The College has offered admission to 280 students for the Class of 2019 under its Early Decision I plan. Decisions were released on Saturday, Dec. 6, via an online portal, and physical copies were mailed to applicants’ homes a day prior. The admitted students will represent about 40 percent of the class, which is expected to total around 690 students.
The College recieved 8,864 applicants in total, an 8 percent increase from last year’s pool of 8,196. This year marks the second largest applicant pool in Middlebury’s history.
Gregory Buckles, Dean of Admissions, said that 667 students applied under the Early Decision I plan, a three percent decrease from last year’s Early Decision I applicant total. The College deferred 80 applicants, who will be considered in the regular admission pool, and denied admission to 307 applicants.
Last year’s admissions process exhibited similar trends. Of the 686 Early Decision I applicants for the Class of 2018, 287 were admitted, 96 were deferred and 303 denied. Over the past three years, the acceptance rate for Early Decision I applicants has consistently hovered around 42 percent.
Buckles said that the 280 accepted students are from 32 states, the District of Columbia, and 13 countries. These statistics are lower than those for the Class of 2018, whose early decision applicants hailed from 35 states, D.C., and 19 countries.
The College has allotted $4.2 million in need-based financial aid to award to early admits. 42 percent of the Early Decision I class will be awarded financial aid, marking a significant increase from last year. Middlebury’s early decision program binds applicants to commit to attending if accepted.
Furthermore, Middlebury has expanded its partnership with the Posse Foundation, which pairs minority students in urban areas with participating colleges across the country.
As a part of this program, thirty students in the Class of 2019 will receive full-tuition scholarships as they pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
Middlebury has hosted a new Posse group of ten students from New York each year since 1999 and added a second Posse of ten students from Chicago in the fall of 2012. The third and newest Posse group of ten hails from Los Angeles as part of an initiative by the White House to improve the presence of minorities in science, technology, engineering and mathematics careers.
Several faculty members at the College will visit the Posse Foundation’s Los Angeles office in the spring to meet the students and to hold science workshops and classes.
“I’m particularly excited about the addition of our third STEM Posse,” said Buckles. “Our science faculty are looking forward to working with the group.”
The deadline for regular admission applications was January 1, with notification in late March. Applicants admitted via the Regular Decision plan will have until May 1 to decide whether or not to attend.
