How is Middlebury if one doesn’t plan on going to Grad school? Can students start successful careers from a small LAC like Middlebury?
@gearsstudio Yes the size doesn’t matter. The school is very well known to people that matter.
@intparent The difference in test scores is de minimus between Middlebury and Williams. In fact in regular decision the overlap is so great with most of these schools you simply cannot predict an outcome, especially those that look at demonstrated interest, have gender issues, desired field of study, geographical priorities and things like which school needs a piano player more for the theatre department. These schools only have about 350 seats to fill in RD, maybe more for Middlebury but not much. Will Middlebury accept a slightly above average kid that is deemed not likely to attend? I doubt it.
There is a 110 point difference in the 25% range (didn’t calculate the rest). That is not “de minimus”.
@intparent Yes it is. First, when you get to the 98th percentile which is the case here, there are simply not enough students scoring at this level to say it is substantial, or for a school to make a 75 point difference in Math and CR in the same percentile a determining factor in the admissions.
Is statistically Williams harder to get in, well yes but ask yourself how many students this applies to. De Minimus is the correct term.
You will find no pattern on acceptances or rejections significant enough to talk about. Whether a student gets accepted or rejected from these two will in have virtually nothing to do with test scores.
By standardized scores, Williams places 17th nationally, Middlebury 51st. For the de minimus argument to pertain regarding test scores, it would then by logic need to apply to all 37 (accounting for ties) colleges encompassed by this range.
(“The 610 Smartest Colleges” / Business Insider.)
According to the 2015-16 CDS for Midd and Williams, Williams has higher average SAT and ACT scores, but certainly not by a wide margin. For math and writing, there is a 20 point difference on the high and low ends. Critical reading shows a wider gap (40 points on the low end, 30 points on the high end).
Critical Reading (25%-75%):
Midd: 630-750
Williams: 670-780
Math (25%-75%):
Midd: 640-750
Williams: 660-770
Writing (25%-75%:
Midd: 650-760
Williams: 670-780
ACT:
Midd: 29-33
Williams: 31-34
One thing to tuck in the back of your head is that boys have a slight advantage over girls at LACs and the East Coast LACs are very, very popular. So your D may have everything that could bring admittance to a school like Middlebury but still wind up rejected or waitlisted. You may want to look at similar schools off the East Coast, such as Carleton or Grinnell.
College Navigator shows a 19% accept rate for Williams and a 17% for Midd.
Most recently, Williams reported 16.8%, Middlebury, 19.9% (individual college websites).
I went to Williams and, while I’m biased enough to think it’s superior, I must admit that the two schools are of similar selectivity and prestige.
17.6 on the latest cds, http://provost.williams.edu/files/williams_cds_1516.pdf but 16.8 on web site for Williams: http://communications.williams.edu/news-releases/3_26_2015_admits/
I wonder why Williams says one in web page but the other in the CDS (did the math - 1212/6883=17.6%).
17% for Midd http://www.middlebury.edu/newsroom/node/492768
We’re splitting irrelevant hairs, I realize.
Edited to add, apparently the Williams CDS counts those who were accepted from the waitlist while the web page announcement does not. Is that number normally counted in admit rates?
Some discrepancies arise depending on when the information is reported. Figures reported in March will differ from those reported in September as students are taken off waitlists.
Also from the CDS, last year’s admit rate at Middlebury for girls was 15.8% and for boys was 18.9%. So, while it is not true that all LACs are tougher to get into for girls than for boys, it does appear to be true for Midd, though the differences are not huge.
@LeftofPisa Why is it that boys have an advantage over girls at LAC’s?
Most colleges receive more female applicants vs. male applicants and schools want to try to keep the gender balance as even as possible so admissions winds up being more competitive for women.
@rayrick It is more substantial than you think. Look at the ratio of rejected females to rejected males. It is about 1.4:1.
@ferrarepatrick73, I would argue that rejection numbers are the wrong metric to look at and acceptance rates are the right one. Consider the case of a school that gets twice as many female applicants as males (let’s say 2000 female and 1000 male applicants). Let’s say they’re okay with a 2-to-1 female to male ratio on their campus, and don’t bother to adjust acceptance rates down for women, admitting exactly 20% of both genders. They would then reject 1600 women and 800 men. Does the fact that twice as many females are rejected as males make it twice as hard to get in for the females? Of course not. both genders have exactly a 1 in 5 shot of getting admitted. That makes about as much sense as saying it’s “harder” for women to get into, say, Penn State than Middlebury, because Penn State rejects three times as many women.
@OHMomof2 The CDS is calculated during fall semester, using the final admit numbers including waitlists, while the initial web page announcement includes only the initial RD (and of course ED) admits.
@LeftofPisa Indeed, looking a sampling of top LACs, boys are accepted at higher rates than girls, sometimes significantly so.
Male:Female Admit Rate Ratio
Pomona: 15.2% / 10.2% = 1.49
Bowdoin: 16.8% / 13.5% = 1.25
Swarthmore: 14.0% / 11.4% = 1.23
Carleton: 25.5% / 20.7% = 1.23
Middlebury: 18.9% / 15.8% = 1.20
Williams: 18.7% / 16.6% = 1.13
Wesleyan: 25.6% / 22.7% = 1.13
Amherst: 15.0% / 13.4% = 1.12
Interesting data, @goldenbear2020. I wonder to what extent this a phenomenon particularly associated with the very most selective LACs? I looked at the male/female admit rates at a couple of less selective schools that my son is considering, Whitman and St. Olaf, and, despite both those schools having a pretty significant gender imbalance in both student body and applicants, their male/female admit rates were virtually identical. Maybe less selective schools are more loathe to turn away high quality applicants, regardless of gender, where the most selective schools have the luxury of such an abundance of highly qualified applicants that they feel okay turning away a greater percentage of women in the interest of on-campus gender balance? Just a theory. Would make an interesting little study, actually.
Harvey Mudd is an LAC that slants the other way in admissions. Women are admitted at a higher rate than men, also to help keep the genders balanced because so many more women apply.