University of Notre Dame: Inside the Numbers

Notre Dame is a private Catholic research university with an admissions story that, until recently, looked steadier than most of its peers. Application volume drifted upward without spiking. The admit rate moved by a percentage point or two each year. Yield held in a narrow band. Then, in September 2024, new president Rev. Robert A. Dowd announced Pathways to Notre Dame, the most significant financial aid policy change in the university’s modern history, and the institution moved into a different posture. Applications jumped 18 percent in a single cycle. The admit rate dropped below 10 percent for the first time. International aid spending climbed by a third. And in March 2026, the university announced a further expansion of Pathways that will reshape sticker price for the bulk of middle-income families starting in the 2026–27 academic year.

This report draws on five years of Notre Dame’s Common Data Sets (2021–22 through 2025–26), paired with the publicly announced Restrictive Early Action figures Notre Dame releases each December and the financial aid policy framework the university has communicated through its own news channels. The aim is to give applicants and families a working picture of what Notre Dame has actually been doing, where the lines on the chart are headed, and what the next several cycles likely hold.

Applications, admits, and the shape of selectivity

Notre Dame received 23,642 first-year applications for the Fall 2021 entering class, admitted 3,562, and enrolled 2,059. By Fall 2025, applications had grown to 35,401, admits had fallen to 3,320, and the enrolled class had risen modestly to 2,118. That is a 50 percent increase in application volume over four cycles, with the steepest climb (a 5,459-application jump) coming in the most recent year. The admit rate has compressed from 15.1 percent for Fall 2021 to 9.4 percent for Fall 2025. Yield has moved in the opposite direction, climbing from 57.8 percent to 63.8 percent.

The five-year series contains two patterns families should weigh. The first is the consistency of the entering class size. Notre Dame has held its first-year cohort within a tight band of 2,037 to 2,118 students for five consecutive years, even as applications surged. This is a deliberate operational choice tied to the residential model and 33 residence halls, with no signal that capacity will expand in the near term. The second is that the recent admit rate compression was almost entirely an application-driven event. Notre Dame admitted slightly fewer students in Fall 2025 than in Fall 2021, but the denominator climbed by nearly 12,000.

Source: University of Notre Dame Common Data Sets, Section C1, 2021–22 through 2025–26.

The yield figure is the most striking number in the table. A 63.8 percent yield, achieved without binding Early Decision, is exceptional. Only a small group of the very top Ivy-plus universities, Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, MIT, and Yale among them, consistently yield higher. Notre Dame routinely outpaces yield at schools where prospective students might consider it alongside, including Vanderbilt, Northwestern, Duke, and Georgetown. The lift is partly a function of how Notre Dame applicants self-select. The university’s distinctive Catholic mission, residential hall system, and athletic culture produce a more committed applicant pool than the national average.

Restrictive Early Action and what it actually does

Notre Dame runs a Restrictive Early Action program, the same model used by Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and Harvard. Applicants must submit by November 1 and receive decisions in mid-December. REA is non-binding (admits can wait until May 1 to commit), but applicants who choose REA may not apply to any other private institution’s binding Early Decision I program. ED II remains open, and applicants who are admitted to an ED II program elsewhere must withdraw their Notre Dame application. The CDS does not require Notre Dame to report REA application or admit volumes (the institution checks the early action box without disclosing counts), so the numbers below come from Notre Dame’s annual REA press releases.

Source: Notre Dame Office of Undergraduate Admissions press releases, December 2022 through December 2025. REA admit counts were not published in earlier announcements.

Two implications follow for families weighing how to use REA. First, REA admits substantially less selectively than Regular Decision. For the Class of 2029, the REA admit rate was 12.9 percent against an RD admit rate of roughly 6.7 percent, a difference that reflects both the strength of the REA applicant pool and the university’s preference for filling a meaningful share of the class through early commitments. For an applicant whose academic profile is at or above the 25th percentile of admitted students by early November, REA carries real strategic weight. Second, REA is not a binding ED. The program leaves room for students to compare financial aid offers in March against ED II offers from other schools, provided they comply with the restrictions.

