<p>From the main discussion page - Kaplan College identifies Bowdoin and 24 other schools as the “new Ivies”: </p>
<p><a href=“MSN | Outlook, Office, Skype, Bing, Breaking News, and Latest Videos”>MSN | Outlook, Office, Skype, Bing, Breaking News, and Latest Videos</a></p>
<p>i seriously don't know why when a college gets mentioned on some list, everyone feels so validated and proud. no disrespect, but the fact that bowdoin was mentioned on that list is kinda an insult in my opinion. this is basically saying that for decades people only recognize "top colleges" as those in the north east and fit a particular mold (the ivy league and top prestigious lacs). the article is basically saying to look beyond the north east and the usual suspect colleges such as "...williams, wesleyan and middlebury...". I always thought bowdoin was not a "new comer" in this regard.</p>
<p>I don't know if I'd go so far as to call it an insult, but I don't see how they can justify that Middlebury has always been up there and that Bowdoin, Colgate, Tufts have only arrived now. These four schools are pretty close to academically interchangeable to me and people should choose among them based on other factors. If anything, I would think Bowdoin would be considered the best of the four; or at least I thought it was when I was applying.</p>
<p>You know, it's interesting to look at the new Princeton Review 2007 College Guide. For each school, there's a section called "Students also look at..." It says in the front of the book that the colleges themselves were asked to name their closest competitors (schools with the most overlaps in applications), and to sort them by "and often prefer," "and sometimes prefer," and "and rarely prefer," based on whether they "win" in head-to-head compitition with their overlap schools. </p>
<p>For Middlebury's write up, the "often prefer" schools were Dartmouth, Williams, Harvard, and Amherst. The "rarely prefer" schools include Bowdoin, Colgate, Hamilton, and Colby. </p>
<p>For Colgate, the "often prefer" schools include Middlebury.</p>
<p>For Bowdoin, Middlebury is listed as a school that applicants "sometimes prefer."</p>
<p>If nothing else, this demonstrates how schools classify their competitors.
Check it out when you get a chance.</p>
<p>i think it's a well known fact that middlebury is, currently, more popular than bowdoin, given their success in drawing common admits. that doesn't, however, substantiate the classification of bowdoin as a "new" ivy and middlebury as a traditional ivy-level liberal arts college. historically the opposite is true, and, notwithstanding middlebury's popularity and skill in the admissions game, it is unclear why bowdoin is a "new" ivy in anyone's eyes where middlebury is not. </p>
<p>also, a few years ago, according to the Princeton Review, bowdoin students "sometimes preferred" princeton, but one cannot conclude from that alone that bowdoin's prestige relative to princeton was somehow higher than its prestige relative to brown, a school bowdoin students "often preferred."</p>
<p>I suspect that the Middlebury-generated data on the college choices of common admits is little more than Middlebury-created propaganda based on the selective use of questionable data. For the past 15 or so years, Middlebury and Bowdoin have see-sawed back and forth in the common ratings with Bowdoin having the edge some years and Middlebury in the other years (Bowdoin was ranked above Middlebury last year by USNWR; this year it's the other way around). However, Middlebury is somewhat of an arrivist in the prestige game (it was not as prestigious as Bowdoin 30 or so years ago and does not have Bowdoin's history). As a consequence, Middlebury sometimes gives the impression of being a tad on the insecure side and little too caught up in the ratings racket and anxious to claim that it is somehow superior to Bowdoin, which in fact is its closest peer institution and not truly distinguishable in either direction in terms of prestige . . .</p>
<p>the common admit data is, i believe, accepted by both schools. in it, middlebury draws 75% of the common admits from bowdoin. given that the schools are equivalent in most aspects, i'm not sure how much credence i'd give to common admit statistics other than that middlebury probably seems more like dartmouth than bowdoin does to students denied from dartmouth but accepted by the other two.</p>
<p>The only place I have ever seen any data on the college choices of the common admits was on the Middlebury website in an embarrassingly bad propaganda piece put together by the Middlebury admissions department that, instead of extolling the virtues of Middlebury, devoted a good deal of time to dumping on peer institutions such as Bowdoin. I believe that the data was for only one year and, as I recall, was less than convincing.</p>
