Print Edition of the College Admissions Scandal Insider of The Observer for Friday, April 26, 2019

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We invited tri-campus students to share their admission stories. This is what they said.

Observer Staff Report

Whether one was raised as a lifelong Notre Dame fan by alumni, discovered one of the tri-campus schools later in life or was recruited as an athlete, each person’s journey to college is unique. The college admissions scandal, which came to light in March, sparked a larger conversation about this process by highlighting inequalities in the system.

Following this revelation, The Observer decided to take an in-depth look at college acceptance in the tri-campus community, and spotlight students’ admissions stories.

Over the course of about one month, our writers reported and wrote on this topic, interviewing admissions and athletics administrators and the students themselves. This Insider features members of the Notre Dame, Saint Mary’s and Holy Cross community from a variety of distinct

experiences — including legacy, athlete, low-income, firstgeneration and undocumented backgrounds.

In order to reach out to the latter three groups, The Observer created a form for students to share their stories. In a matter of six days, we received 11 responses from members of the tri-campus community. Of the respondents, 72.7% identified as low-income students, 81.8% identified as first-generation students and 36.4% identified as DACA recipients or undocumented students. From these responses, reporters selected a handful of students from each campus to interview.

Through this Insider, we hope to further examine the college admissions process in the tri-campus community. If you want to join the conversation, feel free to submit a letter to the editor. If you have a related story idea, you can submit it on our website. We always want to hear your story.

CLAIRE KOPISCHKE | The Observer

Holy Cross students reflect on admission experiences, react to college admissions scandal

By JAQUELINE NAVARRO News Writer

Unlike the students involved in the recent nationwide college admissions scandal, the firstgeneration, low-income and DACA students of Holy Cross said they received little to no assistance when it was time for them to begin applying to colleges and universities.

According to the official Holy Cross website, 32% of the college’s student body consists of first-generation college students.

First-year and first-generation student Cody Rieckhoff said he remembers not being able to go to his parents for help during his college search. ”I had the guidance counselors and teachers who would help with my process, but when it came to myparents, I had no insight on how to apply,” he said. Rieckhoff said he remembered the exact moment where he realized his parents could no longer give him advice about his future.

“I had this opposition from my parents about where they wanted me to go, and for me, I was like, well, ‘What do you know about college?’” Rieckhoff said. ”Because they didn’t go, so I felt it hard to look to them for advice about what to expect.”

First-year students Patricia Vasquez and Erick Maciel Diaz also faced challenges during the college application process

— both are first-generation, low-income students as well as DACA recipients.

Diaz said his college search became complicated in September of 2017, when his DACA status was in danger of being taken away.

“I did most of the research on my own and I did my applications thinking that I was going to receive financial aid,” he said. ”Once the whole DACA program got rescinded in September, that stopped me from wanting to search for federal aid, because I knew that then I couldn’t get it, and I didn’t really know at the time what was going to happen to DACA or me.”

Vasquez said she looked for additional assistance during her college search from the Nicholas Academic Centers, as her options for college felt limited at the time.

The Nicholas Academic Centers negotiated on Vasquez’s behalf so she could receive the resources necessary for her to attend Holy Cross.

“Most of my peers were born here, and I wasn’t,” she said.

“I was beginning to apply for my DACA [status] and once I started applying to my DACA [program], I realized that me not being born here was going to affect my financial aid package for college. … [The Nicholas Academic Center] constantly told me, ‘Yeah, you have this [state] of being different, of being low-income and being a

DACA recipient, but you also have opportunities if you have the right system advocating for you.‘” Diaz said he was not surprised to hear of admissions scandal.

“I don’t think it’s institutionalized, but I do think money has something to play in getting students accepted into colleges anywhere,” he said. “So, really, I think this is only part of a bigger picture that shows how skewed the system is and how we’re not playing fairly.”

Rieckhoff, on the other hand, said he was shocked to hear how far people were willing to go to get into elite schools.

“I feel like it takes away from the prestige of making it anywhere for people to be basically bribing their way into college or bribing their kids into college or extorting money from somebody,” he said. “ … It just seems very, very unfair for a lot of the people who work really hard to get where they are. … It blows my mind that people put so much prestige behind a college that they’re willing to pay four college tuitions worth of money just to get their kid to go.”

