Notre Dame is one of the most famed private research universities — and athletic powerhouses — in the country, and they have experienced a significant uptick in applications over the last few years. The acceptance rate for the Class of 2029, in fact, fell to a measly 9%. This marks the continuation of an aggressive trend, as the acceptance rate for Notre Dame has “dropped roughly 15% in the last decade.”
Every year, Notre Dame aims to use the waitlist to round out their first-year class. This lets them accept as few students as they feel is possible, and then trickle in students off of the waitlist to fill any gaps. However, that doesn’t mean that they get to use the waitlist every year, though.
For the fall of 2024, Notre Dame offered a spot on the waitlist to 2,206 first-year applicants. Of that group, 1,385 chose to join the list and only 42 were eventually admitted. Statistically, that positive outcome for only 3% of the waitlist isn’t inspiring. One year earlier, the waitlist process went much the same way. 2,784 applicants were offered a spot on the waitlist, 1,811 chose to join, and 90 were ultimately offered a spot — or 5%.
If we look another year back, for first-year students enrolling in the fall of 2022, we don’t actually see anything because they didn’t share the numbers that year. That lack of data went on for two years, actually, and the next numbers we can see are wildly different than the more recent stats. For the fall of 2020, 1,253 students joined the waitlist and 530 were admitted — or more than 40%. Remember, though, what happened in 2020. Admissions data from 2020 is far from reflective of normal operating procedure, so while it would be awesome to think that another 40% waitlist acceptance rate is going to repeat anytime soon, that outcome is quite unlikely.
What you can count on, though, is that you weren’t offered a spot on the waitlist because they felt bad for you and couldn’t stomach telling you a hard “no.” Plenty of students are rejected outright, and Notre Dame really only extends waitlist offers to students that they believe would thrive at Notre Dame. However, they weren’t excited enough about your application to find a spot for you…at least, not yet.
Below, we’ll break down what you need to do to increase your chances of admission off of the waitlist by making Notre Dame feel connected to your present and invested in your future.
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Notre Dame offers great advice on approaching the waitlist, but our favorite tidbit of wisdom is this instruction: “let the emotions settle.” Take a bit of time to process the waitlist offer and to consider all of your options before jumping to respond. The Notre Dame waitlist is not ranked, so you won’t lose out if you take a minute to breath, process, and plan. Then, once you’re ready, dive in.
Step One: Join the Waitlist
Once you feel solid, and are sure you want to wait and see with Notre Dame, you need to actually join the waitlist. Confirming your spot on the waitlist is the first step towards possibly still getting in, but remember that it isn’t first-come first-served. This isn’t a speed-response competition. Breathe deeply, log into the applicant portal, and claim your spot on your own time.
Step Two: Commit to a College
Next, you need to lock in your back-up plan. Yes, we’re going to give you the tools to increase your odds of getting into Notre Dame. However, we all know that the chances are slim even with the best toolkit. So, you need a college to go to in the fall. Look at your acceptances (hopefully you have a few to pick from), and select the best fit for your academic future and on-campus community experience. Commit to attend, but understand that you can always reverse course if you eventually get into Notre Dame. You will, however, relinquish the deposit if you choose to change direction. Call it the cost of playing the waitlist game.
Step Three: Update Notre Dame
Notre Dame is very transparent about what they want from you — and what they don’t want to receive — when you are on the waitlist.
The first thing that Notre Dame wants to receive from you, once you are on the waitlist, is a Letter of Continued Interest, or LOCI. Notre Dame requests that you upload your LOCI to the applicant status portal by April 15th. This is well ahead of the first-year commitment deadline for accepted students, so it does not mean that you will receive a final decision before early May. However, the April deadline does reflect the way that Notre Dame uses their waitlist — i.e., actively. They want Letters of Continued Interest on file for review before they can even know for certain if they have a spot for you.
So, let’s start with the LOCI.
