. On the other, all of higher education is vastly overpriced for what it gets you these days. Notre Dame does do a good job in giving scholarships to those who have demonstrated financial need (from the FAFSA), but the rest of us have student loans up to our ears. Hopefully by the time your child graduates the economy will have recovered and it’s not so daunting to repay them. As for my class, most of my friends went on to grad school to try to ride out the recession, and the majority of the rest of us are still unemployed. Notre Dame does have a good career center (which because of that ND family thing reaches out to young alums like me!), and especially if your child wants to go into business, engineering, medicine, or law, they shouldn’t have trouble.
- Do they have mandatory mass attendance?
No. But like I said above, it is highly encouraged and is the acceptable thing to do in the dorms, thanks to good old peer pressure
. Also, there is always a sizable number of students who enter the Church through RCIA at the Easter Vigil…which says a lot about the Catholic culture of student life at ND, I think.
Like any university, Catholic or otherwise, ND has its problems, and much of our dirty laundry has been aired out for all to see this year. During my time at ND I was always very critical–and very loyal–to Our Lady’s University, and all I can say is that Notre Dame desperately NEEDS orthodox students to enroll and to encourage the orthodox professors there and to fight for the Catholic mission of the university. It’s not all bad at ND, there have been many good developments of late (one example: this year, the V-Logs were not performed at all, because the previous organizers thought that there would be more constructive ways to try to address violence against women.). Of course these were all overshadowed by the Obama scandal…but even there, the turnout of thousands, led by dozens (erm, maybe even hundreds) of ND students in ND Response, should be heartening to even the sternest critics.
I’d be happy to answer any other questions on this thread, or you can feel free to PM me with anything else you’d like to know as well.
Not sure if that’s at all something that might interest your son, but I wanted to let you know!