Middlebury vs Tufts?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:According to the college newspaper at Middlebury, over 90% graduate with Latin honors and 56% graduate summa cum laude. This suggests that the school has widespread grade inflation and is less than rigorous.

Middlebury College has a housing shortages and some financial woe

Middlebury College is ranked at #19 among LACs by US News.

Actually it says no such thing. What is does say is that the base was set too low. Harvard hit 91%.

Middlebury has no financial woes, they have a $1.6 billion endowment but a small nagging deficit because of Monterey.

They do. It have any housing issues at all.

Rankings have dropped because of social justice metrics.

Just stop, you sound like a broken record and it is annoying having to bat you around.

Social Justice metrics that didn’t effect itd peers because…

[Anonymous]

I dont have a dog in this fight, other than the fact that I toured both.

Tufts feels like a back up. I want to be in Boston, but I can't get into XYZ and I'm jewish and dont want BC. It's a medium sized school in a mediocre location in a great college city. I dont know anyone who dreams of going to Tufts, but it starts to make sense Junior year. Also, a ton of athletic recruits.

Midd is gorgeous with great campus - brand new freshman dorm opening this fall - and has the SLAC outdoorsy thing. (Best looking kids we saw on any tour, like out of an REI/J Crew casting call). Two real things going for it: language departments and (actual) pipeline to the street. Plus skiing. Also, a ton of athetlic recruits.

I do think the smart and really moral thing all these colleges should do it enroll more kids. Both Midd and Yale overenrolled a year during covid and decided, we can make this work. These schools with money or lots of land or both don't need to be the same size as they were 150 years ago. Every college should expand if they can. They are there to educate, not keep kids out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:According to the college newspaper at Middlebury, over 90% graduate with Latin honors and 56% graduate summa cum laude. This suggests that the school has widespread grade inflation and is less than rigorous.

Middlebury College has a housing shortages and some financial woe

Middlebury College is ranked at #19 among LACs by US News.

Actually it says no such thing. What is does say is that the base was set too low. Harvard hit 91%.

Middlebury has no financial woes, they have a $1.6 billion endowment but a small nagging deficit because of Monterey.

They do. It have any housing issues at all.

Rankings have dropped because of social justice metrics.

Just stop, you sound like a broken record and it is annoying having to bat you around.

Social Justice metrics that didn’t effect itd peers because…

Middlebury’s drop is due in part to a change in US News methodology from last year. They used to base financial resources on fall enrollment. Now they base it on year-round enrollment. So now Midd has to include Febs, hundreds of summer language school students, and folks who participate in the Bread Loaf School in the summer. Most peers don’t have these summer programs, so their financial resources weren’t impacted.

[Anonymous]

Both backups for kids that didn’t get into top choices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Both backups for kids that didn’t get into top choices.

Wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Both backups for kids that didn’t get into top choices.

SLACs attract a lot of genuinely interested students in the ED round, Williams and Middlebury in particular.

ED acceptance rates are high (27% Williams, 35% Middlebury). RD acceptance rates are sub-10%, making it a very touch admit in the RD round.

No, it's not a backup option.

[Anonymous]

I’m so sick of the Bitter Bettys on this forum who want to trash every college with the exception of ivy leagues and state universities (and those often get trashed, too). Plenty of kids want Middlebury and Tufts as first choice options, and both are competitive to gain admittance. It’s ridiculous to call them back ups. Op’s question was about comparing the schools, not to tell her why her kid shouldn’t consider either 🙄.

[Anonymous]

I honestly don't see a kid liking both. They are just so different. Does your kid want a small college in a remote beautiful area with access to great outdoors activities? Or do they want a mid size univ in an urban area?

[Anonymous]

one is urban adjacent, jewish adjacent, medium sized.

one is ski adjacent, WASP adjacent, small sized.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I dont have a dog in this fight, other than the fact that I toured both.

