<p>the level of students at Middlebury...
with which national university's students is it comparable? the Ivies?</p>
<p>It is one of the Top Liberal Arts Schools- comparable to Williams and Amherst</p>
<p>I mean comparable with National Universities, not other LAC's</p>
<p>ohh.... how about Duke and Georgetown?!</p>
<p>well, IF you believe that USNews' peer assessment score (which is a subjective reputation index) gets you in the ballpark for this comparison (& there is plenty of debate on Peer scores here on CC), here's how the landscape for Top National Universities & Top LACs look combined.</p>
<p>Peer score ranking
Rank/School/Score
1. Harvard 4.9
1. MIT 4.9
1. Princeton 4.9
1. Stanford 4.9
1. Yale 4.9
6. Amherst 4.7
6. Cal Berkeley 4.7
6. Cal Tech 4.7
6. Chicago 4.7
6. Williams 4.7
11. Columbia 4.6
11. Cornell 4.6
11. JHU 4.6
11. Swarthmore 4.6
15. Duke 4.5
15. Michigan 4.5
15. Penn 4.5
15. Wellesley 4.5
19. Brown 4.4
19. Dartmouth 4.4
19. Northwestern 4.4
19. Carleton 4.4
23. Bowdoin 4.3
23. Middlebury 4.3******
23. Pomona 4.3
23. Smith 4.3
23. UCLA 4.3
23. Virginia 4.3
23. Wesleyan 4.3
30. Bryn Mawr 4.2
30. Carnegie Mellon 4.2
30. Grinnell 4.2
30. Haverford 4.2
30. Oberlin 4.2
30. UNC 4.2
30. Wisconsin 4.2
37. Davidson 4.1
37. Georgetown 4.1
37. Harvey Mudd 4.1
37. Rice 4.1
37. Texas 4.1
37. Vanderbilt 4.1
37. Vassar 4.1
37. Washington USTL 4.1</p>
<p>So, looking at national u's with peer score within +/- 0.1 from Middlebury's 4.3, you have:</p>
<p>Brown
Dartmouth
Northwestern
UCLA
Virginia
Carnegie Mellon
UNC
Wisconsin</p>
<p>Of course, "level of students" is not precisely peer academic reputation.</p>
<p>To read a bit into your question, I think you'll see students in general on par with some of the "lower" ivies & some other very strong national u's.</p>
<p>Taking a long-term view, with the rise in college applicants over the past decade & fixed supply from the historic elite institutions, someone who was a sure thing at an Ivy not too long ago, may now be looking at the high-LACs....put another way, colleges like Middlebury are surely enrolling now folks who would have been Ivy in the recent past....for what its worth.</p>