<p>btw, vermontkid, asking us to prove that is like asking us to prove 1+1=2. i’m sorry but you clearly don’t know much if you think that middlebury has a “longstanding” and “solid history” compared with carleton? or bowdoin? wow… middlebury is so new when my dad first came here to teach it was perhaps a little more popular than the community college of vermont</p>
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<p>Yes, do look at those lists of illustrious alums. It should drive home the fact that Bowdoin’s heyday was clearly in the nineteenth century. Things have changed since then.</p>
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<p>Didn’t you say that you’ve lived in Middlebury for 10 years? In 1997, Middlebury was firmly entrenched in the U.S. News top 10 LACs. Your comments are so laughable that I’m beginning to agree with vermontkid. Just because you were waitlisted at Middlebury (despite the fact that your father taught there) doesn’t mean that you have to disparage the school with nonsense remarks.</p>
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<p>Not quite - I don’t see anyone on the Middlebury list who rises to the level of contemporary figures such as Bowdoin grads George Mitchell (former majority leader of the Senate) and Bill Cohen (former US senator and secretary of defense).</p>
<p>Ok, I’m a Carleton graduate, and I didn’t look much at Middlebury, but let me throw in my two cents here.</p>
<p>For the most part, there is no major advantage to either school in terms of “prestige”. All graduate schools are going to know that both schools provide a TERRIFIC education. With the exception of employers that are VERY near by the schools (i.e. Minneapolis employers would probably favor Carleton, Boston might favor Middlebury), but major employers across the country are probably going to view them comparably as well (more important is going to be your gpa, extracurricular and work experiences, and interview performance). </p>
<p>The biggest determinant of your selection should probably be the feel and the details of the schools. From what I’ve heard (once again, I’ve never visited Middlebury), Carleton is a bit more quirky and laid-back, Middlebury is a little more preppy and “east coast” feeling. Neither are in big cities, both have access to them. There’s no wrong choice here, just which choice feels better to you.</p>
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<p>How about Ron Brown (Secretary of Commerce under Clinton and Chairman of the Democratic National Committee), Jim Douglas (Governor of Vermont), Robert Stafford (Former Vermont Governor and U.S. Senator who authored the bill that introduced federally-sponsored student loans)? We could go back and forth for hours.</p>
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<p>Stafford was well regarded but never rose to Mitchell’s level and anyway he’s dead so you can’t claim him for Middlebury since you say Bowdoin can’t claim its dead alums (Stafford gets to face off agaisnt the 15 or so dead senators who are Bowdoin alums). And I wouldn’t waste your time boasting about Ron Brown and Douglas seems a fairly inconsequential political leader.</p>
<p>We’re not talking about dead alums, we’re talking about people who attended these schools in the 20th and 21st centuries. I agree with you that Bowdoin had many more famous graduates 150 years ago, but in the last 50 years, Bowdoin has certainly not trumped Middlebury in this department.</p>
<p>And I hate to break it to you, but most people under the age of 25 (and a large percentage over that age) have no idea who Bill Cohen or George Mitchell are (unless of course you go to Bowdoin, where these 2 individuals are still a strong presence and remain frequent visitors to campus, or are from Maine). It shouldn’t be the case, but most young people are much more likely to know Dispatch (a band formed at Middlebury) than Cohen or Mitchell.</p>
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<p>Robert Stafford is very dead so you don’t get to count him.</p>
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<p>There’s no one of any real consequence who graduated from Middlebury in the past 50 years. Ron Brown? Jim Douglas? Give me a break.</p>
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<p>Who cares how ignorant the average Dispatch-obsessed Middlebury student is. Anyone who is minimally aware of politics or follows the news at all knows of George Mitchell or Bill Cohen, both of whose names have been in the newspaper and whose images have been on TV countless times in the past 15 years or so.</p>
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<p>I must not have been clear–it’s fine to include dead alums. I was excluding people who attended these colleges more than 100 years ago.</p>
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<p>I disagree. Bowdoin may have a slight upper hand in government (as well it should, considing that Bowdoin’s government studies dept is the school’s strongest), but outside of a former Secretary of Defense (who served under no major conflicts) and a former Senate Majority leader, frankly I’d expect more from Bowdoin in this arena. At present, Middlebury has twice as many serving members of Congress as Bowdoin. As mentioned, the governor of Vermont is a Middlebury graduate (sorry if that’s not considered a good enough achievement by you).</p>
<p>Middlebury leads Bowdoin in numbers of: CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, famous television personalities, notable authors and journalists.</p>
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<p>I’m sure there were/are plenty of Dispatch fans at Middlebury. But I’m also quite sure that the 110,000 people who showed up for their last concert in Boston included at least a few non-Midd students.</p>
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<p>I’m sure you really think that. But outside the Bowdoin bubble, few people discuss either of these individuals on a regular basis anymore. I think they were great politicians, but I also think that you’ve elevated them to a level that I believe is unwarrented within the bounds of this argument. That’s just my opinion though, and you’re certainly entitled to yours.</p>
<p>This whole “my school’s grads are better than your school’s grads” argument is kind of silly in the end. We have different loyalties, and will have to agree to disagree.</p>
<p>Regarding #16 & 17, here is some admissions data circa 1970 for these schools:</p>
<pre><code> % admitted, yield, Av SAT
</code></pre>
<p>Middlebury 23 50 1293
Bowdoin 24 52 [not reported]
Carleton 61 48 1298</p>
<p>(Bear in mind the SAT scores were re-centered in the 90s; that’s why these seem low vs. today)</p>
<p>No more squabbling, we’re doing a disservice to all three of these schools (Bowdoin, Midd, Carleton.). And please don’t make generalizations about “ignorant Dispatch-loving” Midd kids, that’s just outright offensive. There’s virtually no difference between these three schools in terms of the quality of their undergraduate students; I think that’s all that needs to be said.</p>
