According to ND's new director of admissions, Daniel J. Saracino, a 1969 Notre Dame graduate, throwing around words like solipsistic (meaning egotistically self-absorbed) or chapfallen (dejected) won't convince an admissions officer you're an expert linguist (though it might raise suspicions that that someone else wrote your essay).
Here's some other advice on how to gain admission to Notre Dame or another college of your choice courtesy of Saracino, who was the top admissions professional at Santa Clara University for 20 years before returning to his alma mater in 1997:
— Be yourself, both in personal interviews and in writing. "When you're down to the final draft of the (admissions) essay, give it to your best friend and ask him or her, ‘Is this me?' If the person says, ‘It's you, you come out in that,' then go with that."
— Don't join every extracurricular activity you can in high school thinking the volume will look good on your admissions application. Admissions officers aren't likely to believe you devoted much time or effort to a load of time-consuming activities. "We're not looking for a superficial joiner, but the person who has really shown depth in two or three activities."
Saracino says Notre Dame is in the enviable position of having many more qualified applicants than it can accept, which means one shouldn't take a rejected application as a sign that you couldn't cut it here.
"Three-fourths of applicants, easily, can do the work. The majority of people getting denied are getting denied simply because we don't have the room for them, so we're trying to create the most exciting, interesting class that we can."