What REA does require is that the application be at full strength by November 1. Senior-year fall coursework cannot be reflected in the file. Most REA candidates apply on the basis of rising-junior or junior-year testing, eleventh-grade rigor, and recommendations written in September of senior year. For students whose strongest case will be built in the fall semester of twelfth grade, Regular Decision is the better fit, even if the published admit rate is lower.

Testing policy: holding the test-optional line

Notre Dame is one of the few highly selective universities that has explicitly extended test-optional status through the 2026–27 application cycle. As peers including Harvard, Brown, Dartmouth, Cornell, MIT, and Stanford have reinstated testing requirements, and Yale has shifted to a test-flexible model, Notre Dame has gone the other direction, framing the choice as a deliberate signal that the university’s holistic review can accommodate students whose strongest evidence of academic readiness sits outside SAT or ACT scores. Vice President for Undergraduate Enrollment Micki Kidder has publicly argued that the policy supports access for students from under-resourced high schools and that Notre Dame admits have thrived under it.

The score profile for students who do submit has climbed steadily. The 25th-percentile SAT Math score among enrolled students rose from 710 in Fall 2021 to 730 in Fall 2025, with the median (where Notre Dame began reporting it in Fall 2023) at 760. The 75th-percentile Math score reached 790 in Fall 2022 and has hovered between 780 and 790 since. Evidence-Based Reading and Writing shifted similarly. ACT composites have compressed at the top, with the 25th percentile now at 33 and the 75th at 35. For applicants who choose to submit, the working assumption should be that the floor of competitive scores is roughly the 25th percentile reported in the CDS, and the median (above 1500 SAT or 34 ACT) is the more realistic expectation.

Sources: Notre Dame Common Data Sets, Sections C9 and C10, and IPEDS institutional panel data. “n/r” = not available; 2025–26 IPEDS testing figures will not be reported until later in 2026. SAT submission and ACT submission percentages are reported as the share of all enrolled first-time students; the categories overlap (students who submitted both tests appear in both rows). SAT Composite values for 2021–22 through 2023–24 are derived from the sum of section midpoints where the composite itself was not published.

The submission picture has shifted considerably under the test-optional policy. In Fall 2021, roughly 69 percent of enrolled first-year students submitted at least one test (33 percent SAT, 36 percent ACT). By Fall 2024, that figure had drifted down to roughly 59 percent (33 percent SAT, 26 percent ACT). The ACT share has dropped more sharply than the SAT share, reflecting the broader national shift toward the SAT among score submitters. Notre Dame’s admissions office has publicly stated that roughly 60 percent of admitted Class of 2029 students submitted scores, consistent with the trajectory. Current juniors can apply a simple rule. If your projected score will land at or above the published 25th percentile in your stronger section, submit it. If it will not, the rest of the application has to do the work, and transcript rigor becomes the central data point.

What the C7 says about how Notre Dame reads files

Section C7 of the Common Data Set asks every institution to classify the relative importance of academic and non-academic factors in admission. Notre Dame’s C7 has stayed largely consistent across the five years, with one meaningful shift. In Fall 2021, standardized test scores were marked Very Important. By the 2023–24 reporting cycle, with the test-optional policy firmly in place, test scores had been moved to Important or Considered (depending on the year’s reporting), reflecting how scores function when only a subset of applicants submits them. Rigor of secondary school record, class rank, academic GPA, application essay, recommendations, talent/ability, character/personal qualities, and extracurricular activities have all consistently received Very Important designation.