<p>Be offended for all I care but that is the essence of what the Middlebury poster stated:</p>
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<p>wow arcadia just because I’ve been here for 10+ years doesn’t mean my father has been here for the same amount of time. I was born in california, have lived all over the world, and while my father was at middlebury I was living in europe with family. clearly you don’t know anything</p>
<p>first of all, i’m not bitter about anything, i’m just trying to point out straight facts. I think torasee was out of line with the whole “dispatch-loving kids” and you clearly need to chill out trying to defend middlebury alums. thats not even what we were tlaking about. also, middlebury does not have more CEOs. don’t you get it? bowdoins list of alums isn’t even listed on their site because they have so many. they have SOOO many people up there that they only listed presidents, big time legacies like hawthorne and longfellow. at a bowdoin open house there was an “alum session” and there are literally hundreds upon hundreds of bowdoin alums that are CEOs or have the same postions that the ones listed for middlebury. it’s clear that middlebury’s list is very new and digs pretty deep, but I think that’s fine since they’re very new compared to bowdoin. i wasn’t even talking about bowdoin, my point is about carleton. anyways, so clearly you missed torasee’s point and argued pointlessly which is again, embarassing.</p>
<p>second of all, do i want to stay in the same town i’ve been in for 10+ years? no. would you want to stay wherever you live and go to college there? probably not. lets see one of my best friend’s (who goes to middlebury high school with me) dads is the dean of the college, i know the chair of 2 academic departments and 3 language departments, (our family are good friends), i study piano with the piano teacher who’s been a music faculty for over 30 years? I’ve played piano for the hawthorne club (president of middlebury college, tons of faculty @ midd, president of national bank of middlebury, pretty much anyone who is anything at midd), I took courses my senoir year because students from our high school can go take courses at midd? do i care that i didn’t get in? no. I’m not a nerd my sat scores are far below avg and i don’t get straight A’s. if i really wanted to, could i probably get in off the wait-list? yessss</p>
<p>right please I think I know what I’m talking about a little more than you do. I never argued that middlebury isn’t a good place, nor did I say they didn’t produce alums. but go embarass yourself more and fight about how midd has great alums? I was just standing up for the fact that carleton has “been around” much longer and middlebury is a very new and thus un-“weathered” like these other schools. did I say midd was bad? no. did I say being new was bad? no. you can interprate that however you want.</p>
<p>if i wanted to attack midd i would talk about another honest fact, how middlebury uses it’s extremely attractive campus to attract students, and without it’s pretty buildings it would be more likely to compete with community college than colleges like bowdoin. also, the buildings are pretty on the outside, but i must say the classrooms at my public high school are nicer than the one @ midd that i took economics at.</p>
<p>conclusion: you’ve annoyed me and everyone, you completely don’t get the original point that everyone was making, even if you wanted to make this into a fight you would lose, stop embarassing yourself.</p>
<p>now that i’m done with my ranting, everyone please direct their attention to freefree113’s post because he’s completely correct.</p>
<p>cilyboi, you’re the one who is embarrassing yourself (and yes, embarrassing has 2 r’s). I don’t need to expand on that anymore. your words speak for themselves. I’m quite surprised that you were admitted to Bowdoin, which, btw, I think is a wonderful school. </p>
<p>Look at my past posts. I was admitted early write to Bowdoin and also to Middlebury. It was a tough decision in the end, but I chose Midd for various reasons. I loved Middlebury. I’m sure I would have been equally happy with Bowdoin.</p>
<p>Middlebury is widely known as home of the beautiful people and Carleton is known as home of the ugly people. Despite this back and forth debate, these schools are close enough either way academic and reputation wise that it would make a lot more sense to decide based on what atmosphere you like better.</p>
<p>Those SATs for 1970 are actually higher than the last reported class at 1349 for Midd, since you need to add ~ 80 points to be comparable to pre class of 2000 figures; however, it is still higher than the 1255 SAT avg for Midd of the late '80’s. It’s amazing to see how high the yields for the schools were before applicants were applying to 10+ schools.</p>
<p>I don’t <em>care</em> if you like middlebury or not. I don’t <em>care</em> where you got admitted. I don’t <em>care</em> about your earlier posts. But I’m glad you have finally stopped trying to act like you know anything about middlebury or it’s reputation compared with carleton.</p>
<p>in my last post i said “i wasn’t even talking about bowdoin, my point is about carleton…”</p>
<p>but uh, i’m glad you would have been equally happy with bowdoin? maybe you should jot your thoughts down in a livejournal and people can go read what colleges you like there because i’m strictly talking about carleton’s rep vs middlebury’s rep which is a large part of what this thread was about</p>
<p>Did you read post #31? In 1970, Middlebury admitted 23% of applicants and enrolled 50% of them. The difference in median SAT scores between Midd and Carleton was 5 points out of 1600. Sure does sound like Middlebury was fiercely competing with Vermont Community College for students.</p>
<p>And I’m not the one who made this into a Midd/Bowdoin debate, although I certainly jumped into the fray after it started.</p>
<p>noone’s made this into a midd/bowdoin debate. you’re imagining it in your head :P</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure average SAT scores arn’t an accurate indicator of reputation. I said, as a complete joke, that if I wanted to make fun of Middlebury I would not make fun of the “dispatch loving kids” but more likely how many people go there just because of how nice the buildings look on the outside when they’re not really that nice on the inside. but people go to college for all kinddsss of reasons. anyways that whole section was a joke you really think a community college can compete with a private institution that costs just under 50k a year?</p>
<p>Some of these are very interesting! Things sure have changed since 1969.</p>
<p>From Barron’s Profiles of American Colleges - 1969. </p>
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