haverford1994

What are some differences between Middlebury and Haverford- not academically, only socially? What are some opinions from current/past students about the student bodies at these two schools? Too preppy, too snobby/mean, too nerdy, too boring, too lax-boyish etc etc.

I sometimes worry Hav' is too small, and its size will stunt my social life. I'm not into CRAZY parties and getting drunk every single night, but I don't want to sit around all weekend and pleasure read every friday night...

Also, if you can, please chance me? As of now, I plan to apply to Haverford ED. If I don't get in, which is highly possible, I might apply ED 2 to Middlebury. Does ED 1 give a bigger advantage than ED 2 does? Does ED 2 actually help at all, or should I just apply regular?

Chance me for Middlebury ED 1 (if I change my mind), ED 2, and RD. thanks!
Oh, and if you want, you can also chance me for other schools: vassar, bowdoin, wesleyan and whatever ones you suggest for RD if my ed's don't go well...

I also go to a VERY competitive public school in the northeast (VERY competitive)

* SAT: 2180 (CR: 730)(M:700)(W:750)
* SAT: Bio: 760 Spanish:710



GRADES:
GPA: UW=3.67 Weighted: ~4.3 only because I didn't take many honors freshman year. But in soph,junior,senior year my Weighted GPA would be around 4.65. We don't have class rank. (sending unweighted gpa)

CP= college prep i.e regular level not honors
H= honors
AP=AP

9th:
English CP A-
Geometry CP A-
Physics CP A-
World History CP: A-
Spanish H B+
Studio Art 1: B+ (silly)

10th
English H A-
Spanish H A
Chemistry H A-
US History H A
Algebra 2 CP B (my teacher was 20 yrs old and got fired after 1 year- very arbitrary grade.... she was completely incompetent)
Studio Art 2 B+ (silly again)


11th (3.8 gpa junior year)
AP European History B (5)
AP Economics (micro+macro) A (5 on both AP tests)
English H A
Biology H A (took AP test, got a 5 if that helps at all)
Spanish H A
Pre-Calc CP A

12th:

AP English A
AP Physics B/B- (probs B, but if i get ONE b- first quarter senior year in a hard ap class, will it kill my chances?)
AP Spanish A
AP Psych A/A+
Honors Neuroscience (double course mandatory for AP Psych) A
Calculus CP A/A+

Extra-Curriculars: 1=freshman year, 2=sophomore year, 3=junior year, 4=senior year

* School Newspaper: 1,2,3,4 --- Editor in Chief senior year
* Environmental Club: 3,4
* Have a good job at a Harvard neurobiology research lab: 3,4
* Attended overnight camp for 5 summers
* On programming committee at camp (ran activities for younger kids) - 4
* Hebrew School: 1,2,3 (maximum)
* Was a "big brother" in the big brother + sister program at heb. school to 3rd grader- 4
* Teacher at Hebrew School: 3, 4
* Captain of basketball team at camp (at summer camp, not school) - 3
* Jewish youth group - 2,3,4
* Spanish Club: 4
* Improv Comedy- 2,3
* Qualified for National Economics Competition (very prestigious) at Federal Reserve
* Math tutor: 3,4
* Volunteer 2-3 hours a week at local nature trail: 3

*I have a HUGE upward slope (practically vertical ), especially with rigor of classes!

Chance me for: RD middlebury, ED 1 (in case i change my mind), and ED 2... thanks!

haverford1994

bump........

buddyglass

dang, how's a high schooler get a job at a harvard neuroscience research lab?

OldbatesieDoc

Meh...everything is good, but your essay better show the passion I don't get from this post.

Your SATs are fine, your grades are good, and your ECs are interesting. What do you do at the neuroscience lab? Can you get an excellent rec from someone there? I have to say no one cares if you are the captain of a camp basketball team.

Haverford is in a city and Middlebury is in a small town in VT. I expect it is easier to get into Haverford, and it seems likely to me that with great essay/recs, you could reasonably expect to be accepted ED there.