Vasquez said she would like to see more College faculty become empathetic toward lowincome and first-generation students.

“I would like to see more of workshops for [college] staff and faculty, just to give them a perspective of like, what it means

GINA TWARDOSZ | The Observer

St. Joseph’s Chapel sits in the heart of Holy Cross’ campus. 32% of students at Holy Cross are first-generation college students.

to have a student that is firstgeneration or low-income,“ she said. “Because I’m pretty sure they’re aware that they have some students that are lowincome and first-generation or

DACA recipients, but they’re not well aware of what they go through.”

Contact Jaqueline Navarro at jnavarro@hcc-nd.edu

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Low-income Notre Dame students recall obstacles in applications, admission process

By SERENA ZACHARIAS News Writer

W hile the recent college admissions scandal — permeating national news and implicating many wellknow n celebrities — has sparked outrage among Americans, it has also highlighted unfair advantages wealthy students gained in the college admissions process, especially to highly ranked universities.

In recent years, many colleges and universities have committed to enrolling more low-income students by increasing the number of Pell Grant students on their campuses, implementing summer bridge programs and reaching out to low-income communities, among a number of other approaches.

However, many low-income students say the application process itself ser ves as a significant barrier.

In inter v iews w ith The Obser ver, two Notre Dame students from low-income households shared their experiences w ith the college admissions process, noting the obstacles they faced along the way.

Rathin Kacham, senior Rathin Kacham, a DACA recipient, first-generation and low-income student, said he applied to over 30 colleges and universities his senior year of high school.

He knew he would not qualif y for federal aid because of his undocumented status at the time, so he was forced to apply to a slew of schools in hopes he would be accepted somewhere and receive financial aid, he said.

Kacham said his underfunded high school rarely sent students out of state for college, and many kids did not proceed to higher education at all. At the time, his guidance counselors knew little about his situation, so Kacham said he tack led the admissions process alone, calling indiv idual universities and researching

programs intended for lowincome students.

“I had this challenge I had no control over,” Kacham said.

By the time regular decisions were announced that spring, Kacham said he had been wait-listed or rejected to the majorit y of schools which he applied, despite hav ing a 4.0 GPA and a high ACT score.

“I got into one school, I think it was [Universit y of Texas] Dallas, where I would’ve gotten a partial scholarship, and that was honestly where I thought I was going for the longest time,” he said. “Then I checked my spam folder and Notre Dame and had sent me an acceptance letter and I ended up here.”

Jazie Valenzo, junior Jazie Valenzo was born in Mex ico, but his family moved to Wilmington, Delaware when he was 1 year old, he said. Valenzo said his parents wanted to immigrate to America in order to escape family tensions back in Mex ico, but when they arrived, both of his parents were forced to work multiple jobs in order to support their family of five.

After attending elementar y and middle school in the inner cit y of Wilmington, Valenzo was accepted at Salesianum School — an all-boys private Catholic high school — on financial aid.

“I did well my freshman year, and the guidance counselors kind of noticed that — they really wanted to get me on the right track, especially as an indiv idual coming from my kind of background and area, [that] wasn’t too common,” Valenzo said.

Valenzo said he was not able to v isit any of the schools he applied to because his family couldn’t afford to travel, but after researching a number of schools online, he decided to rank Notre Dame in his top three schools on his

QuestBridge application.

“I remember coming back from track practice and looking at my phone, because I knew when they were going to release the decisions to see if you were accepted to one of the universities that you put on your list,” Valenzo said. “And I clicked on the link and the first thing I read is ‘Congratulations,’ and then the follow ing line, ‘You’ve been accepted to the Universit y of Notre Dame,’ and it was fantastic. I went home and I cried, and I thought, ‘A ll my work has kind of paid off.’”

Analyzing admissions Don Bishop, v ice president of undergraduate enrollment, said about 12 to 13 percent of Notre Dame undergraduate students currently live in households earning under $ 65,000 per year, but admissions is working to increase that percentage by reaching out to underser ved high schools and working w ith organizations including the American Talent Initiative, Cristo Rey, KIPP and QuestBridge.

