While only an average of 15 to 20 students transfer out of Middlebury in a given year, Zeitgeist data from this fall shows that 43% percent of survey respondents, or 451 students, have considered transferring during their time at the college. However, the desire to transfer isn’t evenly distributed across the student body: students on financial aid and first generation students are more likely to think about transferring, and the answer to the question also depends on how long respondents have been at Midd.
The number of students who have actually submitted an application to transfer is substantially lower, at just 6%.
Students who receive financial aid are more likely to have considered transferring from Middlebury: nearly 50% of those on financial aid have considered it, while only 40% of those who do not receive financial aid have.
First generation students are another group that is significantly more likely to consider transferring — 50% more likely to consider it, in fact. Nearly 60% of first generation Middlebury students say that they’ve thought about transferring from the college.
Thoughts of transferring appear to increase over time at Middlebury, peaking among sophomores — the last year most students say they feel free to transfer before they’re too old to find a new fit. While only 34% of the class of 2023 has considered transferring, that jumps to 51% for the class of 2022, 43% for the class of 2021 and 43% for 2020. Febs are slightly more likely than Regs to consider transferring, with 47% of Febs saying yes to considering transferring, versus only 43% of Regs.
By hometown, students who hail from New England are the least likely to have thought about transferring, while students from the Mid Atlantic — including New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania — are most likely to have considered it.
The type of high school that one went to also influences whether or not transferring has been a consideration. The group most likely to think about transferring is those that went to charter or magnet schools, at 53%, followed by boarding schools at 48%, then public schools at 44%, then private or parochial day schools at 41%.
Riley Board '22 is the Editor in Chief of The Campus. She previously served as a Managing Editor, News Editor, Arts & Academics Editor and writer.
She is majoring in Linguistics as an Independent Scholar and is an English minor on the Creative Writing Track.
Board has worked as a writer at Smithsonian Folklife Magazine and as a reporter for The Burlington Free Press. Currently, she is a 2021-2022 Kellogg Fellow working on her linguistics thesis. In her free time, you can find her roller skating in E-Lot or watching the same sitcoms over and over again.