Tufts feels like a back up. I want to be in Boston, but I can't get into XYZ and I'm jewish and dont want BC. It's a medium sized school in a mediocre location in a great college city. I dont know anyone who dreams of going to Tufts, but it starts to make sense Junior year. Also, a ton of athletic recruits.

Midd is gorgeous with great campus - brand new freshman dorm opening this fall - and has the SLAC outdoorsy thing. (Best looking kids we saw on any tour, like out of an REI/J Crew casting call). Two real things going for it: language departments and (actual) pipeline to the street. Plus skiing. Also, a ton of athetlic recruits.

I do think the smart and really moral thing all these colleges should do it enroll more kids. Both Midd and Yale overenrolled a year during covid and decided, we can make this work. These schools with money or lots of land or both don't need to be the same size as they were 150 years ago. Every college should expand if they can. They are there to educate, not keep kids out.

Is that why Middlebury had to literally pay kids not to attend a year or so ago? It is perverse to call that "mak[ing] this work" -- unless you mean financially because of Middlebury's chronic deficits, their Monterey bleeding, the permanent decline in their summer and international language school enrollment...and everything else. Nice spin, but the situation, as you well know, is nothing like Yale: Middlebury is becoming easier to get into -- especially with an ED app -- not harder.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I dont have a dog in this fight, other than the fact that I toured both.

Tufts feels like a back up. I want to be in Boston, but I can't get into XYZ and I'm jewish and dont want BC. It's a medium sized school in a mediocre location in a great college city. I dont know anyone who dreams of going to Tufts, but it starts to make sense Junior year. Also, a ton of athletic recruits.

Midd is gorgeous with great campus - brand new freshman dorm opening this fall - and has the SLAC outdoorsy thing. (Best looking kids we saw on any tour, like out of an REI/J Crew casting call). Two real things going for it: language departments and (actual) pipeline to the street. Plus skiing. Also, a ton of athetlic recruits.

I do think the smart and really moral thing all these colleges should do it enroll more kids. Both Midd and Yale overenrolled a year during covid and decided, we can make this work. These schools with money or lots of land or both don't need to be the same size as they were 150 years ago. Every college should expand if they can. They are there to educate, not keep kids out.

Is that why Middlebury had to literally pay kids not to attend a year or so ago? It is perverse to call that "mak[ing] this work" -- unless you mean financially because of Middlebury's chronic deficits, their Monterey bleeding, the permanent decline in their summer and international language school enrollment...and everything else. Nice spin, but the situation, as you well know, is nothing like Yale: Middlebury is becoming easier to get into -- especially with an ED app -- not harder.

you mean during covid? yep, middlebury like other schools had one year (2023?) when kids who had been accepted and deferred during covid were butting up against the newly enrolled class and they had a crunch and offered 30 kids 10k to defer themselves. Purdue in this same situation, triple bunked kids and housed kids in a basement. San Jose State bought a luxury hotel (probably at a lot more than 30 kids times 10k), UC Merced paid kids to defer. Yale triple bunked in doubles. 2023 was a tough year for housing issues at a lot of colleges.

FWIW, yale was easier to get into last year too. I think yale is plenty hard -- actually very little difference than prior years - but you seem stuck on misleading details.

[Anonymous]

Tufts has dropped precipitously in the rankings. Middlebury too. Why not go to a college like VT or Rutgers that are the colleges of the future and on the rise?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tufts has dropped precipitously in the rankings. Middlebury too. Why not go to a college like VT or Rutgers that are the colleges of the future and on the rise?

That's a clown comment, bro.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tufts has dropped precipitously in the rankings. Middlebury too. Why not go to a college like VT or Rutgers that are the colleges of the future and on the rise?

^Out to lunch on how the US News rankings work

[Anonymous]

Never met a top student who listed either as their top choice. Middlebury is approximately named because it is in a middle of the NESCAC In terms of prestige way behind Amherst, Williams and Bowdoin. It’s the Colby of Vermont with a waspy. ll Bean vibe. Tufts has seen better days ranking has slipped and an easier version of Emory and liberal,