“Great program.”

“What if I decide to switch majors?”

“I am not sure if I want to go into environmental science or into chemistry.”

“What opportunities are there to get some research experience?”

The questions and comments began as soon as over 90 prospective Notre Dame freshmen and their parents arrived Thursday for the College of Science’s Open House for high school seniors accepted by Notre Dame under the Early Action admission process.

For the first time, the Open House was held at the new Jordan Hall of Science, the nation’s most modern science teaching facility for undergraduates. The first students arrived at Jordan Hall and walked through the Galleria gazing in wonderment at the magnificent structure.

“Wow. This place is beautiful,” one parent was overheard to say.

The program began at 7 p.m. with opening remarks by Dean Joseph Marino who gave a broad overview of the Notre Dame College of Science to the visitors who filled one of the two main lecture halls. Afterwards the guests were treated to a star and planetary show inside the Digital Visualization Theater, one of the most advanced domed theater of its kind in the world. Afterwards they had opportunities to see the collections in the Museum of Biodiversity or watched demonstrations of holograms in the Physics laser laboratory.

One-on-one discussions with department chairs and professors gave them a chance to hear about the science curriculum at Notre Dame.

“Many of the students were interested in being able to do undergraduate research here, “ said Physics Prof. Mitchell Wayne, and Departmental Chairman. “They were also impressed by the faculty-student ratio and they expressed surprise about the quality of science education taught here at Notre Dame.”

Questions about undergraduate research in the Department of Biological Science dominated much of the discussion around the table devoted to Biology, said Charles Kulpa, Department Chair. The point was driven home on Friday morning when the prospective students met with Notre Dame undergraduates in the classrooms and heard first-hand from these students about their own research endeavors.

“That really seemed to captivate them,” Kulpa said. “Each year our undergraduate research grows more and more and that drew a lot of interest from these top students.”

The parents asked a lot of probing questions about how Notre Dame prepares students to meet their career goals. “That was a big area of interest,” Kulpa said. “They were impressed with how the College of Science gets students ready for their careers.”

In addition to the traditional questions about what science courses they will be taking at Notre Dame, many students and their parents wanted to know about going overseas for part of their studies and what international programs would be available to them at Notre Dame, Kulpa noted.

“Many, I thought, came away highly pleased,” he said.

“The students and their parents were very enthusiastic about our program and what we had to offer,” agreed Graham Lappin, chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. After a brief welcome by Lappin and Marya Lieberman, director of undergraduate studies, the students went on tours of the research laboratories of Professors Kenneth Henderson, Richard Taylor, Alex Kandel, and Jeffrey Peng. Afterward, they sat in on a first year chemistry class taught by Prof. Olaf Wiest.

Mathematics Department Chair William Dwyer commented that he sensed that people – many of whom were first-time visitors to Notre Dame – enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere inside Jordan Hall. “We had many good, interesting discussions (Thursday night). I thought people felt comfortable talking to us. I am sure we gave students and their parents an accurate impression of what being a math major would be like. All in all, it seemed like this was a very pleasant, useful, productive and effective way to communicate with people,” Dwyer added.

Preprofessional Program Department Chair Rev. James Foster C.S.C. was very happy with the big turnout both Thursday and Friday. “In our first Preprofessional Program session we had 40 attend the meeting and 20 at least in our second meeting,” he said.

Fr. Foster said he received a lot of positive feedback how Notre Dame prepares Preprofessional students for medical school, we well as opportunities to have multiple majors. “Many took interest in the way we will help them with the application process to medical school in their junior and senior year. That impressed them.”

“People were happy with the experience and how Notre Dame went out of its way to welcome them and make them feel at home,” Fr. Foster said.

But perhaps the biggest attraction for many of these students was the Jordan Hall of Science. The very existence of this $70 million structure went a long way to convince them that Notre Dame had made a huge commitment to excellence in science education.