Negatives of Notre Dame High School

Hi all, I am a current NDSJ student and would like to share my negative experience at the school for any middle schoolers/transfers considering NDSJ after acceptance letters came out today.

I want to start by saying I was so excited to go to ND- because if you know anything about their marketing, they have a very strong image of "The Center for Women's Leadership." I went to a very conservative K-8 school before that, which didn't align with my values, so this idea seemed very refreshing to me. Although I will share negative things about the school, the openness is the thing I have enjoyed most about going to ND.

One of the major issues at ND is the fact that students create petty drama for absolutely no reason at all and want to see each other break. Because the school is so small, as soon as someone ends a friendship/relationship, everyone in their class will be affected. These conflicts spread into the extracurriculars too, so if a person makes a mistake at school, they become ignored by all of their classmates and are basically friendless for the rest of high school. This is not an issue with all girls' schools as a whole; it's just the mentality of many Notre Dame students. The small size of the school also makes it extremely difficult to break off friendships and set boundaries.

The extracurricular offerings are lackluster at best in my opinion. I have done an activity in every department (the arts, speech and debate, sports), and the experience I have received in each one is relatively similar. ND's arts program (dance/music) do not seem professional or well-put together. Many of the faculty lack the qualifications to teach the arts and understand their students' needs. Speech and debate are also underfunded and there are no professionals there to guide the student leaders leading the program (except for the speech division), such as teaching new things and strategies for competition. All of the money seems to go to sports, which are also hard to do at ND because of the facility issues. This lack of funding for extracurriculars is really upsetting, considering the school costs so much.

My teachers and counselors have also been overall lackluster. The counseling department does not understand academic rigor, especially for a college prep school. My counselor told us that ND doesn't have finals because "Some of our students have testing anxiety." Although we will have to do finals in college anyway. Also, students are allowed unlimited test retakes for an A grade. There are no minuses and pluses on the grading scale because apparently, they didn't want students to feel bad about themselves. For a school that wants to "Teach them what they need to know for life," the academic system is showing that students will be accommodated and sheltered forever from all challenges.

Last Thursday, the school faced a bomb threat, and the campus had to be evacuated. 4 days later, the school had to be in a 1.5-hour shelter-in-place because of a bomb threat. Although this can happen to any school, the downtown location of ND makes us more susceptible to nearby danger.

I have come to terms with the fact that the school I was once so excited to go to is a big marketing ploy, selling an idea of community and leadership that does not exist. Keep in mind that many ND students do not like the school either for the same points I reiterated.

Please share your thoughts in the thread.

-anon