<p>hey
i'm an upcoming senior and i'm seriously considering applying to midd ED.</p>
<p>i visited the school and loved it. the campus is absolutely gorgeous. but i want to hear some things which you see as disadvantages or just bad things about the school.</p>
<p>my biggest fear is that it is all going to be prep schooled kids from the east coast.. no diversity. i know it has a decent amount of intl students (thats important to me) but i dont really want to go to a school with a bunch of yippie rich kids.</p>
<p>the things i liked:
small liberal arts. great education, esp in foreign languages (which i am interested in). beautiful campus and area (vermont was so nice). student body seems to be very active... in various organization and intramurals (that's important to me). good student-prof relations... no greek life. </p>
<p>so i dont really have a specific question i guess..
just any input would be nice...ppls opinions on middlebury and such.</p>
<p>If you liked it when you visited, you're fine. Personally, I had a bad visit at Middlebury and didn't like it, but I think that it was mostly due to my pathetic tour guides. That being said, I'm going to Bowdoin, which, really, is practically the same school. I had similar concerns, but I'm so excited to start now--everyone seems really friendly and happy to be going there. If you like Midd for the right reasons (its size, location, students, profs, social scene) then you'll probably be very happy with your decision. And truthfully, there will be a lot of east coast prep schoolers, but that is true of most of the northeastern LACs. They are always seeking out more diversity, though, and are slowly getting more diverse classes.</p>
<p>You'll have to face facts. All of the small E Coast good LACs have a large percentage of wealthy preps. If this will bother you, these schools are not for you.</p>
<p>I liked Midd, but, as you pointed out, it does have a lot of kids from prep school. But you'll find that at any northeast liberal arts college, and really, any prestigious northeats school. Outside of that, they have well-known and well-regarded foriegn language and English departments. The campus is amazing, but when I visited in mid April, the farmers were laying down manure and the whole place had a faint cow dung smell. Not something they really advertise.</p>
<p>As for the bad, I have heard rumblings, on this and other boards, about racism/antisemitism at Midd, moreso than any other college. Its probably isolated incidents and not rampant, but something to keep in mind.</p>
<p>Riki-what dorm are you in? I'm in west hall (one of the new ones).</p>
<p>My guide seemed kinda hungover and was flirting with the girl that was "shadowing" the tour and wouldn't answer any questions. When we got to that beautiful science building, he claimed that he wasn't a "science person" so he never used it---that just ruined my visit a bit. I'm positive that that is not the norm for Midd students; my english teacher went there and my french teacher taught there and had nothing but postive things to say about it. In any case, I actually did end up applying, but I was waitlisted. As it stood though, I was happy with my Bowdoin acceptance and didn't pursue it any further. I really do think it is a good school though, and if you like it, you should apply.</p>
<p>And hi! I'm in Maine Hall, and if you're on the facebook, I think I'm the only Erika in '09</p>
<p>I was valedictorian of my class with a 4.0 GPA. I'd taken 7 AP's with 5's on all 3 I took in junior year. I ran XC and played clarinet. I'd won a bunch of academic awards at my school, but I wasn't an EC superstar. As far as SATs go, I had: 800V/680M and 750 writing, 760 lit, 720 US History, 760 Bio. Looking back, I probably should've studied more and tried to raise the math score. I got a 5 on my AP Calc exam, so obviously I can add and subtract, but whatever. I was interested in Midd mainly for languages because I want to study french and had started taking German independent study classes as well. And I can't honestly say which school is harder to get into. I know Bowdoin's acceptance rate this year was 24%, but with schools that don't require SAT scores, it's hard to really tell which is truly more selective. I think they both try to look at the whole student and make a decision based on how well they would fit into the class they are trying to create. I imagine that in reality, they are similar in selectivity, but neither school is a safe bet for anyone.</p>
<p>Other schools you might be interested in Calz88: Dartmouth, Williams, Bowdoin, Swarthmore, Colby, Bates, Colgate, Davidson (a southern Midd, some say), Emory, Haverford, Tufts, Bucknell and Kenyon.</p>
<p>Calz, I would say that Midd and Bowdoin are equal in admissions difficulty. As small LACs, they both are preferrential to those who show interest, so its important to both visit and have an interview (on or off-campus). And since niether requires SATs, GPA and essays are focused on heavily. SAT scores, if submitted, are important too. I went to some "Inside College Admissions" thing at Midd for kids of alumini/professors, and they said that they reserve spots specifically for kids with high SATs.</p>
<p>IMO, The comments on “racism and anti-Semitism” are inaccurate. In fact from what I know Middlebury has the most inclusive environment among the the top LACs (Williams, Mid, Amherst, Swathmore, Pomona)</p>
<p>For details you could look at the following,</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Middlebury College will expand its partnership with The Posse Foundation when 10 students from Chicago enroll at the college in the fall of 2012. The foundation identifies, recruits and trains public high school students with leadership and academic potential to become Posse Scholars. The students receive four-year, full tuition scholarships from Posse’s partner colleges and universities, where they attend in teams, or “posses"
[Middlebury</a> adds a second Posse | Middlebury](<a href=“Middlebury News and Announcements”>Middlebury News and Announcements)</p></li>
<li><p>Middlebury also has one of the highest number of “davis Scholars” who are (mostly) international students who are politically and socially very active.
[Davis</a> United World College Scholars at Middlebury | Middlebury](<a href=“Davis UWC Scholars”>Davis UWC Scholars)</p></li>
</ol>
<p>With the incoming class of 2015 there will be more than 100 davis scholars and 80 Posse scholars providing for an amazingly diverse environment.</p>
<p>Look at some hard stats about the school… What % of kids are on financial aid? That tells you something. Usually about half qualify for some aid even at these schools with the private prep rich kid rep. Look at what the religious affiliations are if that is important to you. Does M have a Hillel chapter? Call them if you want find out how active it is, if this is important to you. Look at the % of miniorities, foreign students, OOSers. All of this gives some information. Compare it to other schools on your list and other school in general.</p>
<p>There is definitely Hillel and you can choose your roommate after first year (although Sophomore year you need to choose someone in your “commons” which is about 1/5 of the school). As far as wealthy preps, as a Midd parent I have met mostly kids who went to good suburban schools and maybe a few who went to private schools but no no one who went to a boarding school. Certainly they are there, but the number doesn’t seem to be huge. Many of the suburban kids seem to be careful about food and transportation costs, so everyone is not rich. Also, the effect of being well-off may not be as obvious in a rural school with an all-you-can eat meal plan as it would be in an urban school where students are going out in the city a lot on weekends and dressing accordingly.
Other great things about Midd: 1) your freshman seminar professor is your advisor, so you have someone who knows you well from class and not a randomly assigned person. 2)speaking of the meal plan, you don’t have to swipe a card or worry about points and can go in whenever you want which makes it easy to use the dining halls as a social meeting place as well, 3) there are a number of popular and interesting interdisciplinary majors—international studies and environmental studies and, 4) J-term is a great opportunity to have a different rythmn—focus on one course and have time to ski! (many other LACs have a January program but not all)</p>