“Notre Dame needs to be in all these communities recruiting because we want the leaders of those communities to be, at least some of them, [from] Notre Dame,” Bishop said. “And I think it becomes a better world in our mind when we are more a part of all those worlds.”

A lthough admissions facult y and staff were not implicated in the cheating scandal, Bishop said he sees the scandal as an opportunit y for Notre Dame to articulate exactly how it approaches admission decisions and why he believes their approach is most effective.

“I think the public feels outrage because there are some ver y high-end schools involved in the scandal, and it’s migrated from the scandal to the whole conversation about inf luence, and in both of those groups

people feel betrayed by the top colleges,” Bishop said.

Bishop said the Notre Dame admissions department evaluates applicants in the context of their env ironment, taking socioeconomic background into account to put underser ved students and more aff luent students on an equal play ing field.

“Ultimately, we do not discount a top-performing student at a prett y humble American high school who’s done their ver y best and that [is] prett y much at the top of the class … we know that if you’re in the top 5% in your socioeconomic group on test scores — let’s say that’s a 1340 — and top 5% for the ‘average kid at Notre Dame’ socioeconomic group in the applicant pool … might be 1480,” Bishop said. “We might look at that and say, ‘1340 actually compares reasonably to 1480 for a student from a much more advantaged background who’s had more access to tutoring,’” Bishop said.

During the 2017-2018 admissions cycle, the College Board implemented the Env ironmental Context Dashboard, ”a data-driven tool used to measure educational disadvantages based on students’ env ironments,” according to the website. Notre Dame was one of the 15 schools that agreed to test the tool in its pilot year, Bishop said.

A lthough many universities’ increasing commitment to holistic admissions and tools like the ECD have worked to diminish the disadvantages first-generation and low-income students often face, the admissions scandal has called for colleges to more forcefully examine the inequities that ex ist w ithin the system, Bishop said.

A lthough both Kacham and Valenzo made it to college, many high-achiev ing, low-income, DACA and first-generation students across the nation struggle to

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progress, which makes the college admissions scandal particularly disheartening, Valenzo said.

“There are a lot of kids in the US — across the world — that would kill for an education, to be able to be someone better and learn more and be able to apply themselves and be better for it, but they can’t. They don’t have the necessar y resources for it,” he said. “Then, you have this opposite side of the spectrum where you have people that do have such resources and they’re not even doing it right.”

Kacham said the admissions scandal speaks to bigger, institutional problems w ithin education, where wealthy parents can pay to secure admission even if their child is unqualified, while poorer, high-achieving students struggle to get by.

“I want [high-income families] to realize that they’ve been benefiting from a system that was designed to benefit people like them, [and] to some extent, mostly still benefits them,” Kacham said.

To bridge the differences bet ween high-income and low-income students, Kacham said he would ask students to start by simply being kind.

“Really tr y to think about what a person is going through and what you might have to sacrifice in order to make their life better,” Kacham said. “Compassion is sacrifice, it’s changing your lifest yle to know the person next to you can be happier.”

Valenzo said he urges students to avoid being judgmental and instead engage in deeper conversations regarding differences in lifest yle, class and race.

“Be open to people — be open to know ing them and their stories,” he said.

Contact Serena Zacharias at szachari@nd.edu

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Saint Mary’s first-generation students call for greater financial support for low-income admits

By GINA TWARDOSZ News Writer

“I wasn’t surprised.”

That was the t y pical response from many of the low-income, DACA and firstgeneration students at Saint Mar y’s when asked their thoughts on the college admissions cheating scandal.

W hile Saint Mar y’s was not implicated, many Belles have strong opinions on the admissions process and the greater significance of the scandal.

Saint Mar y’s senior Teresa Brickey, a first-generation and low-income student, said the issue of the cheating scandal is relevant to the tri-campus communit y and that some wealthy students are “allotted certain priv ileges.”

“Honestly, this college acceptance scandal is nothing new — people just got publicly caught,” she said. “The college scandal reaffirms the fact that higher institutions are created and sustained for a certain class of people.

W hat the scandal highlights is the fact that a student can be mediocre, but if their parents’ bank account is big enough, then that doesn’t matter.”

Damariz Olguin, a Saint Mar y’s first-year, said she agrees.

