<p>Hi Curmudgeon:
It will be fun to follow your daugh and her muse this year... May I suggest that she pursue all the schools you visited and mentioned this post As If they are her faves because they are each rather difficult admits...even with her excellent profile and fine prospects. She could have a wonderful life at any of the three. We also felt the facilities at Middlebury were superbly architecturally wonderful and would make for a cozy place to hole up in the snowy winters. The gym and pool were built for a school twice the size in our view! I recently read the book BINGE written by a Hamilton grad and Hamilton trustee who is a semitired Time magazine journalist. He visited and lived in the dorms of many top colleges that my son pursued last year and I was curious about his observations. I think the title really stinks but his experiences with students at UVa, Berkeley, Duke, Dartmouth and others places made for current commentary that was of interest to me as a parent. He wrote quite an interesting chapter on Hamilton. A doc in my town is a Colgate grad and I have to say I think he is one of the most principled and interesting parents I know. We ran into a Middlebury student wearing a better cashmere coat than my husband owns on our plane last fall...very preppy but not to discount his future worth to our nation etc...and Middlebury recruits and supports many interesting kids who are on scholarships that add a lot of diversity to the community of scholars. all good</p>