Admitted students are visiting campus this week during Preview Days to explore all that Middlebury College has to offer; some of these students will be traveling from around the world to see our school. Concurrently, the Davis United World College (UWC) Scholars Program is celebrating its fifteenth anniversary today. Middlebury’s international identity is rightly regarded as one of the best aspects of the College. We offer 10 modern languages, send 60 percent of the student body to study abroad and over 10 percent of our student body is from outside the U.S. However, a little-known quirk of the admissions procedure leaves international applicants out of the College’s commitment to need-blind admissions.
Need-blind admissions means that the Admissions Office does not know a family’s finances when reading an application. The College, while practicing need-blind admissions for students applying from the U.S. and Canada, is not need-blind for all international applicants. The College, rather, is need-aware – taking into account an international student’s financial situation when making application decisions.
The College claims to maintain a need-aware policy for financial reasons. According to the SFS, “Middlebury follows a need-blind admissions policy to the extent that financial resources allow.” Yet the discrepancy between being need-blind for American and Canadian applicants but not those from other locales deserves consideration.
Should our admissions practices differentiate between the applications of American students and international applicants with regard to reading financial information? And why the two-tiered approach when the College is purportedly a place where students can receive a global education?
If the College truly desires a diverse and worldly student body, it ought to read applications of international students need-blind so that we find greater variation in socioeconomic backgrounds in both international and American students. Going need-blind for international students would hopefully allow for a greater socioeconomic range among admitted students, ensuring that we are not just admitting a portion of the international community but instead are welcoming a more varied and accurate sampling of all world citizens. Doing so will bring new perspectives to our courses, residence and dining halls, which enhances the College’s global education that we so often market in our admissions materials and press releases.
Fortunately, the Davis United World College Scholars Program assists the College in having a vibrant international student community. The program, the world’s largest international undergraduate scholarship program, supports students of the UWC schools around the globe to attend partner U.S. colleges and universities, including Middlebury. The program has been a significant part of the College’s effort to include international students from UWC schools in our student body. These need-based grants support the students financially. It has been an outstanding step in the right direction of fostering an international, inclusive community. Nevertheless, let us take the necessary next step and read all applications, international or not, without an eye to their ability to pay.
The College should join the ranks of the select group of other institutions that do not weigh international applicants’ need when evaluating candidates for admission. For example, Amherst College became need-blind for international students in 2008, at the height of the recession. Middlebury has weathered the worst of the economic downturn remarkably well and has since embarked on construction projects that were forestalled by budgetary concerns — why not follow Amherst’s lead?
The College takes a principled stance on offering admission to students based on merit, not their ability to pay. However, let us not allow this policy to stop at American students. The Campus encourages the College to extend the same practice to its international applicants. As Middlebury continues to market itself as a school where students receive a global education, transitioning to 100 percent need-blind ought to be a priority.
