<p>Admissions to the most competitive colleges has become a total crapshoot. No one can tell you with any degree of certainty whether you’ll be accepted to Middlebury or any other top college on your list. In the past few years, I’ve seen kids with nearly perfect SAT scores and GPAs get waitlisted or rejected.</p>
<p>With small LACs, it really depends on who else is applying during your admissions cycle. Middlebury has to take great care to craft its class–they need quarterbacks for the football team and violinists for the orchestra and costume designers for the theater department. They have lots of boxes to tick when assembling a class of around 625 (including Febs). Think long and hard about what YOU have to offer the college. What will you bring to the class? If you have a solid answer to that question, make sure that comes across in your application. I will tell you that ED admits most often have serious hooks–athletes, URMs, or development kids. ED II does not offer as much of an advantage as ED I. Why? Because by the time the ED II applications are due, admissions already has had an opportunity to judge the relative strength of the entire RD applicant pool. Your chances of acceptance increase significantly when you’re in the top 10% of your class (preferably the top 5%), and you have SAT I or II scores above 700 (preferably above 730) on each section or an ACT score above 32. And figure out your hook and play it up. Good luck! </p>