<p>Does applying to Midd with a preference of matriculating in February help chances of admission at all?</p>
<p>According to admissions...no...everyone tries that trick.</p>
<p>What if you are an EDer applying for Feb?</p>
<p>Several Midd students I know, applied for freshman fall admission and were offered admission only if they agreed to Feb entry. Is this common?</p>
<p>At my D's school and at others in our area, the students who check that they will be either regular or Febs and are offered admission conditional on their being Febs generally have markedly weaker academic stats than their classmates who check the "either" option and are offered Sept. admission. That is, some combination of lower class rank, lower GPA, less demanding courses, significant weakness on one side or the other of the math&sciences/humanities divide, and lower standardized testing. That said, the Feb admits we know often do seem to have strong social skills and adaptability or other characteristics that are known to be important indicia of overall success as an adult.</p>
<p>As an admitted Feb for the Class of 2010.5, I can wholeheartedly refute that statement. I was the Valedictorian of my class and had a full load of AP courses as a Senior. I don't know about your "D's" school, but the students offered February admission at Middlebury are not weaker academically. The main reason that students who check "either" are admitted as Febs is because the admissions office sees something in their applications that tells them that the student can handle a semester off, and will be a breath of fresh air come February. This is in addition to a high GPA and rigorous workload, not a replacement for strong academics. If anything, students admitted for February have to be academically strong in order to be able to jump back into the scene after taking time off. February admission should not be mistaken for deferral in any way, and no, it is not a backdoor into the college.</p>
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<p>ace223 is 100% correct. There is no difference in the academic credentials between sept admits and feb admits. In fact, Middlebury's own studies have shown that Febs tend to hold more leadership positions on campus (proportionally) than sept admits. Febs tend to be more social and able to adjust to the college community.</p>
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<p>I did not mean to insult anyone. I apologize. My generalizations cast far too wide a net. </p>
<p>I've long thought that the Middlebury students who come in at mid-year are amazing to fit in so well in medias res -- and that Midd is an extraordinary place to offer the Feb program and make it work so well.</p>
<p>Over the years, I have known a dozen or so applicants, all male, and all from two local high schools who have been offered places as Febs. (Only two accepted their offers, for reasons I don't know.) I now think that that sample of kids is an anomaly and probably is the result of a college counselor strategy at their high schools. I wonder whether having some of them apply as Febs is a college counselor strategy in our area. Other parents offer it as a truism that applying as a Feb boosts students' chances at admission. It is especially bandied about as a strategy for male applicants who have had weaker freshman and sophomore years but strongly come into their own academically in their junior and senior years -- not, I surmise, the profiles of the two students who (rightfully) took exception to my statements.</p>
<p>Again, I apologize.</p>
<p>Server quit and wouldn't take my edit of post #8, so I'm resending the corrected version -</p>
<p>I did not mean to insult anyone. I apologize. My generalizations cast far too wide a net. </p>
<p>I've long thought that the Middlebury students who come in at mid-year are amazing to fit in so well in medias res -- and that Midd is an extraordinary place to offer the Feb program and make it work.</p>
<p>Over the years, I have known a dozen or so applicants, all male and all from two local high schools, who have been offered places as Febs. (Only two accepted their offers, and I don't know why the others turned their Midd offers down.) I now think that that sample of kids is an anomaly and probably is the result of a college counselor strategy at the two high schools. Parents at the two schools offer it as a truism that applying as a Feb boosts students' chances at admission. It is especially bandied about as a strategy for male applicants who have had weaker freshman and sophomore years but strongly come into their own academically in their junior and senior years -- not, I surmise, the profiles of the two recent posters who (rightfully) took exception to my statements.</p>
<p>Again, I apologize.</p>