ND Admissions LIVE: Welcome to Notre Dame

Great.

So 10 seconds you guys and I think the participants will just start loading in and will give a give it a few moments for everybody to to join. Here they come.

Great.

We're just waiting for people to join us and then we'll get started.

I think I know I can do.

So we have nearly 1000 people that have joined us thus far, and they're still kind of rolling in. It's taking a little time, so we'll get started here in just a few minutes.

And I can. It's so nice to see that people are joining us from literally around the world. It's pretty cool to see the different places that you all represent.

New, that's not.

Just a couple more minutes. We'll give everyone a chance to get set up here.

Well, there's somebody from Ireland welcome.

Income Mexico Moscow.

In Michigan.

We had about 1400 people registered for the event and right now as people are loading in, we're about at 1200, so it's it's just taking a little time because we have a large group tonight.

But I like that everyone saying hello, it's it's nice.

So why?

Alright, let's go ahead and well, you know what? Just give it a couple more minutes 'cause I can see from my end as people are entering the space and I want to make sure that everyone gets in here while.

We have a chance here before we get started.

Uh huh.

Alright, I think we'll go ahead and get started. It looks to me like most of you have found the the box that you can ask questions and.

Done.

Share your greeting with us and I appreciate that my name is Joyce Lance and I'm the director of recruitment and communications and I'll be hosting this event this evening with my colleagues, Don Bishop and Christy Pratt, and I will let them introduce themselves to you and we'll start with Don Bishop.

Well, first of all, I just wanted to welcome you to Notre Dame and I'll tell you back in 1973. Back then we did not have the Internet, but I remember my mom's look on my face when I got my letter and I opened it up and she just looked at me and said, well, apparently you're going back east to college and I was from the West Coast from Portland, OR.

So for me, going back to nerd aim was going back east. My roommate freshman year was from Red Bank, NJ. He thought he was going out West to college. So as we talked tonight, one thing you might ask is where is Notre Dame? I think it depends on where you're from. This truly is a unique place that people come from all over the world to join us. So congratulations on your admission. I'll be making a couple more comments than a minute. But first of all I'll just introduce introduce briefly. Christy Pratt.

Christy is our director admission and she signed your admission letter.

Thanks, Don, good evening everyone and congratulations. Welcome home to Notre Dame. We are so excited to be able to spend a little bit of time with you virtually here this evening. This is just a little bit of taste of what you're going to be experiencing throughout the next several months. As you are making your decision, hopefully to call Notre Dame home for not just four years, but for the rest of your lives. We have a lot of good information in store for you and I can't wait to be able to.

Share a little bit more about what makes Notre Dame unique, why we are so excited to have you, and we know that you are joining us from all over the world. And for those of you who have stayed up very late to join us or are up very early, thank you so much. We promise to get have a really enjoyable next hour with you and we can't wait to tell you all of the great things about Notre Dame. And so I'm going to turn it back over to Don just to give you a little information.

Don is our head of enrollment here at Notre Dame, so Don is in charge of all of our undergraduate enrollment. He also has not only our undergraduate admissions office, but also our financial aid office and our pre college programs and our student accounts. All of those all report underneath of Don's leadership. He is a double domer and has a lot of experience and he's going to be able to tell tell you a little bit more about who all of you are and who you're going to be seeing as you are hopefully selecting Notre Dame.

Done.

Yeah, so a couple things about your class so far as you know.

Hold on.

We offered you admission just about a month ago exactly and during that next month we had another 16,000. Some odd more applicants, so we're at a record number of applications at 26,500, just under 9700 of you applied early, you gain.

Just a second, I'm getting some messages that people aren't hearing you.

Uhm?

Not sure why Joyce.

I'm not either just a minute. Let's see if we can figure this out.

OK, they're they're giving me the thumbs up now. You're good to go.

OK, great.

So out of this app can pull that you applied to about half the class has been admitted that will enroll. So congratulations and we're excited about the classmates that are online with you tonight. But also, we worked very hard over the next three months to get you the second half of the class as well. You all come from everywhere and from so many different backgrounds, and we're so proud of you and so interested in what you're going to do here, as well as even more So what you'll do.

After Notre Dame throughout your life and career, this is by far the most selective year we'll ever have out of the 26,500 applicants that we've ended up with, over 10,000 of you are in the top 1% in the nation by high school class performance and or national test scores, and only about one out of four or less of those students will gain admission. So it's not just that you might have had these very high abilities that you've posted to us.

But also we had our choice within that we looked at your motivation for your success to come to the to the final decisions and I will say that if you're listening to say, well, I don't think I was in the top 1%, don't worry that was in just class performance or testing. Actually, we'll probably have out of the 3400 admits. About 1000 admits that are not the top 1% in some sort of.

Class performance or SAT statistic or a city, but you were picked over all these other students who had that 'cause we thought you were better. So I think you should be more honored, not by the numbers than the admit rates, but by knowing we really work past the numbers to look at your motivation for success. What's in your heart as well as what's in your mind? Do you like to learn rather than you're just good at it? And what are you going to do with it? Do you have a sense that you like to find meaning in what you do?

So with all that, you're not only the most diverse group, but also I think you're going to come together very nicely as a class choice if you can flip the profile as far as where are you coming from? I mentioned I'm from Portland, OR. My roommate was from Red Bank, new Joisey talked like this all four years, so I learned a foreign language that other day. I also learned another language in that this girl that I met in CHEM lab from Nashville, TN ended up.

