The beautiful

Introduction
Amazing academics, gorgeous campus and great athletics. Don't come here unless you are willing to work your butt off. A Notre Dame degree carries almost as much prestige as an Ivy league one... but to get it you're gonna have to put with with a lot- northern Indiana cold, not-very-attractive girls and not much of a college town. The Catholic identity of the school is a nice advantage, cuz even if you aren't catholic, there is always a semi-religious support system with people looking out for you and making sure you're doing good.

Campus Life and Social Life
No Greek life, but the dorms work like frats and the campus party scene is adequate if you know where to look. Sports, Clubs, etc are amazing and pretty competitive. Intermural (inter-dorm) sports are REALLY competitive and there's always a chance that you could 'pull a Rudy' and walk on to the football team from your dorm team. Even intra-dorm sports are big, with every section in a dorm fielding its own football team. Did I mention that football is kinda big here? Bookstore Basketball (world's largest tournament), Bengal Bouts boxing... if you fancy yourself as an athlete or a well rounded student, Notre Dame is the place for you. Advertisement
Academics
Great professors and a medium size student body add up to a good academic experience. Work loads are pretty big, especially if you are in an engineering or pre-med/pre-law program. All the departments are equally good, and Notre Dame generally ranks among the top 10-15 in undergraduate academic experience.

Student Body
The typical student is an Irish/Polish/German white Catholic High School Valedictorian with a great academic track record and a few high school letters. There is a decent amount of diversity here with a lot of international and hispanic students... but sadly not too many African-American students.

The student body is truly national, coming from all 50 states and about 100 countries from across the globe. Students like to study, party and play sports. There are a lot of religious prayer groups too, so if you consider yourself religious, you're not alone.

In Closing...
This is an amazing school in a not-so-great town with challenging top quality academics, great athletics, a friendly student body and an average party scene. We call it the 'Notre Dame bubble', because there are a lot of rules here and everything is 'perfect' and pretty far removed from the real world... which is nice when you're in school, but I'm sure moving back to the real world is a bit of a shock. Football season is life. Study abroad programs are huge. The student body and student government has no real administrative powers, but the admin isn't too stiff and they allow certain types of alcohol in the dorm rooms, even for underage kids.