<p>As a testament to how competitive Middlebury admissions is getting, check out this New York Times article. It profiles several students, one of whom applied to Midd ED, was deferred and ultimately waitlisted. She was accepted RD at Dartmouth.</p>
<p>Middletoot</p>
<p>Lol...just a friendly jab</p>
<p>"A few days later, Alex found out that she’d been wait-listed at Middlebury. With great pleasure, she told them to take her off the list."</p>
<p>...the girl got waitlisted while 2 less qualified "athletes" were admitted. </p>
<p>Seems to me evidence that Midd prefers athletics to academics.</p>
<p>What article did you read? Certainly not the one that I did. Where in the article does it say that 1) the "outstanding" athletes were less academically qualified, or 2) that they were accepted to Middlebury? I didn't see it. Please enlighten me...</p>
<p>...who got in to Midd was not in the NYT article.</p>
<p>But, who goes where from Bronxville HS is published in the local newspaper. The local papers also publish lists of local athletes that have been recruited to play in college. Both athletes were listed as going to Midd. And one of the 2 athletes was the subject of a lengthy feature article about how he was recruited by Midd. It is indisputable that the 2 athletes DID get in and a girl academically gifted enough to be admitted to Dartmouth was wait listed.</p>
<p>The local paper also publishes a list of the academic awards won by the members of the graduating class. The student going to Dartmouth won boatloads of them. Midd's loss.</p>
<p>
[quote]
is indisputable that the 2 athletes DID get in and a girl academically gifted enough to be admitted to Dartmouth was wait listed.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>You assume that because someone is an outstanding athlete that they're not academically gifted? And I'm sure that Dartmouth has never admitted an athletic recruit who wasn't as academically gifted as someone who was waitlisted or rejected. Seriously, is there any college that doesn't tip outstanding kids (be it in football, playing the violin, logrolling, debate, etc.)? Dartmouth is no different than Middlebury in this respect. Methinks that as the college admission process gets more and more competitive, we're going to be seeing a lot more kids getting waitlisted/rejected from Middlebury (and Bowdoin, Haverford, Wesleyan, etc.) and into Dartmouth, Harvard, etc.</p>
<p>Please, please don't assume if A then not B. My d is leaving for her official to her third Ivy on Saturday. She easily meets the entering freshman range for test scores, GPA and EC's. She's also a nationally ranked athlete. She's not the exception. The other girls she's met on visits this fall have similar stats. Let's dispel the dumb athlete myth one more time. It's a disservice to kids who have worked really hard, and not just at practice.</p>
<p>... whenever someone points out the preferences shown to recruited athletes in college admissions there's always a "my son, the All State quarterback also got 2400's on his SAT's" response.</p>
<p>Of course there are lots of great athletes that are great students too. But it is absolutely indisputable that the average academic qualifications of recruited athletes at the Ivy's and NESCAC schools are not as high as those of the admitted classes as a whole. There are a couple of recent books on this subject and Williams College commissioned a very interesting report on the topic. You can also check out this Amherst College chart: <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_09/b3973092.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_09/b3973092.htm</a>. </p>
<p>On this chart recruited athletes ranked 3.5 on a 1 to 7 scale. There are lots of parents that would be pleased to see their kids get 1350 on their SATs and get As and Bs, but those kids aren't getting into Amherst (or Middlebury) without help from the college coaches. </p>
<p>I'm sorry someone might think an academically superior student athlete is a "dumb jock" but that prejudice results from the fact that it was easier for that kid to get into the college than it was for his non athlete classmates. The way to dispel the "myth" is to get rid of the admissions preference, not deny that the preference exists. In this way, riverrunner's daughter would be sailing into her Ivy League schools and no one would think it was for any reason other than her smarts. (And by the way, remember the published GPA and SAT ranges are brought down by the athletic admits! )</p>
<p>You can argue that athletes bring something else to the table and should receive this preference. You can also argue that evaluating HS kids on their GPA's and test scores is an uncertain business. These are valid arguments but certainly debatable. But don't deny there are preferences shown. </p>
<p>I'll take Arcadia's point that Middlebury is no different than its competition in this regard. I'm not sure the 'everybody is doing it' argument is all that compelling but I guess the institutions want to have winning sports teams. I'd ask why? Isn't college about intellectual pursuits? Unless your son is on the team, who cares if the Middlebury football team wins or loses? Why isn't Swarthmore's minimal athletic recruiting a better model for Middlebury? </p>
<p>As to whether kids will start turning down Dartmouth for Middlebury, well, maybe. They don't have far to go. Middlebury's "win percentage" against Dartmouth for the Middlebury Class of '08 was 33%. That means that 33% of kids admitted to both Middlebury and Dartmouth that year chose Middlebury. Interestingly, the win percentage for that class was worse against Williams (20%) and Amherst (22%).</p>
<p>The Ivies and LACs have made a commitment to continuing the tradition of the student/athlete. Not everyone values this ideal, but certainly it persists in selective US colleges and universities.</p>
<p>Not sure where you got a 33% "win" percentage. I've read 15%.</p>
<p>I think I read that Middlebury loses more of its admits to Dartmouth than it does to any other school - but that Amherst does best, percentage wise, head on with Middlebury.</p>
<p>
[quote]
It is indisputable that the 2 athletes DID get in and a girl academically gifted enough to be admitted to Dartmouth was wait listed.