<p>For what its worth, the new 2007 Princeton Review guide lists Bowdoin as a school middlebury students rarely prefer and middlebury as a school bowdoin students often prefer. Colgate did not appear on any of Middlebury's cross-admit lists. PR's methodology is so flawed in so many areas, however, I wouldn't entirely trust any of those statements. </p>
<p>My uncle (a Williams alum) says that when he applied to college in the late 50s, the Bowdoin name definitely did carry more prestige than Middlebury's but primarily because of Bowdoin's all-male status that allowed for to share greater similarity with Amherst and Williams. Middlebury was the top choice for students who wanted to attend a co-ed New England LAC. Applicants were more likely to compare it to Bates, Colby, and other LACs that admitted women at that time, however. </p>
<p>I think that 77% cross-admit statistic came from 2000. Its certainly outdated now. </p>
<p>That said, Middlebury's "embarassingly bad propoganda piece," wasn't created to "extol the virtues of Middlebury." The admissions committee produced it merely to objectively display statistical results from those annoying admitted student surveys that the colleges you get into send you after you've decided where you're going. It also presented quotes about middlebury and comparable schools from popular college guides. The only school the piece really dumped on was Middlebury itself, admitting that it is a school with lots of rich kids and little diversity. It rags on Bowdoin briefly in passing, stating that the characteristic students filling out the survey most frequently chose to describe the college as was "safety school." I think this maybe resulted from insecurity t so many recent Midd matriculants were feeling after saying no to Bowdoin, the one college that most closely resembles Middlebury in both student body and selectivity.</p>
<p>Interestingly, Gellino, the powerpoint presentation rarely mentions Colgate on any of its stastical displays that compare Middlebury to other national LACs.</p>
<p>It would be interesting to see how many people applied to Bowdoin and not to Middlebury at all so no crossover possible. Midlebury doesn't hold a lot of interest to everyone. If your interested in a government program for example Bowdoin is superior.</p>
<p>I was also surprised that Hamilton college wasn't on the list . It is so far academically superior to Skidmore. Rated higher than Bates and Colby too!</p>
<p>Yeah, I think the only schools larger than Middlebury on that presentation were Dartmouth and Princeton and there were no other non-NESCAC schools. </p>
<p>An interesting comment, trotwood. After being W/L @ Dartmouth, I thought Colgate was the most similar school to it. I guess Bowdoin and Midd were too small for me and I liked the D-I sports and fraternity aspects.</p>
<p>I think not being in New England, Colgate and Hamilton tend to be excluded on a lot of comparison lists, especially Colgate since it's larger than the others, but is not in the Ivy or NESCAC leagues. That said, I certainly don't see why Skidmore would get the nod over Hamilton in the Newsweek article.</p>
<p>I can't understand Skidmore over Hamilton either ........rather ridiculous IMO</p>
<p>I thought in Princeton Review 2003 or 2004 (or whichever one I would have actually purchased when I was in high school) Middlebury was rarely preferred on Bowdoin's list, and Bowdoin was sometimes preferred to Amherst, and all of these other completely different things. I think maybe the rankings are based on too-small sample size.</p>
<p>on the wesleyan page, they discuss that the author or editor of newsweek is a middlebury grad. that's a good way to sneak middlebury into a conversation</p>
<p>That's total bs, fur uncle. johnwesley mentions that Jane Bryant Quinn, a journalist who covers the economy for newsweek and several other media outlets, went to Middlebury. She has no connection to this article whatsoever. Next time get the facts straight before you start spewing nonsense.</p>
<p>i think that the whole "sometimes prefer" and "rarely prefer" data is a load of bs. honestly, people's tastes in colleges are so personal. i go to bowdoin and i have plenty of friends there who also considered middlebury. i chose between bowdoin and carleton, which are extremely different schools that i liked for different reasons. there's only so much material priceton review can base stuff like that on so it's not really a credible source.</p>
<p>marketing ploy =D</p>
<p>I don't get the preference for Midd over Bowdoin, except that maybe applicants like the somewhat larger school (and Vermont is really special, too, although so is Maine in its own way). I would have thought that Bowdoin was considerably more rigorous academically in most areas.</p>
<p>Reply to message</p>