We've been married 44 years and so you never know who you're going to meet here. But having a roommate from New Jersey, having a girlfriend from the South, being from the West Coast, this gives you an idea that people here come from everywhere. Actually, about 36% of our students are coming from the East or Southeast, about 34% from the Midwestern regions, about 20% from West South and 10% are outside the US, and that number is growing.

Every year, Joyce go ahead and flip.

Mentioned a couple of these points already.

Honestly, your intellectual curiosity and drives makes you a better scholar than just your class performance, so we really looked at how curious you were, how interested and interesting were you in what the material we saw, what your counselors and teachers had to say about you is what as well as what you said. Your concern and caring and kindness towards others. I think that really is the distinguishing difference between Notre Dame and all the other grade schools is.

We place a higher importance on that.

So are you more aware of yourself and sense of self? But then kinder and more interested in helping others. So the word wisdom is deeply used at Notre Dame, and again we think a point of distinction against any other school that you're going to be comparing us with and then having a sense of gratitude of just appreciating that it's not all about you and how many people your parents, your friends, everybody that's helped you, everybody.

That will help you at Notre Dame and throughout your career. I have noticed in my 45 year career the success of people, not just their Dame grads. I've worked at 5 different universities. Really, your sense of gratitude. Your sense of team, orientation of working together on teams, being generous with others. All of that makes you a more powerful person that everybody else wants to be their leader. So that's where ultimately I would say Notre Dame graduates.

We hope to give more to people than what we plan to take.

Go ahead, Joyce.

Thanks Don and Christie. Maybe you can walk them through what to expect next, and then we're going to jump in and give you the opportunity as we welcome you to Notre Dame to ask questions that might be on your mind. And this is kind of a A ask US anything event or really excited to welcome you to campus. And so where you've been saying hello and letting us know from where you're joining us.

That's where you ask your questions so you can type questions in and we'll try to get to as many as we can. So so Christy, maybe walk them through kind of the next steps they can expect.

Yeah, so you were offered at mission on December 16th. Hopefully all of you have received your admission packet. That paper packet that also had our admission letter and some also good information about that and that if you haven't already. Hopefully you will also be in contact with some of our Notre Dame alumni and clubs in your respective areas, and if not you will be very soon.

Yes.

You know everyone is very excited to welcome you to the Notre Dame family. Continue welcoming you next steps is that you have between the day that we offered you admission and May 1st 2022 excuse me. 2022 yes, we're in 2022. Goodness gracious. No one wants to repeat 2021 May 1st to decide if you are going to accept our offer and decide to call Notre Dame home. So the way that you do that is that you are.

At any time you log into where you saw your admission decision release to you electronically, and then you complete the confirmation enrollment in that process, so you have between now and may one. There you do not have. Do not feel pressured by any way, shape or form that anything between now and then. You may be able to. You may decide, so we will be getting our financial aid offers out in very early March and we'll have a slide and talk a little bit more about that.

Right, those are some of the things that really you can think about between now and May 1st. Once you if you do decide to accept our offer and enroll for Notre Dame beginning in early May, you'll start to get communication from our Center for undergraduate advising that we'll be sending you information about what course selection looks like and going through that process with meeting up with being paired with your advising staff. You will also start in mid May to receive information from our Residence Life Office.

On completing the housing application and being able to get more information on that and then in June, July is where you actually will be doing your course selection. As with most of our other university partners across the globe, everything is done electronically, and that includes also with our course selection, so you'll be introduced to go through our course catalog of what's available for course selections, and then you come together with your advisor with your list of classes that you think you're interested in and that they will help you continue to put together that schedule.

And then there is scheduling times that come with that. So all of that happens after May 1 because that's whenever we're able to know how many of our students are actually deciding to call Notre Dame home.

Another important part, and this is just like we said, one of the ways that we want to connect with you is that we do have three specific weekends for admitted students and their family to come, and actually specifically visit with us at Notre Dame. The first one is coming up in February, February 13th and 14th, and then the next two are in April. You'll see those dates right there in front of you. Now you can come and visit us at anytime. We would love to have you. So if those dates.

Don't work for you, just know that we have lots of other opportunities for you. We are happy to roll out the blue and gold carpet for all of you to come. Whenever it best works with your schedules. But these specific weekends we do have some specific programming, so you get to see a lot more and be able to meet a lot more of your fellow admitted students. But we completely understand if these dates do not work for a variety of reasons. And all of this information is on our admitted student website that is referenced in Europe.

In your mission packet and then also online as well so you can all of this is at your fingertips.

Financially notification process between Don and I we can talk a little bit about that, so I'm here at Notre Dame. We meet 100% of demonstrated need for our students that apply and that information as as you as you and your families are submitting that are just know that our offers our office of financial aid is already starting to work on that as quickly as possible. You are notified electronically and like I said, those will be coming in early March. Along with you are actually mailed a hard copy to your home.

Address so parents don't worry if your students don't share everything with you. If you miss on that electronic communication because it is sent to the student and you will be also also be seeing that coming in the mail as well. And this packet has a variety of information including our financial aid award notification, the different worksheets and additional next steps that you and your family may need to take. Now you know this is just a teaser because the real star for all of this.

