Middlebury, Conn College, Colby

[Anonymous]

Middlebury has several years in a row of over-enrollment. They are actually paying kids outright now to take a semester off (in real cash, not a merit aid discount or anything.) It is blaming this fiasco on COVID uncertainties. This blame game might (or might not) be justified for a single year. But when you are talking 3 years in a row, it is nothing but gross incompetence and/or intentional disdain for the quality of the student experience. (70%+ of the class was just admitted ED; they don’t have the “yield miscalculation” excuse to fall back on.)

Middlebury just broke ground on a new 298-bed freshman dorm that will be ready in spring 2025. They also say that they expect to return to pre-COVID enrollment of around 2,500 students next year.

https://www.middlebury.edu/announcements/announcements/2023/06/community-accessibility-are-focus-new-first-year-residence-hall

[Anonymous]

Colby and Middlebury do not have supplemental essays. Colby has no application fee vs Middlebury's $65 fee. Both are playing games with ED1, ED2 and no essays.

Interestingly enough, Williams has eliminated the supplemental essay this year. Guess they've joined the game.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Colby and Middlebury do not have supplemental essays. Colby has no application fee vs Middlebury's $65 fee. Both are playing games with ED1, ED2 and no essays.

Interestingly enough, Williams has eliminated the supplemental essay this year. Guess they've joined the game.

Williams had no supplement class of 2026 either.

[Anonymous]

Waste of money IMO. Would much rather send my kid to UMD to major in CS/Engineering or do pre-med or finance/accounting than for some liberal arts degree from a no-name LAC. Middlebury doesn't even place that well into finance -- UVA would be much better.

Indeed UVA has better placement at top investment banks, but Middlebury holds its own--placing more grads at top investment banks per capita than any other LAC (including Williams, Amherst, Pomona, etc.) and ahead of schools like Penn State, Wake Forest, Hopkins, WashU.

https://www.peakframeworks.com/post/ib-target-schools

[Anonymous]

Colby College plays games regarding admissions. I suspect that one who has offers from both schools would select Middlebury.

According to Parchment's revealed preference calculator, around 7 out of every 10 kids who are admitted to both Middlebury and Colby choose Middlebury.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Middlebury has several years in a row of over-enrollment. They are actually paying kids outright now to take a semester off (in real cash, not a merit aid discount or anything.) It is blaming this fiasco on COVID uncertainties. This blame game might (or might not) be justified for a single year. But when you are talking 3 years in a row, it is nothing but gross incompetence and/or intentional disdain for the quality of the student experience. (70%+ of the class was just admitted ED; they don’t have the “yield miscalculation” excuse to fall back on.)

Middlebury just broke ground on a new 298-bed freshman dorm that will be ready in spring 2025. They also say that they expect to return to pre-COVID enrollment of around 2,500 students next year.

https://www.middlebury.edu/announcements/announcements/2023/06/community-accessibility-are-focus-new-first-year-residence-hall

Don’t you think they said they would fix the enrollment problem last year? And the year before? And the year before that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Middlebury has several years in a row of over-enrollment. They are actually paying kids outright now to take a semester off (in real cash, not a merit aid discount or anything.) It is blaming this fiasco on COVID uncertainties. This blame game might (or might not) be justified for a single year. But when you are talking 3 years in a row, it is nothing but gross incompetence and/or intentional disdain for the quality of the student experience. (70%+ of the class was just admitted ED; they don’t have the “yield miscalculation” excuse to fall back on.)

Middlebury just broke ground on a new 298-bed freshman dorm that will be ready in spring 2025. They also say that they expect to return to pre-COVID enrollment of around 2,500 students next year.

https://www.middlebury.edu/announcements/announcements/2023/06/community-accessibility-are-focus-new-first-year-residence-hall

This is a dorm to replace the dilapidated one that will be demolished, adding a total of only 48 beds…and if you think Middlebury will have only 2500 students next year, well, save this here message. I’ll give a high or low on 2,650…

[Anonymous]

This is a dorm to replace the dilapidated one that will be demolished, adding a total of only 48 beds…and if you think Middlebury will have only 2500 students next year, well, save this here message. I’ll give a high or low on 2,650…

It will be demolished once enrollment stabilizes. And 2,650 is 200 under where it is now.

[Anonymous]

Don’t you think they said they would fix the enrollment problem last year? And the year before? And the year before that?

COVID certainly made things unpredictable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

This is a dorm to replace the dilapidated one that will be demolished, adding a total of only 48 beds…and if you think Middlebury will have only 2500 students next year, well, save this here message. I’ll give a high or low on 2,650…

It will be demolished once enrollment stabilizes. And 2,650 is 200 under where it is now.

No, it’s over-enrollment by 150, that is, over-enrollment for 4 straight years. Tell the 150 kids living off campus or at Bread Loaf that it is not a problem — and be thankful it’s not one of your kids. A school with 70% of a class being filled ED knows exactly what it is doing in terms of its (intended) over-enrollment, their press releases notwithstanding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Don’t you think they said they would fix the enrollment problem last year? And the year before? And the year before that?

COVID certainly made things unpredictable.

Name another school that struck out and missed like this for 3 straight years “because of COVID.” Oops, there isn’t one…

[Anonymous]

A school with 70% of a class being filled ED knows exactly what it is doing in terms of its (intended) over-enrollment, their press releases notwithstanding.

This past year was the first time Midd filled that high a percentage if its class ED. Which tells me they're trying to control enrollment by minimizing the unpredictability of RD yield. Seems sensible to me.

[Anonymous]

A school with 70% of a class being filled ED knows exactly what it is doing in terms of its (intended) over-enrollment, their press releases notwithstanding.

So they're intentionally over enrolling because they want to have kids living in hotels and want to pay them $10K to defer for a semester/year? Do tell us the true intent behind their diabolical plan to over enroll.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

A school with 70% of a class being filled ED knows exactly what it is doing in terms of its (intended) over-enrollment, their press releases notwithstanding.

So they're intentionally over enrolling because they want to have kids living in hotels and want to pay them $10K to defer for a semester/year? Do tell us the true intent behind their diabolical plan to over enroll.

Either 1) it is intentional (the actual over-enrollment number might have been elevated, but a target range of over-enrollment was intended, if you know anything about yield and LTE algorithms) or 2) it is unintentional, for 3 years straight, and the administration is therefore wholly incompetent. I don’t know which of the two is worse (probably the latter, which seems to be your enlightened interpretation; I give Middlebury more credit, not being a naïf).

But what I do know is that Middlebury over-enrollment has harmed the student experience for several years running. That is very bad thing for a SLAC to do, what with student experience being SLACs’ entire selling point vis-à-vis national universities.

[Anonymous]

Bumping this thread just to point out that Middlebury expects a class of 2750 in the fall, only 50 less than last fall’s over-enrollment debacle. Surprise, surprise: yet another year of over-enrollment. It’s the new normal. At least admissions isn’t pretending it was anything but intentional all these years anymore:

“The college has remained committed to matriculating the same number of first-year students each year, even when admitting fewer new students would have relieved the strain of having larger-than-usual junior and senior classes from the pandemic-related backlog. ‘We didn't want to penalize the [matriculating] classes of ’21, ’22 and ’23, because the other thing we could have done is just taken 100 less students and denied 100 less students access to a Middlebury education,’ Provost stated.”

https://www.middleburycampus.com/article/2024/03/middlebury-returns-to-typical-enrollment-this-spring-with-plans-to-sell-inn-on-the-green-in-2025