[/quote]
Ivy League schools like Dartmouth (which are in NCAA Division I) actually have more relaxed standards for athletic recruiting than NESCAC schools like Middlebury (in NCAA Division III). The Ivies admit more athletic tips (as a percentage of the student body) and can go lower on SATs and GPAs (relative to class averages) to admit talented athletes. </p>
<p>So overall, Middlebury will make fewer concessions to athletes than Dartmouth will. Dartmouth has to do more, because it competes at a higher level; in fact, Dartmouth competes at the highest possible, national championship level in some sports (e.g. skiing, ice hockey). The Middlebury athletic programs are not in the same league, in both the literal and figurative senses.</p>
<p>This is a touchy issue, but one factor that may have played a role in this specific case is gender imbalance in applications. </p>
<p>Midd has a particularly strong reputation in fields like foreign languages, English, and creative writing. These are all areas where female high school students are more likely to excel than male students. Not surprisingly, Midd gets significantly more female applicants than male applicants, and the female applicants may be particularly well qualified. </p>
<p>Dartmouth, on the other hand, gets more male applicants. This may possibly reflect its traditional "Animal House" reputation, or perhaps its program in engineering, a field that is more likely to attract male applicants (and which is not offered at Midd).</p>
<p>But both schools want to have more or less balanced classes. So Midd has lower acceptance rates for female applicants and higher acceptance rates for male applicants. At Dartmouth, this pattern is reversed. </p>
<p>Dartmouth may be more selective than Midd overall. But it wouldn't surprise me if a female applicant with strengths in foreign languages, English, creative writing, etc. actually runs into more intense competition at Midd.</p>
<p>Thanks for this comparison, Corbett. The persistant story is that women aren't very comfortable at Dartmouth. Anyone care to comment?</p>
<p>I did a quick scan of the most recent Common Data Sets for Midd and other peer institutions, to measure the % difference between male and female applications. A positive percentage means more female applicants, which is the norm today. The magnitude of the difference is shown below:</p>
<ul>
<li>35.2 % Middlebury</li>
<li>25.4 % Bowdoin</li>
<li>25.0 % Bates</li>
<li>22.3 % Amherst</li>
<li>11.5 % Colby</li>
<li>11.1 % Hamilton</li>
<li>06.9 % Williams</li>
<li>02.2 % Dartmouth</li>
</ul>
<p>All of these schools, except Dartmouth, have a surplus of female applicants. But this discrepancy is most pronounced at Middlebury. Why? My guess -- and I have no data to back this up -- is that Midd strongly attracts people with interests in languages and writing, and that such people are more likely to be female. If you fit this description, then you may face unusually stiff competition to get into Midd.</p>
<p>I looked for Wesleyan and Colgate, but couldn't find the relevant data. Wesleyan is also supposed to have a large surplus of female applicants. Brown is + 53 %.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Why isn't Swarthmore's minimal athletic recruiting a better model for Middlebury?
[/quote]
Swarthmore's a great liberal arts college, one of the absolute best in the country, and their model clearly works for them. </p>
<p>Of course, the exact same thing could be said about Williams, which has achieved comparable status despite being located in an isolated small town on Route 7 in the mountains of western New England, where the best-known cultural amenities are ski areas. </p>
<p>Hmm. Which school seems like the more natural model for Middlebury ?</p>
<p>
[quote]
The persistant story is that women aren't very comfortable at Dartmouth. Anyone care to comment?
[/quote]
The apparent "shortage" of female applicants at Dartmouth seems unusual relative to the widspread "surplus" at New England LACs. But to be fair, it should be noted that at least some other Ivies have even more striking female "shortages" in the applicant pool. Again, these are % differences between the numbers of male and female applications, where negative means more male applicants.</p>
<ul>
<li>02.2 % Dartmouth</li>
<li>09.8 % Cornell</li>
<li>11.2 % Princeton</li>
</ul>
<p>Corbett--it's also worth noting that Middlebury has been co-ed since the 1880s, making it one of the first formerly all male colleges to admit women. With the exception of Bates, the other schools on your list became co-ed in the past 40 or so years. I suspect some baby boomers still see schools like Dartmouth as places where the Old Boy network is alive and well. They may steer their daughters toward what they perceive to be more nurturing environments.</p>
<p>Saying that Middlebury is more like Williams geographically and thus Williams is a better model, isn't terribly compelling. Williams is also struggling with an image in some circles as a jock school. Maybe fair maybe not, but sometimes perception is reality. See this report:</p>
<p>I am a Midd alum that walked on to the lacrosse team and played for 4 years there. I admire intelligence and athleticism. Playing on the lacrosse team was the defining experience of my time in college (in a good way). But I think that Midd's current model, where there are few examples of walk ons even making teams, let alone contributing to them, is a perversion of the student athlete ideal. </p>
<p>Middlebury is a really popular school. I'm confident that admissions and the athletics department could find ways to admit enough kids that wanted to play without reducing academic standards at all. They would be reducing the quality of the sports teams, but I ask again--who cares? What's Middlebury's purpose--to win DIII ice hockey championships? </p>
<p>Finally, while it is true enough that the Ivy's also relax admissions standards for recruited athletes, because those schools are bigger, the athletes are a smaller percentage of the student body and thus less of a influence on the school's social fabric.</p>