“It’s been happening for years — even in politics it happens,” she

said.

Olguin, a first-generation and low-income student, said it was interesting that most of schools implicated in the scandal were PW Is. “PW I” stands for “predominantly white institution” — an accurate descriptor for Saint Mar y’s, Olguin said.

“I wasn’t surprised that there were so few first-generation students here, but I was surprised that Saint Mar y’s was a PW I,” she said.

Junior Genesis Vasquez, a first-generation student, said she feels similarly. She said the histor y of higher institutional learning is entrenched in the exclusion of underrepresented populations, as most colleges were initially created for upper-middle-class, white students.

“I was shocked at the scandal, but at the same time, I really wasn’t,” she said.

“Higher institutions were not made for students of color, or first-generation students or students liv ing in povert y.”

Nevertheless, the College’s population of first-generation students continues to grow. Gloria Jenkins, dean of students, said in an email Saint Mar y’s is continuously tr y ing to create more opportunities to support first-generation students.

“Currently, 27% of our

student population is firstgeneration and 34% of our first-year students are firstgeneration, so we recognize the need to continue to support our students,” she said.

Yet, Olguin said it was hard, at first, to find fellow first-generation students on campus. A lthough the College offers the “Belles Connect” program for firstgeneration, underrepresented, home-schooled and international students, Olguin said it was not explicitly advertised.

“First-generation freshmen are allowed to come to campus a week earlier than ever yone else for ‘Belles Connect,’” she said. “Except they’re not great at telling students how to sign up for it.”

Olguin said liv ing on campus early would have been beneficial, as she said she chose to attend Saint Mar y’s w ithout ever hav ing seen the campus before. Since she is a first-generation student, she did not know what college life would be like and if she would fit in on campus, she said.

Vasquez said she did participate in “Belles Connect,” but it was only by chance that she stumbled upon the website.

“In high school, I was ver y active in looking for resources that would help me and I stumbled upon a website

ANNA MASON | The Observer

Le Mans Hall at Saint Mary’s is home to the College’s Office of Admissions. Currently, 27% of the College’s student population is first-generation, and 34% of Saint Mary’s first-year students are first-generation.

for it,” she said. “But, I don’t think it was advertised at all. I know a lot of people who would’ve applied had they know n about ‘Belles Connect.’”

Jenkins said only some students are eligible for “Belles Connect,” and there are many reasons why students may not know of, or want to participate in the program.

“Some students miss out on the opportunit y for many reasons. For instance, they may have been admitted after the deadline to register for the program was closed or it had reached its capacit y,” she said. “Furthermore, I’ve had students tell me they didn’t want to participate because they didn’t want to move in a week earlier and leave home. Finally, some students informed me that their parents did not want them to come or [did not] for ward the opportunit y to them as they were the ones dealing w ith all SMC communication.”

And fitting in on campus is not the only struggle these students face; for low-income students, Brickey said, there are some resources that she, and others, are never afforded.

“We, myself included, were never afforded testing prep, tutoring or even the resources to understand admission processes,” she said. “Ever y year is a constant battle w ith financial aid offices and balancing an array of issues that our wealthier peers do not have to face. There is a resource gap bet ween the t wo demographics on campus.”

Vasquez said her biggest challenge has been affording Saint Mar y’s.

“Saint Mar y’s recruits diverse students, but what are they going to do to ensure that students like me w ill finish college? ” she said.

“My biggest challenge has been financially pay ing for school. I don’t have to pay a lot, but it’s too much money for my parents to afford.”

Like Brickey, Vasquez said finding resources that help her understand the financial aid process has been an uphill battle.

“I’ve definitely asked friends about financial aid and they can’t answer me because their family does their financial aid for them,” she said. “I have to physically go to the financial aid office, and it’s not a problem, but sometimes you don’t want to go out of your way to find an answer.”

W hile legacy students can

fall back on their parents’ assistance when it comes to nav igating the application process, Olguin said she had to do ever y thing on her ow n because her parents, and even her academic counselors, were no help.

“Admissions counselors should help first-generation students w ith the Common App,” she said. “Certain colleges should notice that if you’re first-generation you might be confused on certain things, so they should reach out directly to those first-generation students.”