Is our director of Financial Aid Mary Nutrio knee and she will be doing a presentation coming up just next week. Absolutely Mark your calendars for this that you can join this it. It also is virtual Monday, January 24th at 8:00 O'clock Eastern Time. Mary is a legend in the financial aid world and is really happy to be able to come in, do a presentation and be able to take some questions just like we're doing right now. So absolutely Mark your calendar sign up for that you don't want to miss.

That one.

And I'll put in some comments here, not only as the head of enrollment, but also as a parent of three students where I paid for my children to go to college. And ironically, all three of my children went to different universities to where I was the vice president at the time. So like many of you, I had the pleasure of absolutely paying everything for for them to go to where they went.

They all picked the most expensive school, but the right schools for them. I always also comment that in joke, our oldest went to Notre Dame, so of course she's the one we love the most right now. We love all three of them equally, but I would say that as we were making that decision, and as you're making the decision a couple facts about Notre Dame that I hope you'll keep in mind, one we rank in the top 10 universities for the percentage of admits who choose to enroll.

So obviously we give strong enough fighting of Chile to make it not only affordable but very supportable for you and your student to to be at Notre Dame.

So first of all, we have very good aid. About 57% of our undergraduates are on some form of a scholarship from Notre Dame, and about 50% are on need based aid, about four or 5% are on athletic and about 3% or on merit award, so we don't do a lot of merit at Notre Dame. If you look at the top 15 schools about five of the top 15 do merit and 10 do not do any merit. So we are one of the.

The five out of the top 15 that Duke merit to some degree. The other thing I would just note that obviously we we do well enough to offer good aid if you, if you are judged to have need. We also graduate a higher percentage of the students that start at Notre Dame after four or five years than any university in the United States. So not only do we give you enough to come, but we have a supportive framework for all four years.

So if things happen at home and you need more financial aid, Notre Dame is always every year evaluating what your needs are.

And with that said, I would also say the hard choice is that in the research I've done for the university, about 70% of the students that enroll at Notre Dame were offered full ride, many of them full ride tuition, room and board scholarships to go to their state schools, be in their honors programs, and have free tuition, room and board and or many students at private universities. So the fact that you're admitted to their name?

Usually makes you very top ish at the other schools where you will gain admission as well and I will say it is tough as a parent whose children did very well and they all picked schools that did not have merit programs. We were told that my wife, who was a high school math teacher and I was a vice president at a university that we had saved just enough not to get any aid and that congratulations to us. We get to pay the whole amount.

That may happen to you. You also have lots of other choices or on the financial aid front. You might be very pleasantly surprised at how much support Notre Dame is providing to you. I was just working on a proposal this afternoon for $100 million gift for an alum to provide that money to Notre Dame to fund financial aid, and I'm pretty sure we're going to get it. It'll probably be announced in about six months to a year.

But his question is where will the money do the most good and my first comment to him as well. A billion would be better than 100,000,000.

But

what we're trying to do with our financial aid is to continue to increase the socioeconomic diversity of our students and the last several years we've had records of all different types of students coming in today. So what I'm proud about is the financial side of the university stands ready to welcome you, no matter what background you come from, and I think you'll feel not only that you're at Notre Dame, but you belong at Notre Dame.

Absolutely thanks, Don, that's that's helpful and I'll plug Mary Neutron E as well. Our director of financial aid. She'll be joining us during this series next week on the 24th and she'll come to you with a lot of knowledge about financial aid and and what it is that you need to do to submit your application for financial aid and what you can expect after you submit your application. But Don's right, I think a lot of families are pleasantly surprised.

And we always, as we're talking with students and families, encourage them to to fill out the FAFSA and fill out the CSS profile.

And wait for your financial wait for your financial aid notification. Kristi mentioned this early on when she was walking you through the timeline and I'll just emphasize it.

Uhm?

Different schools deliver their financial aid notifications.

At different times during this process.

And you don't have to reply to any of them until May 1 so, so take your time, wait for those financial aid notifications to come your way, and most likely I can can picture it. You'll have them in front of you on your dining room table and and that's part of the decision and and we get that. But take some time and look at it. And then, as Don mentioned, pay attention to to graduation rates and retention rates at the University of Notre Dame has.

One of the highest retention rates in the country and one of the highest graduation rates in the country. And I think that's very important as you're looking at the entire.

The entire as you're looking at things and in their entirety. That's a big piece of it.

There were a couple of questions that I want to address them right away about admitted student days. Christy mentioned that those are coming up one in February and two in April, and the questions are around our policy this year for our admitted student days.

That require you to be vaccinated. Both the student and the students guest, and we are adhering to that rule because it's it's so important for us to keep our current community safe in the University of Notre Dame Day thus far has done a really good job of making sure that we're putting policy and procedures in place to keep our current community as safe as we possibly can in these trying times so.

We do absolutely require the vaccination.

But if you want to come for an individual visit on another time or on another day, or you want to take advantage of our virtual opportunities, they're there for you so.

Know that you still can come to campus. It's just these larger events we have to have some policy in place around vaccination, so please take a look at that welcome home site that Christy referenced earlier and take a look at those individual visit opportunities that are available. If it doesn't work out for you to come to the larger events, you definitely can experience campus in our community and a lot of different ways now. Go ahead.

I just note one of the reasons why we we have been adhering to those is that we were the most open, consistently Open University among the top 20 last year we were able to successfully have in residence Hall life going to class more than any other top 20 schools. So these rules that we have tried to follow and guiding principles have really carried us through very successfully.

