<p>We spent a couple days at Middlebury recently.
From what we could observe, much of the social life seems to revolve around sports. The soccer players tend to eat, hang out, and go to parties with the soccer players. The rugby players tend to eat, hang out, and go to parties with the rugby players. Etc.</p>
<p>Almost everybody seems to play a sport. In the admissions office discussion session, when students introduced themselves, it seemed like every other young woman was a field hockey player from an exclusive private school in Minnesota or Colorado, California or New England. You don't see, for example, the brilliant but awkward farm boy from Nebraska (whom you might see at Harvard, Michigan, or MIT). There's an almost uniformly white, good-looking, athletic, well dressed appearance to the students. </p>
<p>Is this accurate? It's not necessarily a negative, it's just a question of whether someone who fits a different profile would fit in.</p>
<p>What if you're a kid who tends to be comfortable among a certain grunge, achingly cool, arty intellectual crowd that I imagine is more common at a place like Reed, or maybe Wesleyan? Suppose such a person has specific interests that are well met by Middlebury, is very outdoorsy, and loves the rural setting. Could Middlebury be a good match?</p>
<p>Yoda, could you elaborate just a little please?
Did you mean,
"Yes, that's an accurate description of Middlebury student life" or "Yes, it sounds like this kid could fit in just fine" ?</p>
<p>The brilliant awkward farm boys were probably studying in the library. If you think about it, Middlebury has the same number of athletes as other NESCAC schools (Williams, Amherst, Bowdoin, etc.). They all field the same number of NCAA teams. But with 2,500 students, Middlebury is considerably larger than most other NESCAC schools, meaning there will be more non-athletes in the mix.</p>
<p>That said, though, I feel like the vast majority of students here played at least one varsity sport in high school and are generally athletic people, regardless of whether or not they play in college. Middlebury is certainly a more athletic jocky school than a lot of other LACs.</p>
<p>That being said, I dont feel like the majority of students stick to a sports clique. Yeah, there are houses and parties sponsored by sports teams, but they are usually inclusive to anybody who wants to go, and a lot of people who aren't in that sport go. You will absolutely find people like you here, don't worry about that. They say that Middlebury students are not very diverse racially or economically but very different in their activities and interests.</p>
<p>I don't play any sports except for fun and I feel like I fit in fine, am happy socially, etc. I think if you're looking for grunge and achingly cool people... dunno so much about that because there aren't a whole lot of hipsters. You'll definitely find artsy and intellectual types though.</p>
<p>My S is a computer whiz political junkie who is a feb at Midd and loves it. He came from a very sports oriented public hs, and feels much more like he has social and intellectual compatriots at Midd.He doesn’t hang with the Febs exclusively, and has found it easy to “break in” to established groups centered around the Campus ECs. He loves it, and is glad he didn’t end up elsewhere.</p>
<p>We spent time at Williams, where a much larger percent of students play on a sports team-for the reason Arcadia mentions-and Amherst, which struck us as the home of the beautiful(smart) people.</p>
<p>My H went to MIT, and I can assure you, it is geek city,(he married me to dilute the geek factor and hopefully have some quasi-normal children) but if you look on the Midd web site, the recent Lego robotics contest photos will assure you that Midd is safe for geeks too.</p>
<p>Wait, Middlebury was always the home of beautiful (smart) people while I was there. Have we surrendered that title to the Lord Jeffs? Impossible.</p>