Vasquez said sometimes, there are so many challenges stacked against her she feels like dropping out of college entirely.

“I wanted to drop out my sophomore year,” she said.

“It was a constant thought in my head and it was something that I did not talk about w ith anyone. I think that’s often something that students w ith similar backgrounds to me think about.

There are students who are in college and they’ll drop out because their family w ill need help and they feel like it’s their obligation to go back home and help.”

But, to those students who feel like Vasquez, she said she recommends they seek out help in the form of mentorship and resources.

Vasquez said the campus communit y should also address the emotional need of underrepresented students, as many first-generation students and students of color are often stigmatized for seeking counseling to treat their mental health needs.

“Counseling has helped me so much,” she said. “I’ve had difficult y w ith mental health and I didn’t start getting help until I got here.

Particularly in black and Hispanic communities, mental health is so stigmatized that you’re looked dow n upon if you have a mental health issue. We need to destigmatize that. Mental health only gets worse when coupled w ith the stress of academics.”

Olguin said the College communit y should recognize some students have more priv ileges than others and that legacy students are “blessed” w ith an easier college experience.

“It’s hard for us to do it all on our ow n,” she said.

Contact Gina Twardosz at gtwardosz01@saintmarys.edu

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Athlete, coach, admissions official share insights on recruiting process, NCAA regulations

By MARY STEURER Assistant Managing Editor

Eight universities are thought to have participated in March’s college admissions scandal and now face investigation by the U.S. Department of Education. According to federal prosecutors, William “Rick” Singer, the man behind the scam, bribed college coaches and other officials to illegally secure admission for his clients’ children. Singer pled guilty to racketeering, among other charges, in mid-March.

It appears Notre Dame was never a target for Singer — according to a column from the Los Angeles Times, he refused to bribe athletics officials at the University because he believed its standards for recruitment and admissions to be too strict.

Prospective student-athletes at Notre Dame must “meet academic thresholds and have authentic athletic records,” the column said.

At Notre Dame, the Athletics Compliance Office is the primary body responsible for monitoring athletics recruitment.

The office works to ensure athletes, coaches and other athletics staff follow guidelines put forth by the NCAA, the organization that governs athletics for most colleges and universities.

In addition to general regulations for college athletics, these rules outline each part of the recruitment process, including when students may be recruited and how recruiters can communicate with prospective athletes and their coaches.

Associate softball coach Kris Ganeff said the office supervises athlete and coach activity throughout recruitment.

The office often enforces coach compliance by checking travel records and other documents, she said.

“They check our phone logs — they know we’re following the rules. … Any time you make a contact or an evaluation, that’s put into a system,” she said.

The Athletics Compliance Office also verifies prospective athletes’ records meet NCAA and University standards, she said.

“What kind of school are they in, where are they at, class rankings, where does their school rank — all those things matter,” she said.

Students who fail to meet the University’s academic standards are either turned down or, if already recruited, asked to drop their verbal commitments, Ganeff said.

“We’ve only had to [do] that a couple times, where, you know what, they weren’t just making the grade, and we had to make a switch,” she said. “But the kids knew that upfront.”

Senior pitcher Cait Brooks said after athletes commit, coaches will monitor their recruits’ academic performances closely.

Though it’s rare for a recruit to be barred from admission for academic reasons, it’s not unheard of, Brooks said.]

“I’ve known girls who’ve gotten their scholarship dropped from a university and basically had to drop their verbal commitment because they were not going to be eligible to get into that university,” she said.

Brooks said she was not worried about admission after she committed and applied only to Notre Dame.

“There was no doubt in my mind — I mean, they have your transcript, they’re in communication with Compliance and Admissions,” she said.

Director of admissions, operations and management Brian Lohr said the Office of Undergraduate Admissions also clears all prospective athletes for recruitment. The office receives forms from coaches detailing information about each recruit’s high school, their intended major, current GPA, class rank and test scores, he said.

“They will also identify the athlete’s ability and will give us a blurb on how this student-athlete would potentially impact their team,” he said.

Lohr said the primary role of his team is to evaluate the student holistically.

“As far as their athletic talent, we rely strictly on the coaches to make that determination,” Lohr said.

