The few. The proud. The Febs.

Author: Mary Lane and Derek Schlickeisen

What's in a decimal point? For some, it means a trip to Central America to help rebuild a town ravaged by natural disaster. For others, it means playing catch-up to learn their language of choice in time to study abroad.

For all Febs, however, being a ".5" student means a college experience that - for better and for worse - can feel drastically different from what most high school students conjure up when they think of the "typical" college experience.

Those differences at times crop up in unexpected places. Feb students who decide to pursue Chinese, for instance, often find that they must enroll in the College's costly summer language program in order to prepare for their time abroad. On the other hand, since 1999, four Febs have won extremely competitive Fulbright fellowships, which place a heavy emphasis on the type of world experience Febs gain during their time off.

This week, The Campus examines the ups and downs of a program that is (almost) alone in the American university system. From admissions to social and academic life on campus to entering the job market after their famed "ski-down" graduation, we found above all that Febs feel very intensely about their unique status.


Feb admissions: By choice or by force?

Febs hold a unique place, not just here at the College but in the American university system more generally. While the idea of taking time off after high school is more in vogue today than it was even a few years ago, the Febs who arrived this week are still something of an oddity: in addition to Middlebury, only Colby College in the NESCAC and a handful of schools nationwide offer mid-year enrollment programs.

"It's put Middlebury on the map as an institution that is in favor of taking time off," said Robert Clagett, the College's dean of Admissions. "I think more people are seeing the value in that as the anxiety that surrounds the whole college admissions process grow. Students can step off the treadmill, smell the roses and take stock of what they want to do with their education."

Yet, even as more students in the U.S. are opting to take time off, the Feb program at Middlebury is shrinking (although not, as Clagett is quick to point out, towards eventual elimination). In 2003, the College enrolled 130 students as Febs. By 2007, that number shrank to 104. As the size of each Feb class has shrunk, however, the percentage of students who accept their offers of February admission has actually risen - from 56 percent in 2003 to 67 percent last year.

"One of the goals of the Strategic Plan was to make the Feb program more voluntary, which would mean that more students who came as Febs actually requested it," said Clagett.

Part of that rise may be attributed to the College's efforts to sell the benefits of being a Feb, both on and off campus. In addition to entire sections of printed admissions materials devoted to the Feb program, the College holds panels during April visitation days in which Feb panelists discuss why their experience has been valuable.

"We make a strong argument for being a Feb in our literature," said Clagett. "Febs end up holding a disproportionate number of leadership positions on campus, and they're among our best students."

Indeed, while Clagett said the main point of resistance his office encounters among February admits is the perception that they were given a lower priority in the admissions process, Febs' SAT scores and GPAs are roughly the same as other admits.

"If they're really well-informed, and they've read our literature carefully, they're concerned about academic downsides, like not starting a language or pre-med courses in their first semester," he said. "But that's a minority. The main concerns are at a subliminal level, and we do our best to dispel those."

Even as the College continues to shrink the Feb program (next year's target will be a class of 90), it continues to sell the experience as a unique opportunity for a few choice students.

"It's taken me a while to get my hands around the concept of being a Feb," said Clagett, who is in his third year at the College. "It's easy for us to see why that time off could loom pretty large for the type of fast-tracked, focused students Middlebury admits. But to me that period of stepping back is what has the most value. The experiences those students have - whether they stay home and work or go to South Africa - are very valuable."