I went to Notre Dame and overall, I found it to be quite a good university. The teaching quality was high as was the course content - realistically, in this sense Notre Dame is no better or worse than one of the bigger universities. However, Notre Dame isn't for everyone. If you want the whole big university experience, then you are going to be very unhappy at Notre Dame. The uni is more geared towards people who like a small, collegiate type environment.
In terms of employment and job opportunities, it makes little difference what uni you go to outside of say maybe Law, IB or MBB. For graduate programs, companies mainly focus on your grades, whereas for other roles, the degree is just a checklist item. Ive secured roles with the state government, an MNC and a top tier law firm. Ive also received an offer from Westpac and have interviewed with AMP, Allen Linklater, PwC, UBS, Cathay Pacific, Woolworths, QBE, UPS, Brookfield, Rickett-Benckheiser and Challenger Finance. If prestige was a factor I doubt whether I would have been able to even secure interviews with these companies.
That being said, one drawback of Notre Dame is the lack of industry connections. All the major companies tend to focus their efforts on the larger unis, namely because that is where the bulk of the talent pool is located (as opposed to the "prestige" of the institution). So networking opportunities are far lower at Notre Dame. This is kind of made up for by the fact that Internships are mandatory across ALL degrees, which gives you a chance at securing a role or at least networking within industry.
All this kind of brings me to another drawback of Notre Dame which is the calibre of students. Unfortunately, given the lower entry requirements, the students at Notre Dame aren't the best and brightest. There are some strong students, but most really arent of a high calibre and this can be annoying in group assignments if you are a high achiever and have high expectations. In terms of standards, this does have a marginal effect, but Notre Dame grades on a bell curve, with Ds and HDs capped across most courses.
Well it just seems like it's at the bottom when it comes to unis. I'm sure it's still good though. But you have to consider that it's a private uni (so check what that means for fees), very small, and catholic (so you probably have compulsory theology courses or whatever).
The fees are higher, but not by a large margin. In relation to religion, there is a compulsory Theology unit, which consists of about 5 classes across a semester and a 1500 word essay. Beyond that the extent of religion at ND is maybe an email or two a month about optional religious gatherings and an optional mass prior to graduation. If you take those things out, you wouldnt even be able to tell that it's Catholic - it isnt like a Catholic school.
Most uni rankings I have seen it has been last out of all the main unis.
University rankings are quite misleading, because they are based on research, not teaching/course standards which is really at the core of the student experience. I currently work for a small, private university specialising in hotel/tourism management - they have zero research so they would probably be dead last in those rankings. However, in terms of teaching standards they are at the top of their game and industry really looks to them first beyond the Go8s for graduates in this area.