Three features of the C7 are useful for applicants to understand. First, religious affiliation and commitment is listed as Important, an uncommon designation in selective higher education. This does not mean Notre Dame restricts admission to Catholic students (roughly 82 percent of the undergraduate body identifies as Catholic, but applicants of all faiths and no faith are reviewed without restriction). It means the admissions office reads the writing supplement and other application evidence for fit with the university’s Catholic intellectual and community life, and applicants who write thoughtfully about that fit benefit. Second, volunteer work is listed as Very Important, more weight than nearly any selective peer assigns to service activities. Third, level of applicant’s interest is listed as Not Considered, meaning Notre Dame does not formally track demonstrated interest in admissions decisions, though student interactions may still register informally in the file. Lower-cost expressions of interest such as registering for virtual tours, attending high school visits by Notre Dame reps, and requesting information through the admissions website signal seriousness regardless of the official policy.

Pathways to Notre Dame and the aid expansion

In September 2024, in his presidential inauguration address, Rev. Robert A. Dowd announced Pathways to Notre Dame, the most consequential undergraduate financial aid expansion in the university’s modern era. The initiative made Notre Dame the first highly selective faith-based university in the United States to be need-blind for all students, both domestic and international, and eliminated loans from need-based aid packages for full-time first-year and transfer students entering in Fall 2025. In March 2026, the university announced a further Pathways expansion that, beginning in 2026–27, will cover full tuition, fees, housing, and food for most students from families with annual incomes below $60,000; cover full tuition for families with incomes below $150,000; and cover half-tuition for families with incomes below $200,000. These commitments stack on top of the pre-existing pledge to meet 100 percent of demonstrated need for all admitted students.

The CDS data through 2025–26 reflects the early effects of Pathways. The average need-based grant for full-time first-year students climbed from $50,489 in 2021–22 to $60,952 in 2025–26, a 21 percent increase. Average need-based self-help dropped from $4,999 to $2,023, with the average need-based loan falling from $3,590 to just $346. The cohort percentage borrowing has also dropped sharply, from 41.5 percent of graduates in the 2021 class to 32 percent of the 2025 class, with average borrowing per graduate now under $28,000.

Source: Notre Dame Common Data Sets, Sections H2 and H5. “FTFY” = full-time, first-year. “n/r” = the 2022–23 CDS did not publish line-item averages for this section. Average need-based loan for 2025–26 reflects the no-loan Pathways policy taking effect for the Fall 2025 entering class.

The international aid story is equally striking. Notre Dame’s international student grant spending rose from $14.4 million in 2021–22 (246 recipients, $58,687 average) to $24.9 million in 2025–26 (363 recipients, $68,653 average). That 73 percent dollar increase is driven by both the need-blind expansion to international applicants and the absorption of need that previously included loans, now replaced with grant aid. Notre Dame joined the small group of universities (Princeton, Harvard, Yale, MIT, Amherst, and a handful of others) that combine need-blind international review with no-loan aid packages.

The March 2026 Pathways expansion is likely to push application volume higher again for Fall 2026 and beyond. The free-tuition threshold at $150,000 in family income substantially expands the population of families who can affordably consider Notre Dame, and the published income brackets give those families a clarity that meet-full-need promises alone often fail to provide. Families above $150,000 should not assume they are priced out. Notre Dame meets full demonstrated need, and need-based aid is awarded above the $150,000 threshold based on assets, number of dependents in college, and other family-specific factors. The published thresholds are guarantees, not ceilings.

Cost of attendance and the sticker-versus-net gap

Notre Dame’s published tuition has climbed from $59,794 in 2021–22 to $69,280 in 2025–26, an annual increase averaging 3.7 percent. Combined with fees, food, and housing, total published cost of attendance for the academic year now sits at roughly $89,000. For families whose income exceeds the Pathways thresholds and who have substantial assets, that figure represents the actual cost. For families below the thresholds, sticker price is essentially irrelevant once the financial aid award is in hand.

Source: Notre Dame Common Data Sets, Section G1. Totals exclude books, transportation, and personal expenses estimated at roughly $2,500–3,000 per academic year.