And this is something that I think you will ultimately benefit from. So if if you don't come to one of the larger events, as Joyce mentioned, without vaccination, you are still free to come to campus, just not in the large group events.

Absolutely, and I saw a question about can both parents attend? And absolutely we're we're open to that for our admitted student day events. So take a look at our website, the Welcome Home site has a lot of information about the admitted student day events, and hopefully you can get a sense of how the the events work. The idea is to to bring you to campus, and we're doing our very best to to get you there in a variety of different ways.

No.

Last year we didn't get the opportunity and so we're very thankful that even though there's some rules that we have to adhere to, we are actually very excited about welcoming you to to our campus because it was really difficult for us not to be able to welcome you with open arms. And we probably won't be still opening our arms, but we might give you, you know, an elbow as you come through the door. You know how that goes so, or if it's pump or something.

Christy, since some people won't won't be able to come to campus.

There's a few questions about what is the South Bend community like? What's the city of South Bend like and and what are some of the things that students take advantage of? And in that community? Can you talk a little bit about that?

Sure, happy to, so I'm relatively newer to Notre Dame. I've been here now three years. I come from the South, so as I've seen lots of my Virginians and North and South Carolinians and Marylander's of Big Hello to all of those. 'cause those are my my old stomping grounds, but South Bend is a wonderful community and Notre Dame is nestled right smack in between.

All of where we are surrounded by neighborhoods you see when you are walking through campus, you have not only students out, but you have members of our community that are walking through. They're running. They're walking their dogs. They're bringing their children onto campus, so it's very much a family area. The thing that I love most about South Bend is that we are so easily accessible to pretty much anything that you would need. Whether you you need to have your Chipotle fix. Yes, we have Chipotle.

We get that question a lot, and actually there's a new one that was just put in not even 2 miles up the road. Now we also have Chick-fil-A. We've got Costco. We have tarjei. We have all of that that is within 5 to 7 miles of campus, so everything is very accessible. We do have our own airport that is within 7 miles of campus. South Bend Airport is a connects and so you have Delta, United, and American that all fly directly into South Bend, so we're easily accessible.

And then of course, if you are looking to get your city fixed, especially for those of you that are coming from a more urban area, we are two to 2 1/2 hours away from Chicago. And so we do have a lot of students that will take advantage of flying into O'Hare or Midway, but also take the South South Shoreline train that goes from our South Bend Airport directly into Chicago so you don't have to drive you. Don't worry about a car and go in, you know, take in a museum, take in a, you know, a Cubs game, you know, just if you go down.

You know the Magnificent Mile, but take advantage of that, but we have so many great things that happen just on campus. We are absolutely not a suitcase college. Sometimes we have a hard time getting students to go home on breaks because they just love being here. There are lots of things to do. Obviously in the fall, we're kind of known for our football team. Hopefully you were cheering us on this past year, so a lot of students are. We'll get into not only their football games, but in supporting our teams, but also those that are wanting to, you know.

Be part of the other festivities that happened around campus, also supporting our other supports our arts. We have, you know, museum on campus. There are lots of different arts that in performing groups that come in directly to campus, from opera to musical theater to jazz. There's all different things that are coming right here that are just a few steps away from your residence hall. So all of that is here and it's all at your fingertips. Being in the Midwest. We are really in the middle of everything, so we are, you know.

2 1/2 hours from Chicago. 2 1/2 hours from Indianapolis 2 1/2 hours. I think we're probably about four hours from Cleveland, so everything is very very close to us and you can just get to it and then. Also, we're 30 minutes away from Lake MI so you can get up and be able to just really enjoy the beauties of this area. So that's just some of the great things about being here. Yes, we do get winter. I'm not going to lie, but even coming from the South, absolutely.

It is doable. You get a good coat, some good boots, some warm socks, and you're good to go. Even our students, especially from Hawaii. They love it. They love all Four Seasons and our our, you know, Notre Dame staff does an amazing job of clearing sidewalks so you're not going to have a snow day here at Notre Dame, but you're going to have a really good time and enjoy it.

I'm watching us. I'm watching as people are introducing themselves from various places around the world, and there's a lot of warm climate families that have joined us, so I appreciate that Christy and and somebody actually had the nerve to mention that it was 72 degrees where they are. I think it's about 27 here, so, but you know what? We we appreciate the spring in a whole different way here.

And.

Well.

And I will say that the first major snowball fight.

Took place last weekend as the students were coming back from the the Christmas break holiday. They all managed to make it out. Not all of them, but a good number of them managed to make it out to one of the quads, and there's quite the snowball fight, so I got to see some of that on Instagram.

Don, go ahead. You were going to say something.

No, go ahead.

OK well so I like this question a lot. It's a loaded question, but I'll toss it your way. Don. What do you think sets Notre Dame apart from other colleges and universities?

Yeah, I think I'd mentioned before I've been a vice president at 5 different universities, small liberal arts, a couple other universities. Also, I was deemed at one of the colleges at Cornell University, so to me I'm used to so many different environments.

But what and I am a nerd and grad, so I'm obviously biased for Notre Dame, but.

You know, I my oldest, went to Notre Dame and then my next student. My next child went to another top university and had a wonderful experience. But at the end of the four years my daughters were talking and the one from the other university who did very well. She graduated at the very top and said, boy, you know, I'm just exhausted as a senior that we just compete against everybody else here, that every room I walk into so much.

Energy is spent just trying to prove I'm the smartest person in the room. Seems to be the mindset of so many students.

