Two things were on Dan Saracino’s mind when he picked me up for lunch that day in May 2000. The first thing he talked about was the tough call he had made to deny admission to an undistinguished applicant — having accepted that applicant’s twin sister. The judgment was even more difficult, he said, because they were the children of an alumnus.
As Notre Dame’s director of admissions talked, it became apparent his concern was the boy and what would be best for him. The rejected applicant showed too little evidence of being capable of doing Notre Dame work, and his high school record didn’t indicate a convincing eagerness to do so. Still, the decision had obviously weighed heavily on Saracino ’69, the person then pointedly responsible for lifting Notre Dame’s student body to elite levels while going over the personal files of thousands of earnest and well-qualified aspirants.
The conversation over lunch also addressed a more public storyline. In a recent issue, Sports Illustrated, once the bible of the sporting world, questioned whether more ambitious academic standards and other factors had “taken the fight out of Notre Dame.”
Saracino, whose photo appeared with the lengthy feature, was set up as the culprit. “It’s not my goal to make the coaches happy,” he was quoted saying. “All our admissions decisions are made with the best interests of the student in mind.” Explaining that “the profile of our freshman class is much stronger than it was 10 years ago,” Saracino reportedly added that few of the 18 freshmen admitted to Notre Dame’s most recent recruiting class would have been accepted had they not been football players.
Saracino was a thoughtful straight shooter whose honesty was a virtue, though one not appreciated by all.
So reputedly tied to Notre Dame’s football fortunes was he that when he stepped down from his post in 2010, after 13 years as assistant provost for enrollment, an NBC story opined: “In many ways, Saracino had one of the most challenging jobs in academia, balancing the rigors of a university intent on becoming elite and a traditional football power struggling to return to the same standing, two goals many believe to be diametrically opposed.”
NBC was onto something. Most people who spend time around the University say — joking only a little — that being head of admissions is the toughest job on campus. So many decisions, pressures, bosses, expectations. Dan Saracino did it exceedingly well, with wisdom and knowledge, integrity and care, and a real passion for his alma mater. Even those who called with gripes came away having been attentively listened to and given a judicious rationale for decisions made.
Saracino, a Sicilian who enjoyed food, once likened his task as fitting more and more pieces into a pie whose size did not change. Foremost, of course, was elevating the student profile commensurate with bold institutional aspirations. While greatly expanding minority enrollment. And maintaining the long-valued legacy ingredient that alumni hold dear. And keeping the student body vibrantly Catholic. And bringing in national-championship-caliber athletes across a multitude of sports. And more artists, musicians and creative types, please, to diversify the classroom and spice the campus scene. With attention to other special interest groups — the children of major benefactors, say, and of faculty and staff.
Somehow, despite the challenges and complaints and skyrocketing costs, each class was better than the one before. Under Saracino’s direction from 1997 to 2010, the average SAT score went from 1325 to 1410, and the diversity of enrollment climbed from 14 percent to 23 percent. Notre Dame, as a serious player in American higher education, got a lot better.
As a student, the government and international relations major was a fiercely determined cross-country runner who continued to rapidly lap the lakes after his graduation in 1969, when he served as an assistant director of admissions for six years before two years as associate director. He then spent the next 20 years at Santa Clara University as director of admissions, dean of undergraduate admissions and dean of enrollment management.
For much of his career, Saracino was the most visible national authority on college admissions. He was often called upon as a spokesperson with leading newspapers and magazines and appeared on the Today show. “He was Mister Admissions,” says one former colleague. When in the late 1990s Notre Dame sought the best admissions director in the country to recruit and enroll the nation’s brightest minds, the search landed on him.
In addition to orchestrating the efforts of a team of admissions counselors intent on achieving that aim, Saracino served in leadership roles with the College Board, the National Merit Scholarship committee and the National Association for College Admission Counseling. He also traveled the globe for the U.S. State Department and the Department of Defense, offering his guidance and expertise to families in foreign service, the military and at various international schools. The stories he brought back from overseas, whether it was Morocco, his ancestral village or a dicey hotspot, made lunches with him entertaining and enlightening.
But the trait Saracino demonstrated more than any other was simply his goodness, readily exhibited in his interest in the person seated across the table from him and in the principles he valued. It was in his attentive manner with the young people whose lives he affected, in his love for family, especially the selfless care he gave his wife, Marcia, and his devotion to his parents, who moved to South Bend in their final years.
Saracino became a very fine watercolor artist and his life could well be conveyed in the paintings he gave to students and friends, colleagues and guidance counselors, prized all the more now in his absence. He died April 7, three days after his 77th birthday.
Kerry Temple is the former editor of this magazine.