<p>Hello,
My son visited yesterday and loves the school.Has moved to the top of his list.
Does anyone have any experience with how Midds financial aid is compared with some of their equals?
Thanks</p>
<p>Middlebury gives the best financial aid packages among its “competitors”… this is due to its huge endowments… However, each case is different…
What I have understood is that Middlebury looks deeply into each individuals case… and this personalized approach is probably what makes packages bigger… I think they really want to help those who are in financial need…</p>
<p>While Middlebury does have a large endowment, there are a number of other schools among its peer group that do have larger endowments. I’m not a current student so maybe things have changed, but I’ve always understood that Middlebury has very good FA. (they will meet all demonstrated need of those accepted). However, your opinion on “demonstrated need” and Middlebury’s opinion may differ. While I was a student I knew plenty of people who were attending for free. I think they do a very good job with FA, but I’m not sure I’d go so far as to say that they give the “best” FA packages. Part of that is due to the fact that their peer group is made up of so many top schools. If Midd wants you enough, they will do quite a bit to get you there. The problem these days, is that the economy has hit Educational institutions hard and every school is having some difficulty with FA. Middlebury, just a few years ago, used to count itself among the very few schools that was need-blind for international students. Today, they have left that very small list (as have a few others). They do, however, remain need blind for US students.</p>
<p>urbanslaughter is right… i totally agree…
I said the best FA packages as Midd is among the three LACs (Amherst and Williams) are the other two) that are need-blind for international…+ Midd meets 100% of demonstrated need for EVERY accepted student…</p>
<p>Just a clarification to MiddKidGR’s post and urbanslaughter’s: Middlebury has not been need-blind for international students for more than a decade. This was made more public in in 2006-07 following the completion of its strategic plan, but it has not been need blind for internationals since many years before the recent recession.</p>
<p>That said, Midd still has 10-11% internationals, which is high for its peer schools (higher than Amherst or Williams, for example), and it still gives a generous amount of aid to internationals.</p>
<p>PantherPride99: you have a point…
…anyway… everything is here: [Financial</a> Aid | Middlebury](<a href=“Affordability | Middlebury College”>Affordability | Middlebury College)</p>
<p>In my experience, not so great. I got in, but I would have to pay more than my mother’s salary per year to attend. Midd wants me to pay eight times as much as a couple of the other schools I got into (none of which gave me money based on merit either).</p>
<p>Doesn’t mean it’s not great overall, though, as I may be an unusual case. My situation is very messy considering I have no idea how much my noncustodial parent makes (his income could skew my EFC, which would kill my aid package even though he won’t be paying for anything).</p>
<p>In general, Middlebury’s aid packages are very generous. Different schools calculate demonstrated need differently, so it’s not surprising that there are wide variations in awards. Middlebury (and most of its East Coast peers) does not offer merit aid. For the Class of 2014, the average grant amount was $32,484.</p>
<p>Thanks for all of your input.Hopefully, our experience will follow suit in the fall.
Have a great day.</p>
<p>PantherPride. Just to be pedantic, just a few years ago (not over a decade) Middlebury left the list of schools that are need blind for internationals and that list has continued to get smaller ever since. I don’t have the exact year, but it was between 2 and 5 years ago.</p>
<p>I can’t speak to the general trend, but it is worth noting that I received better packages from both Grinnell and Pomona. Middlebury’s was still very generous, though.</p>
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<p>It probably would be more helpful to get a better sense of how they compare. A $31K package is better than a $30K package, but so is a $50K package compared to a $10K package. Get my drift?</p>
<p>Ok. It would have been something like $50k vs $46k, a pretty significant amount for my family.</p>
<p>How was the breakout of loans vs. grants?</p>
<p>Both are grants only, no loans or work study included. Work study was roughly $2k at each.</p>
<p>Wow. Those are all pretty generous packages!</p>
<p>UrbanSlaughter: not to beat the pedantic point to death…but it doesn’t matter when Midd came off of “a list.” Lists sometimes have a lag time to them, and in this case, that lag time was likely due to Midd’s slowness in explaining its policy before its most recent strategic plan — the one the trustees approved in 2006-07.</p>
<p>Trust me: I was on the strategic planning committee and this was a major point pushed by the president–to be more open about financial aid policies, along with including, for the first time in 2006 all the SAT scores for Middlebury matriculants, as opposed to the old practice of only reporting the 50-55% of those matrics who chose the SAT Is (vs ACTs and SAT IIs) for the admissions process. Avg scores went down 50-60 pts (combined M and V), but the president felt the numbers reflected better who was coming to Middlebury and thereby would not dissuade some great students with 1370-1400 SATs from applying (since the 55% reporting led to reporting scores higher than Williams, Amherst, and Swarthmore, which was not the case). </p>
<p>Fin Aid for internationals has not been need-blind at Midd for at least 10 and most likely 15 years (though, as I posted, it is still very generous).</p>
<p>I am a physician and my husband is an academic at a top 50 LAC. We qualified for aid at Midd with our 2nd child attending basically for free-loan,grant and work-study. It was not “generous”, but reasonable. They will both have about $45k of loans to attend Midd-comparable to the price of many people’s cars, in my thinking.</p>
<p>Anyone knows Middlebury’s approach to transfer applicants requesting FA? I cannot find much more information on transfer FA…but as an international student guess it would be like suicide?</p>
<p>Once again thanks for everyones input.I started this thread due to the fact that my son wants to attend and participate in a vareity sport.The thought of him going ED1 without a FA preread makes me very nervous.From all of your posts it appears that Midd does seem to meet ones EFC.Obviously, there are no guarantees but it does make me feel a little better.</p>