How much harder is it to get into Notre Dame than Purdue for undergraduate admissions?

Notre Dame is meaningfully harder to get into than Purdue for undergraduate admissions.

One big difference is how selectivity is distributed. At Notre Dame, the overall admissions bar is consistently high no matter what you want to study, because the university is smaller and the applicant pool is strong across the board. Purdue is certainly selective, especially for popular areas like engineering, computer science, nursing, and flight, but its level of difficulty varies much more by major and college.

Another differentiator is what each school tends to expect academically. Notre Dame usually attracts applicants with top grades in the most rigorous courses available, plus strong testing if submitted and substantial involvement outside the classroom. Purdue also values strong academics, but for many programs outside its most competitive majors, the threshold is not as uniformly intense as Notre Dame’s.

The application review style matters too. Notre Dame puts a lot of weight on fit with its mission, service orientation, character, and community engagement in addition to academic strength. Purdue is holistic as well, but many students experience it as more numbers- and major-driven, especially in high-demand academic areas where preparation in math and science can matter a lot.

For building your list, the clearest way to think about it is that Notre Dame belongs in a more reach-level category for most applicants, while Purdue can range from realistic to very challenging depending on the major. A student applying to Purdue engineering or CS may still face a tough process, but Notre Dame remains the steeper admissions climb overall.