letter to the editor

Author: [no author name found]

To the Editor:

An article on Middlebury's current overenrollment in the Sept. 26 edition of The Campus contained some important factual errors or misimpressions that deserve correction. One of the most important, that all incoming first-years receiving financial assistance had a student loan expectation of $1500 this year, was corrected in last week's Campus, and I am grateful for that. Based on the new financial aid initiative launched this year, only some students had a loan expectation of that amount, although all first-year financial aid recipients had a lower expectation than in the past.

However, there were also several other inaccuracies contained in the article. It is, for example, true that this year's first-year class is 82 higher than last year's, but at least half of that increase was already anticipated by us when we mailed out our decisions last spring.

In regard to the increase in our yield that gave us a first-year class even larger than we expected, certainly it is possible that "whims of adolescents" may account for part of that increase. However, presumably even more significant is the high level of popularity that Middlebury has enjoyed, a popularity based on the outstanding academic programs that we offer and the superb faculty who teach them. There is nothing accidental about that, and it speaks volumes for Middlebury that so many of our talented admitted students accepted our invitation to attend.

The same is true of the 16 percent increase in applications that the Admissions Office experienced last year. Part of that increase is undoubtedly attributable to more students having applied to a higher number of colleges last year, but the fact that Middlebury's increase in applications exceeded that of virtually all of our peer institutions suggests that there was considerably more than that at play here. Again, an increase of almost 1,000 applicants in one year does not happen by accident, and we can all take enormous pride that Middlebury is attracting such a talented and large pool of applicants.

Sincerely,

Robert S. Clagett

Dean of Admissions