Notre Dame: Your non-negotiable

150 words

Everyone has different priorities when considering their higher education options and building their college or university list. Tell us about your 'non-negotiable' factor(s) when searching for your future college home.

What it’s really asking

What you genuinely cannot do without in a college, and why. It is really a values question in disguise: your non-negotiables reveal what matters most to you, and whether it fits Notre Dame.

Why they ask it

Notre Dame wants students who will love the place for what it actually is. Your non-negotiables tell them whether your needs and theirs line up, without you having to flatter them.

Three ways in

One real priority

Pick a single, specific non-negotiable and explain why it matters to you, rather than listing five generic ones.

Let it point to ND

Choose a priority that genuinely aligns with Notre Dame (community, service, a place people stay) so fit shows without a sales pitch.

Explain the why

The reason behind your non-negotiable is more revealing than the non-negotiable itself.

✕ Weak opening

“My non-negotiable factors when looking for a college are strong academics, a beautiful campus, and lots of school spirit and opportunities.”

✓ Strong opening

“My one non-negotiable is a place where people do not leave on the weekends, because I have spent four years at a school that empties out every Friday at three.”

✦ Annotated example · The dinner table test. Written by EssayLens to teach, not a real applicant’s essay. Tap a highlighted line →

My non-negotiable is a campus where the conversation does not end when the class does. ¹I grew up at a loud kitchen table where my grandmother argued theology, my father argued economics, and somehow we all stayed for dessert. I learned that disagreement is not the opposite of belonging; it is often the proof of it. ²So when I picture my future college home, I am not looking for a place that simply tolerates hard questions about meaning, purpose, and what we owe each other. I want a place that treats them as central, that schedules them into dorm halls and dining tables, not just lecture slides. ³I need professors who will follow me to office hours and classmates who will keep arguing on the walk back. ⁴Everything else on my list, weather, ranking, distance from home, I am willing to negotiate. This, the table that does not empty out, I am not.

1Opens with a single, clear non-negotiable rather than a list. Naming one priority and committing to it reads as more honest than hedging across five wants.
2This line shows comfort with big questions and care for community at once, the two things Notre Dame explicitly rewards. It earns the abstraction with a concrete scene first.
3Translates the personal value into a specific institutional expectation, which signals genuine fit instead of generic praise.
4Concrete, almost physical images (office hours, the walk back) keep an abstract value grounded and believable.

Stuck? Start here

What is the one thing you genuinely cannot compromise on in a college?
Why does it matter so much to you?
Does that priority line up with what Notre Dame actually is?

Before you submit

Is it one specific priority, not a generic list?
Did you explain why it matters to you?
Does the fit with Notre Dame show without a sales pitch?

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