<p>Do you see Middlebury as a top 3 LAC in the next 5 years? 10? Right now, US&World News ranks it 5th.... will it move up on the list or fall back down next year?</p>
<p>To be perfectly frank, no. Nothing about Middlebury sets it apart from the rest of the Northeast liberal arts schools. Williams, Amherst, and Swarthmore will more than likely maintain the top 3 position. If any school were to break into the top 3, it would be Pomona College. I see Haverford, Claremont McKenna, and Wellesley increasing in rank. Bowdoin will likely stay the same while Middlebury, Carleton, and Wesleyan drop.</p>
<p>Oh no, Gettysburg, Oberlin and Smith will certainly climb, Pomona, Hamilton, and Bates will drop, but Middlebury, Westpoint, and Trinity will stay the same. Ilyatx, your utter speculation supported by ZERO facts is ridiculous. You have no information to make you come to the conclusions you reached. I just randomly picked schools and my guesses are just as good as yours. </p>
<p>Williams and Amherst are likely to stay where they are. They’ve hardly moved over the last several years. Middlebury spent three years ranked number four and then dropped to number five this past year. Pomona sat at four for several years and dropped as low as (I believe six) before returning to four. Bowdoin has bounced around among the top ten over the last few years. Wellesley has, for a long time, been ranked number four, but now sits at six. This is what is so ridiculous about the rankings. Do you really believe that if Middlebury were to move up to the “top three” from four or five that it would actually be a better school? Do you honestly think that there are qualitative differences between the top five schools, or top ten for that matter? </p>
<p>The rankings are largely subjective. Any of the schools in the top ten are GREAT schools that anyone would be lucky to attend. Attend that school at which you feel the most comfortable, not the one with the best ranking. The rankings are bound to change. The quality of the schools is unlikely to change.</p>
<p>Middlebury is one of the top LACs in the northeast…I wouldn’t worry about the rankings one way or another. It likely will never move ahead of Williams/Amherst but is solidly in the top tier.</p>
<p>Do you really think it makes a huge difference if a school is ranked 4 instead of 3 or 6? The top LAC are all great schools and have a lot to offer students.</p>
<p>Hmmm. I always considered Middlebury a top LAC, up there with Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore, Pomona, CMC.</p>
<p>These are excellent, complex institutions, not horses in a race. Middlebury is a top LAC with many distinctive characteristics.</p>
<p>to my parents it does… and this is my favorite (!!!) school but they’d rather see me at amherst or princeton.</p>
<p>Middlebury is an awesome school, don’t let your parents misguided thinking sway you away.</p>
<p>More speculation without basis… You going to get in to Amherst and Pton?</p>
<p>[Dr</a>. Kat’s List: Colleges that Have Risen to Prominence in the Past 25 Years | ApplyWise.com](<a href=“http://www.applywise.com/apr09_up_and_coming.aspx]Dr”>http://www.applywise.com/apr09_up_and_coming.aspx)</p>
<p>The only arguments to be made in favor of Amherst’s prestige over Middlebury’s prestige are arbitrary, silly and subjective. There is no tangible difference. Just the same with Middlebury over Bowdoin, or any other comparable school with a slight edge in the LAC rankings over another. It does not matter. It will not get you more attention at dinner parties, it will probably not make you any more money, and, in general, whatever difference there is in these rankings will not impact your life.</p>
<p>If you were hoping that you’d get responses to support a thesis of Middlebury soon overcoming Amherst in the rankings and therefore somehow becoming “better” to show the parents: you need to seriously confront you parents about their diluted perspective on whatever “prestige” means to them. To answer the question in the OP: Middlebury probably will not overtake Amherst in the rankings. It’s just that such a ranking has almost no correlation to Middlebury’s quality or, indeed, improving quality.</p>
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<p>Well, you should be thrilled to know that it is far easier to be admitted at Middlebury than at the school you listed as peers. </p>
<p>So perhaps you should wish for the school to revert to its older rankings until you apply, and then hope for the ego rewarding climb in the popularity polls.</p>
<p>Xiggi, you’ve posted some classics over the years. I’ll grant you, that Amherst is slightly more selective than Middlebury, but at this level (where admission is basically a crapshoot) it’s not “far easier” to get admitted at Middlebury than at any other school. Kids with top SATs and top ranks are denied every year at all the top LACs. So you can’t say that admission is far easier at any of them.</p>
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<p>You are right because that sentence would make no sense whatsoever. What I did write (or say) is “that it is far easier to be admitted at Middlebury than at the school you listed as peers.” And that does NOT mean it is easy to be admitted. Easier than at the listed peer schools is … correct. </p>
<p>I could write that a Bentley is more expensive than a Mercedes. And that would not mean either is inexpensive.</p>
<p>^^^perhaps it’s your use of the word “far,” which implies a difference that is more substantial than your rebuttal suggests.</p>
<p>My rebuttal did not change anything about my original sentence.</p>
<p>That’s the beauty of using vague qualifiers. Amherst is “far” more selective than Middlebury in the same way that Middlebury is “far” better ranked than Claremont McKenna.</p>
<p>Thank you Arcadia. My point exactly.</p>
<p>Looks like Midd is back on the rise. USN&WR thinks so at least. Back at #4. Does anyone really believe there’s a real difference between #1 and #10, let alone #2 and #4?</p>