And you know, again, I've worked at different universities where I've seen that a little bit and what I'm proud to tell you about Notre Dame is. That's what stands out to me.

Is that we are very ambitious. We're very good at what we do, where we intend to get better at a lot of things so that we can be more successful, more powerful, more impactful in our communities. In our world, we want to have a big life and we're going to work hard here. But what I love about Notre Dame is how much we support each other and it is a family and a community and my daughter, I think said it best when she turned to her.

Younger sister who had lamented about the other school and said, well, Gosh Allison at Notre Dame.

When we walk into the room, we try to make the room smarter.

When we walked into the room, we try to learn from the room and I would tell you. And I also have been head of corporate senior employments at a pretty good sized corporation at one point in my career. The room.

Will pick as its leader the people that want the room to succeed, not just for the person that wants to prove they're the smartest person in the room. And I'd also tell you, usually the person who's desperate to prove they're the smartest person in the room. One never is, and two, the room never votes to put them in charge.

I think the Notre Dame graduate has a great iconic image among the corporations. The Med schools, the top business schools, the top law schools that we lead by pulling together a team and being part of that team, and we make the team smarter. Team wins are better than individual wins and so the friendliness at Notre Dame as you go through the four years, the support, the amount of study that you'll do with others, others will just generally if.

I was not the best writer. I had an English major next door that looked at all my papers before I turned them in. I also tutored him and statistics, 'cause that was my skill set, but people here are very generous and share with each other and we're trying to make the place more successful, and each of us more successful and we don't seem to worry that much. We're a lot more confident that that's going to be rewarded without somehow having this kind of narrow.

View of success that if I'm more successful than you, I win. No, that's that's not what we do here. And I don't know another place like this. So we like to use the word wisdom because there's I think a wisdom to that, and people are attracted to Notre Dame leaders because of that, because they know we're going to allow them to be winners to allow them to lead. Allow them to benefit. We're not just in this for ourselves, and that feels great.

If I can add another offshoot to what Don was talking about when he's talking about you know here at Notre Dame you know we pause and we we want to learn from each other. I think that's extremely important piece because mental health is so important to our students, and especially for all of you coming off of a year and a half of having disruptions in learning and being at home, having to learn and then back in school and back and forth. And it's just this.

This pandemic has really taken its toll on so many of you and continues to and at Notre Dame. One of the things that I love about our students is that we are a community that helps one another, not competes against each other, and I think that's another really important point that all of these what we're what we have seen in your applications and why we offer you admission is that we know that you're going to be adding to that community of.

Being there to be able to help one another, and if you are sitting down with your roommate and you see that they're struggling and with a calculus and you're really good at that, you turn to them and say hey, how can I help? Those are the type of students we have here and for architecture students that are working on a portfolio and they're trying to figure out does the door go on the Northeast or the southwest corner? We're not a competitive group, we're hey, did you think about actually pivoting it this way so it gets more natural than like those are the type of students that we are looking for?

Because it truly is for that greater good. You know, our Catholic mission is looking for those students who are going to be a force for good, and that's what we have seen in so many of you, and so many of your applications. And that's just one of the many things that makes Notre Dame so special.

Thanks so much Christy and Don. I appreciate it. Hearing both of you talk about what it is like to be part of this community and for those of you that are joining us.

You you honestly when I when I hear Christie and Don talk about the community and describe it, it makes me realize even more how special this class is coming in because I know the Admissions committee works really hard to choose students that are going to be just like the students that are here now, not just like them. We're not looking to have everybody come in with kind of the same ideas and the same thoughts, but but people that that come with a heart.

And and like Christie said, that that idea that they can come in and do something for the better of the entire community, you you should feel very proud of what you've already accomplished and very proud that Christie signed those letters and Don approved him and send him your way. It just it's very heartwarming to hear some of the stories that.

That I know are are taking place here, but to to just hear it from you. I appreciate that from both of you.

Can you talk a little bit about the pandemic? Don, you mentioned in somebody is bringing this up that we stayed open for most of the the pandemic and we had in person classes. Do you anticipate and I know none of us can really guess at this point, but do you anticipate that we're moving down that same trajectory that we're going to keep students in class? Or do you anticipate that we're going to move to remote learning as things start to?

To spike somebody asked.

Yeah, you know, I'll tell you. There are some real outcomes showing up now in the research. You know, we we've had two years of AP test scores by the College Board, and we've also universities are comparing notes on how well the first year class is doing in last year, how well the students did as well.

Remote learning does not provide the depth of learning that.

Interactive person to person learning delivers, so we are absolutely dedicated to staying open unless it becomes unsafe.

And last year, other than about a 10 day period where the numbers spiked to the point where we thought caution was best, where the students were here but they were not going to class. They learned remotely for about 10 days. Other than that, we've been open throughout. We expect to be open, but if the numbers were to spike, we're going to protect our students. And we're going to protect the faculty and the staff. But with that said, this year is.

Not at this point. The same as last year, and that's favorable for the most part. But we're not out of this, and the likelihood from all of the science that you call it that that has been shared by the medical field.

We're going to be having some variations of this throughout the next couple years, but what I can tell you is we've been the most open school in the last 18 months, and we we expect to continue for that to be true. But there will be moments, I think during this semester, and possibly even next year that may challenge that to some degree, but I you know. Again, I'm not an expert on this, but it's my sense that we're already gotten through.

