My S24 was seriously considering LACs, but not originally Middlebury because of the location and maybe some other fit reasons. However, a good friend was going as a recruited athlete, and so once he found out it had no supplemental, he tossed in an RD application. Predictably he was waitlisted, which seems to happen to high numbers kids from our HS who do that with Middlebury (they seem to sniff those kids out pretty well), and he did not accept a waitlist spot so presumably he became a statistic.
Meanwhile, my S24 was in fact accepted to some of the LACs in which he actually was seriously interested, and had visited or at least attended a live info session, and which had serious supplementals (specifically Carleton, Vassar, and Haverford). It is impossible to say for sure, but I really feel like these colleges also knew that he was taking them seriously, hence no messing around with waitlists.
Anyway, again just random thoughts. But I do feel like Middlebury is basically inviting these sorts of throw in applications, with the implicit plan of waitlisting the ones who would normally be competitive for admissions but that Middlebury is pretty sure are largely looking elsewhere. And maybe in a few cases that actually ends up working out for all concerned, but I suspect not often.
Sure. Some schools not only donât have an extra essay, they also have a zero dollar application fee. Or they send you an application fee waiver at the drop of a hat.
Talk about no downside to sending an application in!
Yes, Bates has no essays beyond the Common App essay, though I think you can add supplemental material (a resume, an additional rec letter, etc. â donât remember about arts portfolios). You can also sign up for an interview, though I think they are not considered for admission beyond a measure of interest. I could be wrong about the details - trying to remember from my Dâs application two years ago â but I know for sure there was no extra essay.
Midd does waitlist a lot of prep school kids in RD who havenât previously shown demonstrated interest but have a good application. Itâs why these college counselors tell kids to either ED to Midd, or show a lot of DI by touring, attending webinars, and reaching out to their regional AO. Itâs perfectly understandable for small colleges to reject/WL kids who havenât shown any previous DI. They have to be careful with yield calcs to curate a small class of 500-700 freshmen.
College counselors will at times contact their Midd AO counterparts about certain waitlisted kids that genuinely want to attend, have them write a solid LOCI, and there can be WL movement through these dialogues, for either Fall or Feb admits.
Going back to the main topic - whether Middâs acceptance rate is 13.9%, or 9.9%, or 21% - itâll be the same great school.
I shared mostly as new information for others to consider. Nonetheless, from reading the article, it appears that members of the Middlebury community believe that its admission results for this year, along with its slip in U.S. News, suggest a softening of its general appeal. On this, Iâd say wait and see. Middlebury could be ranked 12th this coming season (for a prediction, see Middlebury Ranking - #9 by merc81), for example, or its decline in applications may simply reflect greater trends that have yet to become widely apparent. Middleburyâs current financial turbulence appears to represent a greater concern, however.
Thanks. In that thread, there was mention of Brown and Barnard also running deficits. I wonder how common that is among those schools with <20% acceptance rate. Middlebury decided to increase enrollment to address some of their deficit issues so perhaps that is the reason for the higher acceptance rate. I did notice that they are already above their enrollment target of 2600-2650 and have been since 2020 as their enrollment grew in 2021 to over 2800. To address over-enrollment, they may have artificially lowered their acceptance rate by tightening up the size of the incoming class in the subsequent years. Hopefully, they will address their deficit spending but to do so, the increase in enrollment seems like it will ahve to come from enrolling more full pay students - probably even more students will be chosen from the ED round.
However, I havenât seen many schools convert such an approach to a high enrollment of those students they do accept. Middleburyâs current CDS, as an example, shows a 20% admission yield for the students it accepted through regular decision.
The vast majority of waitlisted students decide to stay on Middleburyâs waitlist, according to the most recent CDS.
For 2024-2025, Midd waitlisted 2,285 students and 2,256 accepted a spot on the WL. Thatâs 98.7%. Forty-five were eventually admitted. If someone was accepted to a school they liked more, why stay on the WL? Just to see if they could get in? Or perhaps they hadnât yet heard from all their schools and decided to keep their hat in the game just in case?
That is making me wonder about my own narrative. Like, I certainly THOUGHT my S24 turned down a waitlist spot, but maybe he did accept it and just didnât do a LOCI or anything (that part I am pretty sure about).
Middlebury has kind of been shafted by the USNews formula changes through the years, similarly to Haverford â Haverford was top-10ish, and Middlebury was top-5, not too long ago. Now both are around 20th. I doubt their quality has fallen.
I wonder if the decrease in apps is tied to that partly.
Eh, they can join the club and there will be one more institution to join Wesleyan, Haverford, Vassar, Washington & Lee, Wellesley, Barnard, Hamilton, Harvey, Smith, Grinnell, Colgate and a few others in taking their turn on the US News LAC Top 20 elevator.
Hard to say whether that drives it. Middlebury is a big name out west among people who âcare about schoolsâ. Itâs always a good reminder that many, many people do not.
Yep. I give credit to the schools that respond to changes in rank with a big âSo what?â They have their priorities and some publicationâs ever-changing ranking methodology is not going to change their institutional goals.
No schoolâs academic quality or experience is going to change as drastically as the USNWR ranks wants us to believe.