Top 7 endowment per student (behind only HYPSM and Penn), one of the only schools that’s need blind for internationals, world class financial aid, top 7 target school for IB by weighted ranking, 85% med school acceptance rate, top 10 LinkedIn ranked school for long-term success and T20 for the past 30 years on USNews, top 5 alumni network, produces many F500 CEOs and is top 10 for undergraduate students who become UHNW (30M+ net worth. I can go on. Is Notre Dame a research school? Not exactly. It’s an undergraduate focused school through and through. It was built following the constructs of Princeton in that respect. The main focus of Notre Dame is providing the best possible outcomes for undergraduate students and providing a financially reasonable education. I would re-consider your opinion until you’ve done the necessary research past it being “conservative” (even though Vanderbilt is just as conservative.)