The practical implication for families is that sticker price and net price diverge sharply at Notre Dame, and the divergence grows wider after the 2026–27 Pathways expansion takes effect. A family with $120,000 in income and modest assets will pay essentially nothing for tuition starting that year. A family with $250,000 in income may pay closer to full freight unless circumstances (multiple children in college, high-cost-of-living region, recent income disruption) generate meaningful demonstrated need. The Notre Dame Net Price Calculator is the right starting point for any family trying to estimate where they fall.

The student body and what it tells us about institutional priorities

Notre Dame’s total undergraduate enrollment has held essentially flat at roughly 8,800 students across the five-year window. First-year retention has been remarkably consistent at 97 to 99 percent. Six-year graduation rates run between 96 and 97 percent. These figures place Notre Dame among the strongest persistence-and-completion universities in the country, comparable to Princeton, Yale, MIT, and Stanford, and reflect both the academic preparation of admitted students and the residential support infrastructure built around the hall system. The student-to-faculty ratio has compressed slightly, from 8.9-to-1 in Fall 2021 to roughly 8.3-to-1 in Fall 2025.

Demographic and academic patterns inside the class have stayed largely consistent. International first-year enrollment climbed from 147 in Fall 2021 to 158 in Fall 2025 (the expansion of need-blind international review under Pathways will accelerate this). Hispanic/Latino representation has held in the 12 to 14 percent range. Notre Dame remains one of the few universities of its caliber where Catholic identity continues to function as a meaningful selection signal, with roughly 80 to 82 percent of enrolled undergraduates identify as Catholic. By academic discipline, business remains the largest major area at 20 to 21 percent of degrees conferred, followed by social sciences (16 to 18 percent), engineering (about 12 percent), and biological sciences (7 to 9 percent). Theology and religious vocations, area and ethnic studies, and foreign languages all remain meaningful presences in the degree mix in a way that distinguishes Notre Dame from many peer research universities.

Closing observations

Four points stand out for families currently weighing Notre Dame.

First, the admit rate has dropped to single digits, but for most applicants the useful question is whether the application clears the new selectivity floor, not whether the school has gotten harder in the abstract. The Class of 2029 RD admit rate was 6.7 percent. At that level, the floor sits at top-tenth class rank, transcript rigor that includes the most demanding courses available at the applicant’s school, and writing supplements that demonstrate genuine engagement with Notre Dame’s residential and Catholic intellectual life. Test scores, if submitted, should sit at or near the published median. For applicants whose profile clearly lands in this range, REA carries meaningful strategic weight.

Second, the test-optional policy functions as a real choice. Roughly 40 percent of recent admits did not submit scores, and the admissions office has publicly reaffirmed the policy through 2026–27. Applicants whose strongest evidence of academic readiness sits in transcript and AP/IB exam scores should not feel pressure to submit weaker SAT or ACT results to demonstrate quantitative ability. That said, applicants whose scores are at or above the published medians should submit them. The decision comes down to whether the test result strengthens or complicates the case the rest of the application is making.

Third, Pathways to Notre Dame changes the financial calculus for middle-income families, and the March 2026 expansion will accelerate that change. Families with incomes below $200,000 should run the Notre Dame Net Price Calculator before deciding whether Notre Dame is affordable. Many will discover that net cost is competitive with, and often substantially below, in-state public flagships for their state. International families should similarly recalibrate.

Fourth, at Notre Dame, fit is a real selection signal rather than marketing language. The Catholic mission, residential hall system, athletic culture, and emphasis on character and service in admissions decisions all function as real factors in the file. Applicants who write convincingly about why Notre Dame specifically (rather than “a highly ranked research university with strong outcomes”) are read more favorably than applicants whose materials would map equally well onto any selective university. Notre Dame is best paired with other schools where mission, community, and undergraduate culture are central to the student’s reasons for applying. The yield numbers reflect that pattern. Students who choose Notre Dame tend to choose it for reasons that map directly onto what the university says it is, and the admissions process is calibrated to find them.