University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame publishes 9.4% (Fall 2025). Out-of-state (US) applicants got in at 11%; international at 4.3%.
Acceptance rate
What Notre Dame's 9.4% is made of
The published rate averages groups with very different odds. These are the splits Notre Dame reports itself.
Part of Real Acceptance Rates, our series decomposing published rates from each school's own Common Data Set.
Testing
Test-Optional for 2026-27
- Policy
Notre Dame is reported as test-optional through at least the 2026-27 cycle per a third-party testing-policy tracker; the exact current policy wording could not be re-confirmed on a live admissions.nd.edu testing page in this session (attempted URLs 404'd), so this should be spot-checked before publishing.
- SAT middle 50%
- 1455–1560sum of section 25th–75th percentiles
- ACT middle 50%
- 33–35
- Average HS GPA
- Not published by the school
Applying
Deadlines, essays and AI policy
- Early deadlines
- Nov 1, 2026 (REA)
- Regular decision
- Jan 4, 2027Source
- Supplemental essays
- 3 required
One required short essay (max 150 words) on college priorities, plus 2 of 4 short-answer prompts chosen by the applicant (50-100 words each) — 3 total required written responses, per admissions.nd.edu's Application Overview page.
- AI use in essays
Limited Use Allowed — applies to Essays, short answer questions, the activities section, and all other submitted application materials
“University of Notre Dame's Office of Undergraduate Admissions has adopted the Common Application's Fraud Policy, which prohibits 'Submitting plagiarized essays or other written or oral material, or intentionally misrepresenting as one's own original work: (1) another person's thoughts, language, ideas, expressions, or experiences or (2) the substantive content or output of an artificial intelligence platform, technology, or algorithm.' ... applicants may use AI tools for 'spelling and grammar review, or brainstorming support before writing.' However, 'the content of all essays, short answer questions, activities, and any other material submitted must be an applicant's own work.' ... using 'content generated, drafted, or substantially written by artificial intelligence tools or other text-generating software may result in the revocation of your offer of admission or potential expulsion.'”
Full cycle calendar: Application Deadlines.
At a glance
Size and cost
- Undergraduate enrollment
- 8,818
- Tuition (out-of-state)
- $65,025
- Category
- Elite Private
- Admissions site
- www.nd.edu
What should this school mean for your list?
A published rate is one input. Working out what it means alongside the rest of your list is the part that actually changes an application. Free 25-minute call, no commitment.
Sources
- Notre Dame test policy (2026-27)
- Notre Dame deadlines
- Notre Dame AI-use policy
- Notre Dame admissions pages
- Notre Dame admissions pages
- Acceptance rate, test-score percentiles, enrollment and tuition: U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard, pulled 2026-08-19.
Test policy and deadlines last verified 2026-08-17.
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