If you prefer MIdd, I give you 50-75% ED depending on those intangibles. RD you go down to 30%

EtherealCookie

I don't see where you guys are getting RD = less chance of getting in when the adcom specifically states on their website applying early will give you no extra advantage. Yes, there is a higher acceptance rate for ED than RD, but the speculation on that is that the most qualified candidates tend to apply ED.

rayrick

Here we go again...

Ethereal Cookie, we just hashed this out at length on a Williams thread:
Chance me?? =)

Bottom line (for me) is that it varies from school to school. It is true that the applicant pools really are fundamentally different, and ED does not confer as big an advantage as the raw statistics would suggest. However, for schools with a really large discrepancy (say a factor of 2 or more) between the ED acceptance rate and the RD acceptance rate, it's hard to persuasively argue that there's really no advantage, since, even after you take all the recruited athletes, legacies, etc out of the ED pool, it's STILL a far higher percentage that get in ED than RD.

At Bowdoin for instance, the difference is only 30.5% vs 19.5%. I'm almost willing to believe that there's no meaningful ED advantage there. At Williams, it's 40% vs 19%. I'm not buying that there's no ED advantage there. Similarly, at Middlebury, it's 36% vs 17%. Again, hard to believe there's zero ED edge when the percentages are that disparate. It's not as big as it appears, but it's not nothing, either--at least that's the view I've come around to. I'm not sure why adcoms feel they need to be cagey about that, but they often seem to be.

Anyway, that's my opinion, and you are under no obligation to adopt it as your own. By the way, if you want to see all sorts of admissions stats (as well as other kinds of stats) broken down in great detail, you can google 'school-of-interest common data set'. All the schools fill out the same form and most seem to post it on the web (perhaps they're required to?). Sometimes you can learn some surprising things.

OldbatesieDoc

Rayrick-thanks.Good summary. It matters, even if it's a matter of you're the last app reviewed out of 500 vs 6000. Everyone is more tired, and they all run together.

Hitch123

Haverford is a lot smaller and I'm not sure that the consortium really makes up for that. I just wonder if you should re-consider ED at Middlebury. You are slightly above the median SAT, so you might have slightly above a 50% chance even though it's hard to quantify. Check old Midd vs. Haverford threads!

worldspirit

Our Haverford/Midd hopeful just spent a few days at Midd and had done the same at Haverford some weeks before. Socially, Midd has more variety on campus while Haverford has more variety off campus. Midd social culture is driven more by sports teams.

Perhaps a symbol of the cultural difference... Bikes are popular at Midd, yet, reportedly, they are frequently 'borrowed' (without permission) by students who don't want to walk across campus. This is not something that would happen at Haverford.

Certainly both are great schools. Socially, select Haverford if you want to learn among young community-minded scholars and Middlebury for an idyllic small college town experience with less focus on an honor code.

For entrance chances and comparisons, consider post #12 on this page Haverford, Wesleyan, or Middlebury? from the Haverford forum.

Haverford has a slight edge in terms of % in top 10% of HS class and an insignificant edge on SATs. However, Middlebury admits fewer - mostly, as has been noted, due to Midd's popularity - (drawing a larger group of hopefuls who may not make it). Also not the reported difference in admits off the waitlist.

lemonwater54

"Socially, select Haverford if you want to learn among young community-minded scholars and Middlebury for an idyllic small college town experience with less focus on an honor code."

I am not sure what you mean??
My son tells me that he, his professors and his friends all take the honor code VERY seriously. He is very proud of the Midd honor code an what it represents.

Irishdoctor

I agree with Lemonwater. My daughter is working very hard at Middlebury, making friends, and enjoying the many activities available. Yes, there is drinking but the college is not in denial about it but rather working on the situation quite actively. My daughter doesn't drink, doesn't play sports, and isn't 'preppy'. I can assure you that there are many like her at Middlebury.

I haven't heard anything about a problem with bicycle 'borrowing'. It sound as if someone my be extrapolating from one or a few isolated incidents.

OldbatesieDoc

My s both have bikes, nobody "borrows" them. They don't lock their rooms, for goodness sakes.
And community mindedness is rather popular there as well.

worldspirit

Thank you Irishdoctor. I probably did extrapolate too much from my son's report. I should have seen the tale as dubious and not posted it. My apologies.

