I really don’t know better, so I’ll defer to your insights. All I know is that the interviewer was very impressed with her and gave her a very strong recommendation. But maybe she would have been accepted anyway, she was a very strong candidate (36 ACT with straight A’s).
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I agree that your D was probably on the acceptance list before the interview. Our son now at Bowdoin also had an amazing Midd alumni interview here locally in a coffee shop that went three hours. They really hit it off. Son was waitlisted. The interviewer even contacted him after decisions were sent to say he enjoyed meeting him and asked if he got in. S19 didn’t take the WL spot but all of this to say that I don’t think alumni interviews do much but show interest on the part of the candidate.
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Note that the ~95% figure pertains to Colby’s admitted applicants. Therefore it can’t be compared directly to the enrolled student profiles for Hamilton and Bowdoin.
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College Transition Dataverse has comprehensive stats on entering class (Fall 2020) profiles: College Admissions Statistics
According to it:
School: HS10% HS 25% HS50%
Colby: 74% 89% 95%
Bowdoin : 84% 97% 100%
Middlebury: 80% 98% 100%
Hamilton: 86% 99% 100%
It provides SAT/ACT stats too, if you choose to submit.
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All fine and well but there are lots of prep school kids at all of these, and most do not rank in any way. So how do they actually know their class rank?
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A lot of public schools don’t rank either - ours doesn’t. They show a distribution of gpa’s but it doesn’t correspond to a typical 10%, 25% breakdown. I’ll guess these figures are reflective of kids who report these stats - what % of the total that is, is another question.
For schools that don’t provide class rankings, colleges typically rely on past year profiles of the high school to put into context the applicant’s stats, like GPA, APs took, etc. Most HS profiles have matriculation college list, APs offered, grade range, and distribution. When my son contacted a few colleges for athletic recruit opportunities, they ask his stats and his school profile.
Some HS publish their profile, some keep it private but you can get it from your college counselor.
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A significant proportion of applicants’ high schools do not report class rank, so these data are misleading. If you go to Bowdoin’s 2020-21 CDS one can see that only 34% of Bowdoin matriculants reported HS rank. I would not extrapolate the data of that portion of the class to the remaining 66%.
This is exactly what college AOs do using the HS profile. For HSs that do not rank, they tend to not provide data on the profile that would allow for a back door rank calculation…HSs stopped ranking students specifically because they do not want to share that data. Most colleges do not try to infer/calculate a class rank if one is not provided on the transcript.
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Exactly. Our HS shows gpa distribution but it doesn’t correspond to 10%, 25% etc - there isn’t any way to know exactly where a given student might fall as the buckets are pretty big.
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However, statistical methods, such as those using coefficients of homogeneity or coefficients of historical consistency, can compensate for incomplete information, especially in comparing across colleges. Nonetheless, difficulties arise when researching colleges such as Colby, which hasn’t provided a Common Data Set in several years (therefore, it’s not clear where College Transitions obtained its information in such a case).
Within NESCAC schools, with similar demographics, high school rankings should be a comparable metric (not the only metric). It would be apples and oranges if comparing a SLAC against a large public university as so many control factors are vastly different.
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Comparing Conn College and Bowdoin, or Trinity and Williams, would be like comparing apples and oranges too (although I agree closer than comparing any with a large public)…but they are different schools and attract a different set of students.
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Can you elaborate? Thanks.
On average, students at Williams and Bowdoin are stronger academically. I also think they tend to be more outdoorsy. My perception is that there are more cross apps between Williams and Bowdoin than either of those with Trinity and/or Conn College (lots of cross apps between Trinity and CC too). IMO, YMMV, no popcorn needed.
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Thanks.
Check out their Econ and Env departments’ faculty and courses, which provide you with more concrete insight than rankings. A course catalog closely aligned with your interest and faculty background that inspires you are more important than a few spot differences on various rankings.
Also, have you visited these colleges? All these are great colleges and you won’t go wrong with any one of them in terms of academics… it often comes down to a gut feeling. My son visited both Williams and Middlebury but feels more at home with Middlebury. For another person, it could go the other way.
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Did you submit your EDII application to Middlebury, @clairebean?
Hi everyone! I have been quite busy with my applications and hearing back so I wanted to post an update. Thank you all for your support and helpful information. I submitted EDII to Middlebury but was rejected. I then put in applications to Hamilton, Colby, Bowdoin, skidmore, colgate, Boston college, Dickinson, St Lawrence and Dartmouth. I had also been accepted early to UVM, Umass honors, U of Utah honors. Here is how my list played out:
accepted: Dickinson, SLU, Skidmore and Hamilton
waitlist: BC, Colby, and Colgate
Denied: Bowdoin
yet to hear back : dartmouth.
So right now it looks like Hamilton 2026! The only thing that would sway that is an acceptance to Dartmouth or maybe a waitlist admission from Boston college. So I am happy with how things turned out, I was really sad about Middlebury and Bowdoin but Hamilton is still an amazing place.
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congratulations! that’s wonderful that you ended up with a yes from a school that was high on your list! my d23 he’s also very interested in the same school so you were and I’m looking forward to touring Hamilton with her next week. Curious where was your ED1 school? congratulations!
also Did you submit test for us to all schools