Middlebury Hurting Itself

claudeturpin
Mon, 12 Mar 2012 21:55:00 +0000

I’m a Vermonter whose D applied to Middlebury last year, was accepted, and decided to go to Harvard instead. It’s true her admissions experience wasn’t perfect, that the tour guide and info session could have been better, but I can also say the same (and to an even greater degree) about Harvard, Brown, Swarthmore, Bowdoin or any of the other schools she got into. To place such an enormous emphasis on an hour-long presentation that by its very nature offers only a limited, introductory and subjective glimpse of campus life is ridiculous. The experience of students who have actually attended Middlebury is far more revealing, and in this regard I can say that every Midd student I’ve ever known has loved their time there and done extremely well afterwards. My D loves Harvard, but I would have been delighted to see her go to Middlebury. The bottom line is that being an intelligent consumer means looking beyond the wrapping.