HC Alum

worldspirit- This is only my opinion so take it for what it's worth. I think you will find community at any LAC and Midd in particular... a lot of good smart kids go there. A lot of schools have honor codes as well, most of which probably work very well for that particular campus. Also, things like cheating and stealing have more to do with ones upbringing and life experience rather than whether a school has an honor code or not. Stuff occasionally gets stolen as well at HC (other students doing it or people from off campus?) and if a student doesn't lock their bike or leaves their computer unattended and it gets stolen then that's what they get for being careless. while both schools have an honor code and a sense of community, it think words like that mean different things on each campus and are implemented differently. Not better not worse but different. I tried to describe it here:

Honor Code at Bowdoin

As you stated, many schools have honor codes and that’s not what makes HC unique. Each school with an honor code conceptualizes it differently and, so, are differently implemented and this is what makes HC and the other schools potentially different. For example, Davidson’s and UVA’s are based upon a sense of southern honor and chivalry; military honor for the military academies; Athenian ideals of a perfect democratic society for Wellesley and Conn College; and Haverford’s is based upon its Quaker history and value of consensus and inner light. Are you familiar with how such ideas can be manifested in a campus culture? What is Bowdoin’s honor code based on and how does Bowdoin’s campus culture inform the implementation of its honor code? Football is played both in the US and Brazil but the game isn’t the same.

If the idea of “campus culture” and how it may impact such things is abstract for you, here’s 1 HC alum’s perspective on how campus culture affects classroom dynamics at HC and Williams where he teaches. Imagine then how campus culture and history influences something like an honor code…

Building for the Arts

Michael J. Lewis ’79 was an economics major at Haverford, but he now teaches art and architectural history at Williams College. He is the author of The Politics of the German Gothic Revival (1993); Frank Furness: Architecture and the Violent Mind (2001); The Gothic Revival (2002); and a forthcoming survey history of American art and architecture; he is also a frequent contributor of architectural criticism to journals such as The New Criterion and Commentary….

Lewis’ own aesthetic awakening came in his senior year at Haverford, when he took a course on urban history at Bryn Mawr. Upon graduation, he secured a Fulbright Fellowship to study the reconstruction of Germany after World War II, then earned a Ph.D. in architectural history at the University of Pennsylvania. After returning to Bryn Mawr for two years (1989-91) to teach the very course in urbanism that had sparked his professional interest, he served as a historian at the Canadian Center for Architecture before joining the Williams faculty in 1993.

When he got to Williams, Lewis says he assumed teaching at one highly selective liberal arts college would be pretty much like teaching at another, but he discovered that the cultures of Haverford and Williams were decidedly different, largely owing to their respective heritages.

“I tried doing exactly what had been done to me at Haverford and Bryn Mawr,” Lewis recalls. “I’d come in to class and say something like ‘Frank Lloyd Wright was a bad architect. Flat roofs leak, so that’s bad architecture.’ Then a student would say, ‘But, Mr. Lewis, is architecture just about keeping the rain out or is it about ideal form?’ When I got to Williams and I said ‘Frank Lloyd Wright is a bad architect,’ the students would just look at me and write it down. I could not push their buttons.”

Lewis came to believe that the difference between Haverford and Williams students was not a matter of intellect but of historical roots.

“Haverford and Bryn Mawr, while not religiously Quaker, have inherited the culture of a Quaker meeting house. Any moment, the spirit may move and someone will speak out. Williams is a Puritan culture. When I speak, I am Cotton Mather in his pulpit. There is a tremendous culture here of cordiality, the covenant of the camp. It may be the product of our remoteness. You don’t argue during the day with someone you’re sure to see that night.” ...

(note, I don't think the professor is implying students at Williams don't have debates in class but rather it is likely that to stimulate such debates, they may need to be contexted and set up differently than through "confrontation" which is the norm at HC and plays a role in its honor code as well)

OldbatesieDoc

^^^Didn't teach editing skills at HC....