Thoughts on Middlebury?
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Anonymous
| DD recently visited this school. Goes without saying its beautiful and a top-notch school. Its a little hard to adequately gauge SAT/ACT strict requirements since during all sessions the school really "deemphasized" test scores (although to be sure, we recognize that they do matter) and instead were focusing on the other more important facets of the application (e.g., grades, essays etc.). Anyone have thoughts on the application process and how they fared? TIA! |
Anonymous
| Is your DC applying from an elite private school? |
Anonymous
| Scores are "deemphasized" because everyone who applies has great scores. Seriously it's one of the best colleges in the country - everyone is either an elite athlete, gifted writer, exceptionally intelligent, or has a parent who went there. |
Anonymous
Great information and YES DD is from a private school (but not one of the "Big 3"). |
Anonymous
| Best bet with all the top SLACs is to apply ED or ED2 if the school offers this option. I'm an alum and worked in the admissions office of another NESCAC school, and they weigh demonstrated interest very heavily (b/c they don't want to admit kids who will turn them down for an Ivy/Ivy-competitive school). Agree that they don't stress scores b/c they get so many applicants with top scores and grades. Activities, essays and recommendations count a lot. |
Anonymous
| Almost impossible form a public school unless top of the class + some hook |
Anonymous
|
If you look at the 25/75th percentile for scores you can get some idea, but realize that the lower 1/3 are very likely mostly athletes, in our experience, or possibly some international students for whom verbal at least can be a bit lower if not native English speakers (Midd has 10-15% international students, very committed to that part of the student body, and the academic strength in languages, political science, environmental policy fit that demographic well). Midd like the other NESCAC schools takes athletics seriously and are top d3 in almost every sport, and recruit athletes that could easily play in mid or lower tier d1 programs but prefer the top academics at somewhere like Midd and not having sports completely take over their lives/schedules in college.
So in our recent experience from local big 3 privates with two kids that applied to Midd, the types of kids getting in there and choosing to go are competitive/also getting into and = Ivys such as Dartmouth, Cornell, Penn, and very similar to kids getting into Bowdoin, Swarthmore, Williams, Amherst, Pomona, U Chicago, Duke. Both my kids got in, one applied ED because a clear first choice, was a NMSF/Presidential semifinalist/high GPA and had a good chance as any to get into any school, strong extracurriculars. Other got in regular decision and decided to go to a HYP school, but really struggled with decision since loved Midd so much. The SLACS really can seem capricious in their admit decisions, they are so small, but agree with prior poster that seems very difficult to get in regular decision compared to ED or ED2. Have been surprised that kids who got into Brown or Columbia or even Harvard were rejected in some cases by Midd or Bowdoin or Williams, or wait listed (and in that case may mean trying to gauge if really serious about coming). It helps to have a high school that has some sort of track record with Midd. Your kid should also be sure to meet with the Midd rep when they come through the school. Our kid loves Midd, seems to be getting a great education, and graduating students seem to do well with grad school admits and jobs. |
Anonymous
| The SLACs are good prep schools for the big time grad schools. I think SLAC grads do miss out of some of the college experience, but national universities are not for everyone. |
Anonymous
| Middlebury puts a huge emphasis on grades. |
Anonymous
|
"Midd like the other NESCAC schools takes athletics seriously and are top d3 in almost every sport, and recruit athletes that could easily play in mid or lower tier d1 programs but prefer the top academics at somewhere like Midd and not having sports completely take over their lives/schedules in college. " Whoever thinks this has not been watching much football. NESCAC is the bottom of d3 and is miles away from Ivy League, which is near the bottom of D1. No NESCAC team got a single vote in the final 2013 top 25. http://www.d3football.com/top25/2013/final There are many good reasons to attend Middlebury and the other NESCAC schools, but upper level athletics isn't one of them. |
Anonymous
+1 |
Anonymous
It's been drilled into us over and over (even here on dcum) that public school kids have an advantage over private school grads generally in college admissions. Why is midd different? |
Anonymous
You do know there are sports besides football, right? If not, you really need to try to get out more. |
Anonymous
My guess is this is the stalker who fixates on certain posters. Now s/he's going after the "elite private school" poster from a recent thread. |
Anonymous
Is this true? Anyone? I was not aware of that. More I think of it, I don't think it is true. |