This is not a vent board or any other kind of therapy. Before you hit the POST button, ask yourself if your contribution will add to the level of discussion going on.

Important notes on articles:

• Please do not copy entire articles into your post; rather, provide links to them.. We are now links-only for ALL Internet publications. If only a small portion of the article pertains to your post, Fair Use allows you to copy those one or two paragraphs, provided you cite the author's name and the publication for which he writes. Otherwise, put a link in the HTTP Link box.
• Even if you're copying a reference to an article, provide a link to the page from which the article came. We're trying to cut down on duplicate topics, and the posting process will check the link to your article to see if it's already being discussed on this board. At the very least, you'll save yourself some grief on the boards.
• If your first reaction after reading the article you're going to share is the author is uninformed / stupid / a jerk / all of the above, it's not worth sharing with anyone. Not every article needs to be discussed. The more the hair-pulling articles are discussed (e.g. ESPN Page 2), the more the authors will write hair-pulling articles.

Post being replied to

USC is ranked right there with ND and arguably is harder to by Btd

Get into than ND for some of their programs. Also, I was absolutely stunned when taking my 3 kids on college tours. There is one and only one other college that is run almost exactly like ND… USC. The freshman year of studies concepts, dorm life, etc. the campus is also fairly compact and self contained v spread randomly around the city like many of its peer city based colleges. In 2017 they had guaranteed dorms through junior year and were actively building more dorms to increase that to a senior guarantee too.

Along similar lines for state schools - I couldn’t believe where florida is ranked now. My daughter is a rising sophomore there. It was her fallback to ND. They are top 5 public schools now - but are ranked 26th overall for 2021. ND was 19th for example.

ND remains unique with single sex dorms and the dorms being a mix of all 4 classes v single class per dorm in large part. ND is still the better true full college experience because of campus life. But… ND no longer has a wide academic margin on a lot of state schools we used to look down on 20-30 years ago.