After reviewing this information, coaches are told whether or not the office recommends the student for admission.

“We might say, ‘The studentathlete is tentatively approved for recruitment, but we’ll need additional information in a certain area,’ ‘Not approved for recruitment,’ or ‘Totally approved for recruitment,’” Lohr said.

After being cleared for recruitment, the student will undergo the same standard admissions process for all undergraduate applicants, Lohr said. He said Admissions relies on the Athletics Compliance Office to confirm the students’ athletics records are authentic.

“When they put forward an athlete for us to evaluate, we’re making an assumption that they’ve looked at this person from a professional judgment standpoint and said they’re a studentathlete that they want to admit,” he said.

The Athletics Compliance Office declined a request for comment.

Contact Mary Steurer at msteure1@nd.edu

ALEXIS HERNANDEZ | The Observer

Irish senior MK Bonamy rounds the bases in a softball game against Louisville in March. Guidelines for softball recruitment changed last April, requiring coaches to hold off recruting until athletes’ junior year.

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Legacy students share their admission stories

By CLAIRE RAFFORD and MARIAH RUSH News Editor and Associate News Editor

Since its founding in 1842, Notre Dame has placed a strong emphasis on tradition and the “Notre Dame family.” But for many students, the Notre Dame family is not just figurative, but literal.

Don Bishop, associate vice president for undergraduate enrollment, said legacy students — or students who have at least one parent who graduated from the University — tend to get accepted at a higher rate than students whose parents did not attend Notre Dame. The reason for this disparity, he said, is legacy students, whose parents tend to be more educated, are more qualified for admission. Bishop said in 2018, the legacy student admit rate was 36%, as opposed to the general admissions rate of 15% to 16%.

“That’s where the alumni children, one, come from better-educated households … They tend to be more economically successful, so they’ve had more resources,” he said. “The families tend to promote academics and achievement more than most households. All that’s kind of the culture of Notre Dame, and we’re proud of that.”

Bishop said 23.6% of the makeup of class of 2022 is legacy students, as compared to 11.6% across the eight Ivy League schools — Brown University, Harvard University, Colombia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Princeton University, Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania. The “Catholic nature” of Notre Dame is the main reason behind these statistics, Bishop said.

“We have more children in our households,” he said. “Notre Dame is not 100% Catholic, but the Catholic nature of Notre Dame [means] our households have more children. The national average household has 1.9 children, if a household has children. Our average household of our alumni [children] is about 3.3 to 3.5 [average], depending on the year … If we’re double the Ivies, it’s because we have more kids.”

In addition, legacy students commit to attend Notre Dame at a much higher rate than non-legacies, Bishop said.

“The fact that 78% enroll

compared to about 53% of all other admits — [they] wanted to be here, [they] saw the value of Notre Dame,” Bishop said. “So I think there is a higher degree of interest by alumni children of Notre Dame then even the other top schools, but I think statistically we have about the same number of outcomes, our alumni just have more children that apply.”

Additionally, during the admissions process, Bishop said legacy students’ applications — as well as other groups with the “highest priority” — are looked at more than once.

“We make sure [legacy students’ applications] get read multiple times … we always make sure the alumni children have multiple reads, it’s a courtesy to make sure — have we looked at everything as carefully as we can?” Bishop said.

“But, once they’ve been read multiple times, they still go through the same committee process as everyone else.”

Bishop added low-income students are another group whose applications are read multiple times.

“We want to have multiple readers for the highest priority groups,” he said.

According to a 2014 article published in Notre Dame Magazine, the University committed to sustaining a steady legacy presence — about 20% to 25% of all students.

“There are about 1,000 kids walking this campus today who are alumni kids who, if we did not have this commitment to the alumni, would not be here — about 250 per class,” Bishop said in the article.

Richard Kahlenberg, senior fellow and director for K-12 equity at the Century Foundation, said the process of considering where the parent of a student has graduated from is counterintuitive to the values of independence and equality upon which the United States was founded.

“I think it’s basically un-American,” Kahlenberg said. “We fought our Revolutionary War against the British based on the idea that we were going to create a different type of society moving away from aristocracy in w h i c h

lineage and parentage mattered a great deal and so the idea that universities whose researchers are spending a lot of time trying to reduce inequality, are themselves engaging in a form of discrimination based on ancestry is anachronistic and contrary to basic American values.”