There isn’t a certain GPA or academic achievement that will change how Notre Dame feels about you, so while this letter will aim to update them it isn’t about the quantitative measures. It’s about feelings and community. There also isn’t a particular thing that you could say about Notre Dame that would make a switch flip in the admissions office. They know you want to go — you’ve applied, and you’ve joined the waitlist. When you’re writing about how Notre Dame remains your first choice, it’s about highlighting the kind of things that you can only know about Notre Dame by doing your research.
The truth of the matter is that you love Notre Dame, but Notre Dame doesn’t love you enough yet to find a spot for you in the first-year class. This LOCI, then, isn’t about proving yourself more. It’s really about sort of seducing Notre Dame. Weird wording, maybe, but also accurate. They should leave this letter anxious to find a way to get you onto campus and confident that you will enroll if accepted.
In the LOCI, Notre Dame guides students to “Reflect on, and explain why, you want to attend Notre Dame. Think about your own goals, interests, and personal sense of mission.” Once you have your thoughts pulled together, it’s time to start letter writing. This is the structure it should follow:
Opening: The beginning of the letter needs to sound like a letter. Start with “Dear Notre Dame Admissions,” and then a short three-sentence paragraph that introduces yourself by name, your status as a waitlisted applicant and prospective X major, and underlines that Notre Dame remains your first-choice school. End the opening with a sentence setting out your intentions with this letter: to update Notre Dame admissions and reinforce your interest.
Update: The next section of the letter is quite possibly the most important. We’ve said that no one thing is going to ‘fix’ your situation with Notre Dame, but showing the university that you have continued to push yourself since submitting your application is crucial. We encourage students to identify 2-4 updates to share with Notre Dame, which should include both academic successes and extracurricular achievements.
Reinforce: Notre Dame knows that you didn’t have much space to write about why you love the university in the Common App supplements, and this is a great place to expand further than the 200-word supplement allowed. With that in mind, do not repeat anything that you shared in your supplement except the name of your prospective major. Then, share two academic and two community reasons for why you want to make Notre Dame your collegiate home.
The university encourages you to “think about how a Notre Dame education aligns with your personal mission and what you have to offer to the Notre Dame family.” Then, share that. Remember, though, that this whole letter needs to be one page in size 12 font with normal margins. So, you need to be specific and concise.
Close: Close the letter with another short paragraph thanking the admissions officers for their time and stating clearly that you will enroll if accepted.
Edit, submit, then move on to the next step.
After the LOCI, you need to submit an updated set of grades. Ask your school to send mid-term grades (if available).
If anything notable happens after you’ve submitted the LOCI, but still before April 15th, that would be interesting to Notre Dame, you can submit it as an additional update through the applicant portal, but be careful not to go too wild with this. Notre Dame doesn’t need to know if you were 3rd runner up in a competition that is irrelevant to your prospective area of study, and they aren’t interested in whether you got a stronger grade than usual on one math assignment. Submitting updates that aren’t really updates at all doesn’t improve your chances of getting in, but is like diluting a cup of coffee.
Eventually, even the best coffee is turned into brownish water if you dribble in enough H2O. We want your application to get stronger through specific, compelling, and targeted updates. That might include making it to championships in an academic or athletic activity that you highlighted, or successfully creating a new community tradition that supports those around you. Fundraising is not compelling as an update, but creating positive change with the possibility to radiating outwards beyond your individual output is.
Something that Notre Dame discourages, though, is additional recommendation letters.
Step Four: Wait it out.
Once the LOCI is in, along with updated grades, you need to focus on finishing the year strong. Notre Dame aims to close the waitlist process by mid-June, and you don’t want to wake up every day feeling like the waitlist is hanging over your head. So, respond to any emails from Notre Dame admissions quickly, keep your grades strong, and enjoy senior spring.
Remember that Notre Dame wants to use their waitlist, and they believe you would do well as a student there. You do have a chance of getting in off of the waitlist, but you won’t get there by sitting around and waiting.
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