University sets record-low acceptance rate

By ISA SHEIKH

notre dame news e ditor a pplicants around the world logged onto the n otre d ame application status portal at 6:42 p.m. es T last Thursday, the time serving as a nod to the u niversity’s founding year of 1842. n otre d ame admitted a total of 3,399 students to the class of 2027 in this year’s cycle, combining 1,701 restrictive early application ( rea ) applicants with 1,698 regular decision ( rd ) applicants. d rawing from a pool of 28,351 applicants, the u niversity hit an 11.9% acceptance rate, “the lowest in n otre d ame history” according to vice president for undergraduate enrollment m icki k idder. a dmitted students represented “approximately 7,700 high schools across 50 us states, the d istrict of c olumbia, 5 u s . territories, and 143 countries,” she added in an email. i n an interview with The o bserver, k idder celebrated the qualifications of the incoming class. w hile the regular decision cycle saw a 2% increase from the previous year, the rea cohort saw a 25% growth.

“ w hat i think is really important that i would love to celebrate about these 1,698 students, in addition to their academic success and pursuit, is just the incredible human beings that they are. a nd that’s hard to quantify in a stat,” she said.

The u niversity maintained a test-optional policy for this year’s application, seeing a 3% increase in applications where students remained test-option. k idder said that admissions continues to measure the impact of test-optional applications, and will be releasing a public determination on the future of testoptional admissions.

“ we are currently doing a review and analysis to understand what the impact of this has been in the classroom at n otre d ame. a nd so i anticipate that within the next probably three months, we will announce what our practice will be moving forward. That may be on an interim basis that may be in a more permanent basis. i t depends on how this analysis goes and how comfortable i feel in placing any type of permanency to that policy,” k idder said. k idder said that applicants continue to be evaluated on a holistic basis, looking see accepTance PAGE 3