Not only are legacy admissions wrong on principle, but the process of admitting children of alumni deprives other students of opportunities, Kahlenberg said.

“I would say it harms the university in a couple of ways,” Kahlenberg said. “One is, it’s admitting students through a preference who wouldn’t otherwise be there, and given that the preference is in my view unjustified, it’s going to harm the equality of the education provided. I think it sends a powerful message about what a university values. Legacy students are less likely to be students of color, less likely to be low-income. By saying if your parents were members of the club, you’re more likely to be welcomed, the university is sending a message that undermines its moral standing.”

Bishop said in addition to looking at test scores, grades and essays, Notre Dame also considers how well a prospective student aligns with the mission and spirit of the University.

“If there are students that, in their essays, in the school recommendations, in their activities talk about service to others, along with tremendous intellectual academic talent and creativity, we’re also requiring that we see

some balance, and that balance, often with the Notre Dame mission, is service to others, kind of a self-awareness and a desire to help others — not just yourself,“ he said.

“Alumni children were brought up in that kind of environment. A lot of our graduates have lived that mission.”

Kahlenberg said he disagreed with this “mission match,” saying legacy students are not the only group who can contribute positively to the values of Notre Dame.

“It’s not difficult for a prospective student to read about Notre Dame on its website, read its mission statement and then decide whether that’s attractive,” he said.

“So I don’t think that there’s some special insight that’s unavailable to non-legacies regarding the mission of the University.”

Tommy Clare, a junior computer science major, was a “Notre Dame baby,” and credits his decision to come to the University to the amount of exposure he had during his childhood.

“Both my parents actually were the same year [at Notre Dame] … they both graduated in ‘92,” Clare said. “When we came along, we were obviously Notre Dame babies from the start. … I would say that by far Notre Dame was the only college exposure I had growing up. … Notre Dame always kind of had that edge — I’d say because of the legacy [factor]. To be fair, I still would have ended up here, but probably with a longer decision process.”

Junior Tommy Krug is a fourthgeneration Notre Dame student.

His family has a long history of sending people to the University, he said.

“My great grandfather was at Notre Dame in 1918,” Krug said.

“He actually had Knute Rockne as a chemistry teacher. Two of his sons went to Notre Dame in the ‘50s, one of them was my grandfather. Three of my dad’s six siblings went to Notre Dame, including my dad … I’ve had cousins go as well, and had one sister go and one sister rejected.”

Krug said he was always “that kid

who wanted to go to Notre Dame in kindergarten,” but his plans did not seem certain when his sister was rejected from the University.

“I kind of hit a snag when my sister was rejected when I was a freshman in high school,” Krug said. “My sister was the only one out of the three of us who applied to Notre Dame who was a valedictorian, and she was rejected.”

Krug said he does believe legacy students are a valuable part of the University, but the administration should be careful to keep the student body diverse.

“To a point, it’s nice to have students who are like unpaid tour guides and just know everything. … I think it does add something to the student body of the school, to have that legacy tie,” Krug said. “But to the degree that they are carried out, I don’t know how to quantify what’s appropriate. …

It’s like when you’re making something in a pot when you’re trying to cook something, you want a little bit of this, a little bit of that.”

Bishop said in his experience, legacy students were helpful in helping him adapt to the traditions of Notre Dame.

“I think being around legacy students helped me appreciate Notre Dame more quickly. … I would say legacy students help the rest of us kind of ramp up more quickly on understanding the traditions and the nature of the mission of Notre Dame,” Bishop said. “So in that way, I think legacies are helpful to everyone.”

Ultimately, Kahlenberg said, though he disagrees with factoring legacy status into admissions, he is grateful the University is transparent about its policy.

“There are some universities that are somewhat embarrassed by their legacy preference policy, who kind of try to camouflage what they’re doing,” he said. “It seems like Notre Dame, to its credit, is at least honest that they’re engaged in legacy preferences. They don’t shy away from that.”

Contact Claire Rafford at crafford@nd.edu and Mariah Rush at mrush@nd.edu