Probably the most limiting part of what this coronavirus has done to the country.

And as a follow up Christy, can you maybe talk a little bit about how it may have impacted the social life and their extracurriculars at Notre Dame? Someone asked a follow-up question.

Yeah, so you know, during the pandemic you know, as Don said, we were open and students were still able to gather we Notre Dame did a lot of things to be able to get students outdoors and be able to spread out more. We had these two gigantic lodges that were, you know, instantaneously put up. I mean, I give the university so much kudos for being able to.

Quickly pivot to be able to give students that ability to still get together, but in a safe environment. You know wearing masks, they were still able to be together in their dorms, and it's just. This is part of the reason why the university requires all of our students, faculty and staff to be fully vaccinated, including boosted so that our students can continue to congregate. So our social activities still continue the way they were, you know, right now it's the limitations are mainly around.

If activities have to include serving any type of food because that's as we're seeing with the CDC is saying of you know if you have to remove your mask and be able to and be. You know, partaking in any type of meals. That's where the transmission gets higher so things were still continuing on you know, we are still we're still having our hockey games and our arena. We're still having our basketball for men 's and women 's all of those are still continuing here at Notre Dame, so we're we're still.

Able to do that and you know, just continuing to hope that as people continue to get vaccinated and boosted that we'll be able to get this Omicron variant down so that it is not impeding on everyone.

Very good.

I'm can people hear me 'cause I'm getting a little bit of feedback that maybe.

I can't be heard.

Just give me a thumbs up or let me know if it's OK. If not then I'm getting a lot of yeses. OK, so I want to move forward. We have just 15 minutes left. If you can believe it. And and I know that you still have a lot of questions.

Rest assured, we have these events planned throughout the entire semester, and so you'll have a lot of opportunity to ask questions about specific areas. But Christy, can you talk a little bit about residential life and also kind of what the process is for?

Assigning roommates and assigning residential halls at the University of Notre Dame.

Yeah, so Notre Dame has a residency requirement for our students, meaning that we we ask our students that they are going to be living on campus for the first six semesters, which is freshman through junior year and then senior year. Students can make the decision on if they would like to remain in the residence halls or move off campus and the reason why we have that is because we've we strongly believe in the formation.

Of the entire student mind, body, and spirit, and we do not have Greek life here at Notre Dame. Our residence halls are single sex and our students are randomly assigned. We absolutely the only thing we guarantee you our residence life office guarantees you is that you will not be rooming with someone from your ZIP code. So as Don pointed out, I a boy from Oregon and was put together with another boy from New Jersey. So definitely don't share the ZIP codes there and so it is randomly assigned.

And we actually. It works really well for us at Notre Dame. I know some students at this, especially if you're used to, you know, having your own room, or, you know, maybe just sharing it with a sibling. And it's Oh my gosh, it actually works really great because.

It's it's that first step of continuing your your your transition into adulthood. It's learning those life skills of how to get along with another person that is not your family. It's also going to expose you to a whole other new you know area, hopefully of the country or world. You'll be able to meet their friends. They'll be able to meet. You are friends. You could be. You could be assigned a, you know pre Med major and you're a theology major, and so it's just. There are so many things that you're going to be able to.

Learn from one another and then at the end of your first year if you would, as you're then picking your next room assignments. If you want to, you know, ask to move to a different hall. You absolutely can, but you'll find out that most students do choose to stay within their own residence halls because that quickly becomes your family. You know, as Don also pointed out, you know those are your future roommates. You know, for baby, grad school, and going on, those are where you could be your future groomsmen or bridesmaids.

Well.

In your wedding, and they're just. These are the people that are going to be part of your life for the rest of your life, so that's that's what residents life means for us. So they are randomly assigned. And if you ask our residence life staff, what is the best residence hall on campus? It's the one you're assigned to, so I know you've heard that before, but it's truly is.

Yeah, and I I would tell you I love the character of the the random selection because.

We're selective enough that I think our students understand that random selection really does mean that nobody is better than anybody else, so there's not this kind of odd social competition on campus of who's in the coolest, this or that? You're all part of one family that are Dame, family, and even though in your hall those people are like family and they're very close to you, just like you are now, you're very close to your family. But you've got a lot of friends that you hang out with a lot.

That are not your family.

When I've been at other universities, I've been the advisor to fraternity houses, and once my guys joined a fraternity, I always had to try to encourage them to to get away from each other at times and socialize with other people because the expectation is once you join a narrow group, that's the group urine. We just don't do that at Notre Dame, so a lot of your best friends are not going to be in your hall, but kind of view it like your family. You have your family, and you have your best friend. Some of your best friends will be in that hall with you.

But not all the time, and I think that's very liberating. I would say that the closeness of the students is a lot of fun and a source of amusement by the parents. I have a very good friend who went to Ner Dame and he noted that his daughter at the end of freshman year came home for the summer, saying dad, I've met all of my bridesmaids already, and of course, and I'm a dad, I thought the same thought that he had. He goes well. Who's the guy?

And then so I haven't met any guy yet, but I just know you know, who else is going to be there?

By the way, about one out of four students at Notre Dame. From my best calculations, do get married to another Notre Dame grad. One out of four, one out of five. But it's a healthy mix of both that's there. But boy, there's a lot more out there that don't feel confined. Students today don't come to Notre Dame planning to necessarily date and all that. They may do that, but there is no kind of predominant attitude at Notre Dame about socializing like that.

