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Holistic Review at Middlebury

understanding the reading process

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Overview

GUIDING QUESTIONS & READING GOALS

1

COMPONENTS

2

THE APPLICATION

3

LIFE BEYOND CLASS

4

PERSONAL STATEMENTS

5

COMMITTEE

6

QUESTIONS?

7

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Guiding Questions

Who are you now?�
Who are you in the process of becoming?�
How can Middlebury help you get there?

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Reading Goals

Understand who you are and what you would do at college

Determine whether you would be academically successful at Middlebury

Look for excellent community members

Fulfill specific institutional priorities

In order to answer those questions, we look through your application. When we open your application to read it, here are some of the things we hope to do:

- number one, we want to know who you are, and what you would do here. Would you join specific clubs? Be a rockstar researcher? Help push Middlebury forward on important issues?

- number two, we want to make sure that we're a good academic fit for you. Middlebury has a lot of resources to help support students with the transition to college level work, but those resources don't do much if you thrive in big lecture-based classes and want to pursue nursing - that's not the academic environment here.

- number three, we look for people who will be valuable, ethical members of a community. Middlebury is a small school in a small town, which means that every single student has impact on those around them. We want to make sure we're inviting students to campus who will thrive here and help others grow, in line with our mission statement. Middlebury’s mission is “Through a commitment to immersive learning, we prepare students to lead engaged, consequential, and creative lives, contribute to their communities, and address the world’s most challenging problems,” and we look for community members who will help us solve complex problems through that lens.

- lastly, the college has specific institutional priorities that we include in our review process. This might be something like athletes - if you're our baseball coach's top recruit, that's an important quality for us to consider. If you're a first-generation college student, that's an important quality for us to consider. If you're a stellar musician, same thing. Institutional priorities aren't something you should inherently worry about - you realistically either fulfill them or you don't - but they are a part of the review process for some decisions we make.

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Life outside the classroom:

extracurricular activities
jobs
family obligations
service

Application:

Biographical information
info about your academic journey
additional notes

Essay:

a story about you, as you choose to tell it
can you write effectively?
can we hear your voice?

Letters of Recommendation:

What are you like as a classmate, a scholar, and a community member?
Additional factors we should know

Transcript:

How have you challenged yourself within the lines of what's available to you?
successes and growth
areas of concern

here's some of the factors we'll look at.

First: your application. This is the vehicle through which we'll see basics (your name, where you go to school, etc) but also where we'll find information about whether you've taken a gap year/delayed graduation, for example -- or switched schools. There's an "additional info" section in the common app that you can use to share anything that doesn't effectively fit elsewhere.

Life outside the classroom: this is your extracurriculars, sure, but it also includes things like a job, if you have one, or being a family caretaker/translator. Think about what you do when you're not studying or in class, and note how much time you spend doing those things.

Essay: your personal statement is your story, and by the time you're applying to college, it's the thing you have the most control over. We're generally looking to learn more about you and see if you can write well.

Letters of rec: hearing from the adults in your life, who help us understand what sets you apart from other students.

Transcript/school profile: helps us know what was available to you, and how you took advantage of it. Did you deliberately choose classes that challenged you or opt for easy courses? What was difficult, and how did you grow?

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The Application

additional info

If you have contextual information that helps us understand anything in the application, let us know!

be honest and complete

This is a judgement-free zone! We simply use your info to get a picture of your lived experience to date.

guidelines, not contracts

For things like "what major do you plan to pursue," we're just looking for a general idea. We don't admit by major.

When you're filling out the application, here's three things to keep in mind.

1) be honest and accurate. For example, with the Supreme Court decision colleges aren't allowed to consider race itself as a factor in applications - but you'll still get asked to put it in, since colleges ALSO have to collect and report that info as best as we can to the department of education. The application will not show it, so be honest about how you identify. Or, for example, if your parents didn't graduate from high school or college, we're not going to look down on that - but it does help us make sure that we can guide you towards things like first-generation college student programming.

2) Use the additional information section to clarify things. Had a major illness that tanked your grades for a term? Tell us! Extended family members living with you, so it's been hard to get a quiet place to study? Tell us! We look for explanations of grade drops and so on, and this is a common place to provide those.

3) Don't be too worried about what you're selecting in terms of future plans. Middlebury doesn't admit by major, which means that you could tell us that you want to be a computer science major, come in, and decide on your first day on campus that you want to be an English major instead. (HOWEVER - some schools DO admit specifically to majors, so always check with the individual school!)

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Life Outside the Classroom

Responsibilities and commitments

Time spent, tasks and accomplishments, awards and positions: what you do and how you do it.

How do you spend your time outside of your classes?

Impact and contributions

Leadership, people helped, changes made: within your activities & commitments, how are you making your presence felt?

How are you influencing the people and things you care about?

What do we look for in the extracurriculars? I personally think it can be broken into two broad questions: What do you do, and what kind of impact do you have?

What do you do is the numeric, the quantifiable - how many hours do you do the thing, what sorts of positions or awards have you won, and so forth.

What kind of impact you have is more difficult to give specific numbers for - this is what we're really looking to understand. Are you the co-captain of your team, but your fellow captain got sick, your coach quit, and you've had to run the entire season by yourself? That's much different than just saying "I am co-captain of my soccer team." Help us understand what kind of changes you've created in your space.

Many commitments are not school-based; if you hold a part-time job or contribute significantly to the running of your household, we would love to know about those things as well!

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Essay

Your story to tell.

Help us get an idea of who you are within ~650 words.

Questions we hope to answer by reading:

Can you write well and structure an effective story?
What is important to you?
How would you interact with the college community?
What does it feel like to talk with you?

Tell us something we don't get from the rest of your application: the best essays help us see a new side or deepen our understanding of you.

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What does admissions committee look like?

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Those who read your file present it to a committee and discuss your application.

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Conversation is holistic; there is no one area of an application that solely determines an outcome.

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Once all applications go through committee, decisions are released!

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Questions?

We’d be happy to discuss any of this content.

admissions@middlebury.edu