I know that prestige isn’t everything, but I have a ton of schools on my list, and need to get rid of some!
how does midd compare to schools like umich, boston college, notre dame, emory when it comes to rank? and does midd tend to be more holistic than the ones I listed? please provide some schools comparable to midd as well!
In large part, it’s comparing apples and oranges for most of these schools, which are larger research universities though Emory is closest to Middlebury I think in terms of size (though Emory has a lot of grad students). It depends if you are looking for a LAC or not. Prestige is in the eyes of the beholder often. Personally, I would prefer Middlebury to all three of the others for my kids. Comparable schools to Midd. – Bowdoin, Williams, Amherst, Vassar. If you want a larger school experience, I would choose Michigan over ND and Emory.
If you haven’t played with this interactive tool from 2012, it’s kind of fun to explore.
http://chronicle.com/article/Who-Does-Your-College-Think/134222/
I love this tool- especially comparing who the college links itself to v. who links itself to the college- and the usually short list of colleges that cross-list each other 
Some colleges think very highly of themselves…
anyway, OP, the schools on your list are wildly different from each other. ND or Midd?! You might need to spend a little more time thinking about not just what you like about them but what they are like overall.
@collegemom3717 Like I stated in the original post, I know prestige is not everything, I just wanted to see what universities were academically parallel to Midd, because I am new to LACs. So, the key word is academic, not anything else
@arcadia thank you for the helpful link!
@coycam7, I wasn’t talking about prestige. You said “I have a ton of schools on my list, and need to get rid of some”. Well, Middlebury is a pretty liberal place, Notre Dame is a very conservative place. One has co-ed dorms, the other has strict parietal rules. Not a lot of people would be equally happy at both. If you are looking for ways to trim your list that is one.
Even for strictly academics, ‘rank’ is not a single thing. All of them are places where you can get a great education. For example, Emory is known for it’s pre-professional (pre-law, pre-med, etc) strength - is that what you are looking for?
You keep asking about ‘holistic’ by which you seem to mean ‘mostly ignores GPA’. If that’s what you want, you should be looking at schools like Hampshire and Bard.
Not many schools are holistic in that sense.
Schools with holistic admissions, like Middlebury for example, have soft but real GPA and SAT cutoffs, after which they decide based on essays, LORs, ECs etc. Middlebury has an average GPA (unweighted) of 3.76. Notre Dame has an average GPA of 3.77. You can look up where BC and UMich come in via Google.
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@NavalTradition Hi,
I am not trying to be mean, but I do not need a lesson on what holistic actually means.
here is what I said to another user:
yes, I do know what holistic means. I am saying that holistic schools tend to consider EC’s and essays more than schools that only look at numbers. For example, NYU is definitely holistic compared to UVA or WM.
Thank you though, and I assume that Midd is holistic, because ND’s acceptance rate is 26%, while Midd’s is 17 with a lower avg gpa
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Where did you get the GPA statistics? Neither school reports high school GPA
nevermind
Missed this:
Bard does not mostly ignore GPA. To the contrary, GPA is considered very important and ~95% of matriculated students are in the top 25% of their high school class.
Hampshire also doesn’t ‘ignore’ the GPA.
https://www.hampshire.edu/admissions/admissions-criteria
Naval, it’s laudable that you’re taking the time to assist others, however, it’s imperative that the information is more or less accurate. 
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@CrewDad and @NavalTradition - you’re both right about Bard. In the regular admission process grades are a very important consideration. However, Bard now has an alternative application - different from every school anywhere, I think. One does not submit grades or scores - instead, through the Bard Entrance Exam one writes four 2500 word essays picked from a subject list provided. Those essays are then graded by Bard professors. If the essays combined receive a B+ - the student is admitted. Only after admission are transcripts sent. It’s really quite an extraordinary admissions process for those students who may not have excelled in the high school setting but whom are more than capable of excelling in a college setting. http://www.bard.edu/bardexam/
“The Bard Entrance Examination offers a new way to apply to Bard that bypasses existing standardized tests and admission processes, leveling the playing field among applicants worldwide. The examination enables motivated students to gain admission through an essay test, engaging applicants in a process that more closely mirrors actual college coursework. The examination is composed of essay questions in three categories: Social Science, History, and Philosophy; Arts and Literature; and Science and Mathematics. Applicants are required to complete four of 21 questions with 2,500-word essays.”
Crewdad: My fault for using those two excellent schools as rhetorical foils. I’ll gladly amend that to “even schools like Hampshire and Bard don’t mostly ignore GPA (outide of Bard’s all-essay option anyway).” What the OP is looking for doesn’t exist.
^^
Your integrity is commendable. No harm no foul.
I also erred. I wasn’t aware of the essay option.