You're just going to have a lot of really good friends. Actually, my wife and I were very good friends before we started to date, and you'll hear that a lot of Notre Dame marriages is that we were friends 1st and then it worked out.

So.

Miller

Don, you Don. You mentioned earlier that you know students within the residential halls help each other. And and there's there's great opportunities for upper class men and women to help younger students. But what kind of advising is available to 1st year students? What kind of support do they have academically as their preparing for the first year? And as they they start that first year and either one of you answer this.

yeah, there's really at least three tiers that I would pay attention to as a student. First of all, in the classroom itself, the faculty member will if if if she or he notices that you need some additional time, or you want additional time, it could be. You're doing extremely well and you want to learn more than what is in the normal course. And so you go to the faculty and talk to them after class. The number one faculty complaint on students at Notre Dame is that.

The faculty complained that students do not come to see them after class enough, so obviously the faculty are ready and interested in talking to you. So if you need some additional help, you're not quite picking something up. Go talk to the faculty member first. Oftentimes, the faculty have a group of either grad students or undergraduates who have been assigned by the department or the College to help tutor and be available so you have academic advising.

Specifically 2 coursework if and and I had to go through this myself. I wasn't an individual course, I just wasn't sure what I wanted to study, so I engaged not only my faculty but also a couple of the colleges I went and met with their associate Deans and talked to them about what I thought I was interested in. What's out there in the world that their fields of study and it was through one of those conversations that I learned I was an economist, and I did not know that.

That was from Dean Waddick and the arts and Letters College. So these people have amazing experience. They'll listen to you for five to 10 minutes and they'll quicken your kind of wisdom and give get you pointed to certain things. Also, I would say in the halls there's just a lot of collaboration, not only study groups, but seniors and juniors. You're watching what they're doing in their careers, and some of the things they're doing are so fascinating that you start.

Learning from them what it's like to be a finance major or or a psychology major. For me it was economics and they started attracting you to that field of study because they're so excited about it so that even if you're not going to major in something, you may take some additional coursework just to broaden your education because of some of the people around you are just so interesting and interested in what they're doing, and that's fun.

Thank you a couple of questions about changing your majors. So if you've declared your major or you've listed your academic interest on your application, what are the options for changing majors or even picking up a minor? Can you talk? I know we're going to have another session on academic advising, but can you just give us some general information there?

Christine.

I can take I can take this one down if you like so at Notre Dame you actually declare your major at the end of your first year. And so the reason why we ask what your intended interest is is because it does help with planning. Because we do, you know, have to control our enrollment, especially across all of our colleges, with the asterisk of our Mendoza College of Business, Mendoza has is a nationally ranked College of business.

That is, continuing to become increasingly more competitive each and every year, and so for students that indicated they were interested in business on their application, and we have offered you admission, and we have basically then set aside a seat for you that you are guaranteed to have that seat waiting for you at the end of your first year for students that you know in within the other colleges as you meet with your advisors this summer, if there are additional if you want to. If you've now changed your minds instead of.

You know College of science. You are now interested in electrical engineering. Those are conversations that you can have with your advisor, but if you are now considering on business, we do have internal transfer opportunities for students. Once they are here at Notre Dame, and those are also conversations that you can have, but that's one of the beauties of Notre Dame is that you're not locked in. You didn't apply specifically to a Technical College at Notre Dame. You were admitted to the university and that you have some time to figure it all out.

You should know that about two out of three or three out of four of the students that applied to switch into business are able to do so successfully. Also, there's a group of students that come in business that switch out so you can switch into anything. And, as Christy noted, business has a, you know, a small gate, but largely most of the students are able to switch into business if they ultimately judge that.

Rapid fire.

Alright, so we have 3 minutes left and so I'm going to try to get through as many questions as I can here. So Christy and on this is going to be like rapid fire Q&A.

In this and I'm going to start with. How much does religion play into the classroom experience at at Notre Dame and the person that's asking this specifically said you know the.

The fact that Notre Dame is a Catholic University is what really drew them there. So where and how can they grow in the classroom and outside of the classroom?

Well, I'll make a couple comments. First, you know I had a New Jersey roommate I I had three roommates freshman Year 1 Elton African American Baptist loved Notre Dame. You don't have to be Catholic to come to another day, but regardless of any background you come from the benefit of Notre Dame being the leading Catholic University of the world. And that's how we view Notre Dame, and that's kind of a deliverable at Notre Dame. It's really about your development and formation as a human.

Being in your connectedness to yourself 1st and then to others, and that's very intentional. Now there are students that want to be very specific about campus Ministry, more active religious activities. All that is abundantly available at Notre Dame. It is not though force fed to you, these are things that are for you to recognize and take on. If you wish. We're delighted that so many students do, and ironically, by Baptist roommate.

Went to mass as often as I did because he loved to sing in at the.

At the masses and he got as much out of Notre Dame, or more than any of the the rest of us who were Catholic here. But this is a place where if you are strong under your faith, it's only going to get stronger.

If you are interested in a sense of faith and a sense of development, it's going to get stronger, and this is a very comfortable place. Depending on where you are and where, where you're moving, willing to move from. But Notre Dame will move you by the time you've graduated from here. The fact that we're Catholic is going to be something that you'll view as a benefit.

Thanks, Don, that's really helpful, Christy. Since we are running short of time and and Don, here's something for you to be thinking about. A couple of people have asked how is Notre Dame changed in the last.

