J term and Febs questions

Contented_Panther
Mon, 15 Aug 2016 16:35:55 +0000

Ricka8, hi

I’ve just found this dosvussion, and perhaps I can help a little. For background, I’m an alum, and an alum interviewer in Europe. I keep in reasonably close touch with Midd as my folks don’t live far away, and I give guest lectures up there every now and again.

January Term (J-Term) is one of the best bits about Midd – yrs, you do take “one class”, but there are some important caveats around that.

First, the aim is to do a semester’s worth of work in four weeks (a bit like Colorado College’s block system), so it is much more intensive: and this isn’t just hype – if you’re a language student, you will do a semester’s worth of work in a month…. and your friends will see you in Spring Semester.

Second, for non-language students, the course offerings are really varied: I took two very memorable courses on War and Race & Ethnicity in public education. Better still, the faculty tend to teach stuff that they’re researching, and outside faculty/alums come back to teach specific courses: in fact, I’m hoping to do just that in J-Term 2018 or 19 with a course on nuclear proliferation and international law with some colleagues from the Middlebury Institute in Monterey.

Third, for seniors writing a thesis, J-Term is crucial in getting much of the drafting done – it’s four weeks without other term paper pressure, and allowed me the time to focus on the writing in a way that regular term time did not.

Fourth, J-Term is also brilliant fun – think: Snowbowl. It’s a different vibe and being able to get out and play in the Vermont winter is a wonderful – I can’t think for a second why you’d want to voluntarily give this up. In short, J-Term is completely fab.

On Feb/not Feb, the first challenge is to get in; as these boards make clear, the competition is intense, and admissions decline many very capable students who’d have made great Middkids every year. I see it in the alumni interviews I conduct, which is both heartening (the quality of the prospectives I see is usually very high) and somewhat sad (some great kids don’t get in, but almost all go somewhere good).

So on that basis, the question is this: would you turn down a Midd Feb offer? I applied for September and got it, but if they’d said it’s Feb or nothing, then of course I’d have taken it. The second thing about Febs is that you’re only five credits out of sync with your class – and over three and a half years, that’s easily recouped if you really want to graduate in Jun 2021.

So how badly do you want Midd? If you only want it on your terms, I’m afraid that it’s not a very attractive look.

Hope this helps,

CP