Class of 2013 now totals 666

Author: Tim O'Grady

Total applicants for the incoming first-year class have declined 11.7 percent, a drop attributed to changes in the application process.

As of May 4, the College's Office of Admissions received 584 deposits for September enrollment and 82 for February. Dean of Admissions Robert Clagett predicts that the College will meet its target enrollment of 600 students for September and 90 for February.

The change in the application process that is blamed for the drop in applicants is the new policy which requires students to pay the application fee or submit a fee waiver at the beginning of the application process as opposed to the later payment system in place which has been the case for many years. This change decreased the number of students who started their applications but never ended up finishing up the process.

Approximately 45 percent of the Class of 2013 was admitted early decision. The number of early decision applications increased by four percent from last year, with the Office of Admissions receiving 968 early decision applicants compared to last year's 929.

The overall acceptance rate for the class of 2013 was 22 percent, which is a slight increase from last year's acceptance rate of 18.5 percent. Despite this minute increase, Clagett said that this year's applicant pool is one of the most talented groups in recent years.

The accepted students of the class of 2013 were involved in several notable extracurricular activities and outside interests. Among the accepted students there were four circus performers, one Jeopardy contestant, five sets of twins - and one Emmy nominee, who is a confirmed matriculant.

"We had a very high number of students who started the process, but didn't pay. This year, I changed that to be in line with most other colleges so that they had to pay the fee up front," said Clagett.

The number of applicants at the other NESCAC colleges have declined or stayed the same compared to last year - with the exception of Wesleyan University which had a 22 percent increase in applications. Clagett does not totally reject the notion that the economic recession had a part in the decline of Middlebury applicants this year, but emphasizes that the change in the application procedure played a much more significant role in this year's decline.

As in past years, the admissions office sent out approximately 100 early acceptance notifications to the strongest regular decision applicants who were talented academically, involved extensively in extracurriculars and displayed desirable personal characteristics. These students were notified that they were likely to be admitted a few weeks earlier than the regular applicant pool so that they could contact professors and create relationships with staff before they made their college decisions.

Associate Director for International Admissions Barbara Marlow is extremely excited about the international members of the class of 2013. Applicants came from a plethora of countries such as Croatia, Mauritius, Kenya, Afghanistan and Finland.

The Office of Admissions received 1,274 international applications this year. The most applications from a single country came from China, with 329. As of May 4, the office had received 61 deposits from International Students and 16 from Americans of dual citizenship from abroad. The number of international students in the Class of 2013 is approximately 10 percent - one percentage point below that which the College informally strives for every year.

Marlow emphasized the importance of Americans living abroad and dual citizens who are not officially counted as international students. These 16 matriculants come from New Zealand, Singapore, Japan, Australia, England and the United Arab Emirates, among other countries.

"These are students that bring that international perspective but don't show up in the data as international," said Marlow.