20-30 years so you have a a bit of knowledge about that, so be thinking about it and Christy. In the meantime, can you tell us any words of advice you might have as these students are are making the balls in your court now students you I know have some good offers in front of you. You have to. And So what kind of advice do you have? Christy as they're making these these final decisions?

My advice is start doing exactly what you're doing right now by attending these type of events both virtually, and if you can come for a visit and do this for all of the universities that you are seriously considering that have offered you admission.

Go and get a feel asked to speak to current students and our office is happy to put you in touch with the current student because as much as I can tell you about Notre Dame, I know what you really want to know is talking to a current student to say what's it like to live in our residence halls and the dining hall? And how hard are the classes? Will I have help? Can I have someone who's going to help me figure out what the rest of my life is going to be for career and so forth? So ask those type of questions and come and come for a visit. You know, there's.

There is nothing. There's nothing like walking on to Notre Dame's campus. And when you come to that and you are able to walk around and see our students, the beauty of our campus and get that Midwest welcoming feeling, there's just no place like home Under the Dome. So for all of that, do that for all of the schools that you're admitted to, and make the best decision for you and your family.

Great yeah.

And Joyce just to follow up on your question, I would say the abundance of resources that we have directed towards globalization and also research for undergraduate learning and activity.

My daughter who went to Notre Dame did a study abroad in London and for 18 years after graduating lived in London as a result of that experience.

Notre Dame showed her the world and she took advantage of it, and I think it's 75% of our students do a study abroad and internship abroad or community service project abroad. At least one many of them more than one. So the globalization is important, but also the amount of research. When I was here back in the 70s and 80s, getting an undergraduated masters degree, it really was the more traditional sit in the classroom. Do the readings participate in discussion?

Talked to the faculty member about what she or he was teaching. Now they're talking about research more. Getting you involved in research, the importance of research.

And innovation. We also have innovation park at Notre Dame is that we're students are proving every day that they're active minds can produce unique products that have never existed before. And then you're around a community of people that figure out how to turn that into a bigger something. And in today's Notre Dame world, I think the vast majority of students when they go out into their corporate job or into their graduate schools. They're much more entrepreneurial and creative.

And they're moving up faster up the chain of command because they've done research at whatever job they're doing. They have an appetite appetite for asking questions, coming up with new answers, and presenting that to their company to their professors at Graduate School. So I think the idea of research and innovation, as well as globalization, and then the very powerful alumni network, let alone the universities resources that we will invest more than.

Financial aid more than just the faculty and staff. Here we give you opportunities for internships all around the world throughout all four of your years here, as well as the research on campus as well as off campus research.

Thanks Don and Christy. Anything else?

I think another important difference that you're seeing from the 90s to now, as you know the face of Notre Dame, has continued to evolve and we have we. We have students that are from all over the world. We have students from all different ethnic and racial backgrounds and you know, you know we're just this year. For 2022. Notre Dame is celebrating its 50th year of.

Women in full time undergraduate enrollment at Notre Dame and now that's obviously way before the 90s, but those are some of the things that have continued to evolve. I think you would also see that the difference from the 90s to now is, you know, our students continue to. Not only are they being that forced for good, but they're continuing to have a strong voice and they want to be those advocates for change and a lot of that is coming from our students that are representing different backgrounds first generation.

Low income, all different types across the spectrum. That's what you're also seeing. Continue to evolve in change from the 90s to now and has just continued to enrich Notre Dame and your experience here.

That's great, thank you so much for your insight. Both of you and on that particular question there were a few people that were asking about it, so I appreciate it and I know they do as well, and I know with 1400 people in this virtual environment I knew we wouldn't get to everyone's questions. We did the best that we could to power through them. Rest assured, we have plenty of events planned for you ahead in this semester once our regular decision.

Admission decisions go out in March. We'll have another event where Don and Christy will come back. So in in your welcome to to join your colleagues from that regular decision admit pool as well. I feel like we could talk all night. Honestly. There's just a lot of good questions coming in and I can already feel the community from from this class. This Notre Dame class of 2026 Don, go ahead. You can wrap us up.

Yeah, well yeah and I'll just say to you you know we all feel that the last two years. Certainly it's an understatement to call it an unlucky time.

But I will say that and you know I'm in my 45th year of college administration and you know, each decade you we seem to get the comment of how resilient are students today. Can they overcome?

Challenge, can they overcome things? Not all being easily paid for them.

Your generation, your particular cohort of students within your part of the generation. The fact that you've been dealing with this for the last two years, and probably for another year or two, your resilience throughout the rest of your life.

You're going to have some skills that most people haven't acquired at the ages that you have, and so it's not that we're lucky that we've gone through this, but I will say that Notre Dame is always an optimistic place. We're always trying to figure out how to use what we're dealing with, finding meaning, and what we're faced. And I will say that your generation, as tough as this has been. This is going to make you tougher and smarter.

And more resilient, and I think there will be some gains for you by that. Not that it was great that we're going through it, but I do think you can take that part of your experience and realize that that there are some things that you can take advantage of because of your forced development in in being resilient.

So congratulations on that. We're very proud of you and we're very excited about you being here.

Price choice.

And with that, we'll wrap it up. Thank you for your time this evening and we look forward to being with you again on the 24th with Mary Neutrona, our director of Financial Aid. Have a wonderful evening and we'll hopefully see you on campus soon as well. Take care, thanks, Don, thanks, Christy.