Middlebury is a highly-selective and equally highly-regarded liberal arts program with a low acceptance rate: only 13.9% for the Class of 2029 and 2029.5, which includes students who start in the second semester. The waitlist numbers for that class have not been released yet, but recent historical data does help us decode the situation with the Middlebury waitlist.
Looking at the most recently published statistics, for students applying to enroll in the fall of 2024, there were 2285 applicants offered a spot on the waitlist. That number is astonishingly high even before one accounts for two facts: first, that waitlist offers went out to over 18% of applicants and, second, that the enrolled first-year class was only 598 students. So, every accepted student could somehow walk away from Middlebury, and they would still have more than four times the number of students on the waitlist than they need to fill the class. We think this is kind of ridiculous on Middlebury’s part and would love if someone from the school explained their reasoning.
Of those 2285 applicants, nearly all of them, 2256, accepted a spot. Only 45, or abut 2%, were eventually accepted. This was not a glitch in the Middlebury system. Rather, it’s what they aim for. The year before, a nearly identical number of students, 2259, were offered a spot on the waitlist. Only 12, or .05%, were accepted.
This shows us that Middlebury does accept some students off of the waitlist, but “some” is a generous word. It’s more of a sprinkle, but it is still roughly 7% of their freshman year class. For the vast majority of waitlisted applicants, this is the end of their journey towards Middlebury. They will not get in, and their application will probably not even be looked at again. Middlebury did not, after all, actually re-read over 2000 applications to find the dozen they admitted.
Simply hoping that your application will be read more favorably in a few months is not a plan for getting off of the waitlist. In this post, we’ll give you concrete action items that can actually make receiving an acceptance from Middlebury a more likely outcome. You can also work directly with us. We help students get off the Middblebury waitlist every year.
We help strong students get off of tough waitlists. Contact us to learn how.
If you are grappling with what to do next after receiving a waitlist decision from Middlebury, we have four distinct steps that you need to be taking to increase your chances of eventual admission. Now, even following these steps your odds are low. The waitlist acceptance numbers for Middlebury are so low that nothing makes getting in significantly likely. These four steps, however, do increase your chances of receiving an offer of admission.
Step One: Join the Waitlist
First, you need to actually get in the game. If Middlebury remains your top-choice school and you want to remain in the running, you need to join the waitlist. If you do not join the waitlist, you will not be considered should a spot open up. This is the first step towards serious reconsideration in May.
Step Two: Commit to a Back-Up
We’ve laid out the statistics, and they are pretty tough. The chance of getting into Middlebury off of the waitlist is super low, so you need a Plan B. For your sake, we hope that you got into a school that you are into or even excited about. If so, commit, submit the deposit, and move onto step three.
If you didn’t get in anywhere that you really want to go, that isn’t an excuse to skip this step. It is much easier to transfer to a school you would love more than to reapply next year expecting better outcomes. Typically, students who reapply to college as a first year a year after graduating actually experience worse outcomes. So, you need to stomach the pain of saying yes to a school you don’t like and then, again, move on to step three.
Remember that if you do get into Middlebury and choose to attend you will forfeit the deposit you paid to confirm your spot at your back-up school. This is frustrating, but it’s also the cost of playing the waitlist game.
Step Three: Update Middlebury
Once you’ve joined the waitlist and committed to a back-up school, you’ve checked the two ‘required’ boxes. Step three, updating Middlebury, isn’t an official step and they don’t require that you do this. Much like an ‘optional’ supplement on an application, however, you have to update Middlebury if you want to get in. What an update looks like will be personal to your interests and experiences, but they all follow the same framework.
Middlebury doesn’t give waitlisted students a ton of guidance on how to update them while sitting on the wait list. There are, though, some things we know that work: connecting with your admissions rep, writing a concise LOCI, and working your network.
We’ll start with the last one because it’s the only action that only applies to some waitlist applicants. If you have any connection to Middlebury that you have not tapped yet, this is the time. A conversation with your dad’s college roommate who now works in the Middlebury development office is not going to get you into Middlebury, but any good word in support of your application can help. Even your high school counselor giving the admissions office a ring in support of your application can move the needle. Do not demand that anyone advocate for you, though. They do not owe you a phone call or email, but if you can clearly express your enthusiasm and passion for Middlebury then it’s possible that a connection will decide to give you a helping hand.
Next, let’s talk LOCI. The LOCI, or Letter of Continued Interest, is a short, one-page letter that reinforces your interest in Middlebury and provides substantive updates to your application. These updates could be as simple as your GPA going up, but what we really like are updates that speak to academic engagement and community involvement. Writing a LOCI doesn’t guarantee you’ll get in, but we’ve never heard of a student getting off the waitlist without writing one.This is the structure the letter should follow:
Opening: You are writing a letter to someone much more equivalent to prospective boss than a colleague or friend. This means that you need to adopt a professional and formal voice and structure. Start with "Dear X and the Middlebury Admissions team,” and replace “X” with your regional college rep. Then you should have two sentences. One should introduce yourself as a waitlisted student who intends to enroll in Middlebury if accepted. The other should set out your intent with this letter: to provide an update and to reinforce your interest.
The Update: The update is the most important part of this letter, as it’s the section that gives them something new to consider. We advise students to include 2-4 concise updates that are balanced between academics and extracurriculars. Many students jump to say they don’t have updates because they won any new awards, but awards are actually really boring for this letter. You should include new ones if you have them, but focus more of the letter on things that illustrate your enthusiasm for your academic passion and your core extracurriculars.
Reinforce Interest: Next, you need to remind Middlebury why they are your first-choice school. Keep this concise, and be super specific. Do not, however, reiterate anything that was already included in your application. So, if you wrote about a particular course, professor, or program in your application you should absolutely not waste time on that here. Instead, dig deeper.
Close: End the letter with two sentences thanking them for their time and reiterating, again, that you will enroll if accepted. Sign off with “Sincerely,” or “Respectfully,”.
Once you have your letter written, you need to connect with the admissions rep at Middlebury who covers your geographic area. If you have communicated with this person before, great. If not, that’s okay, too. Send them your LOCI, in addition to uploading it through the applicant portal, and cross your fingers.
Step Four: Wait Patiently
Middlebury does not begin consulting the pool of waitlist applicants until after the early May decision deadline. They can’t fill spots that they aren’t sure if they’ll even have, after all. So, you need to wait. You will almost certainly not hear anything until after May 1 — or even well into summer. If you do receive an email or phone call asking you to reconfirm your interest, though, you need to respond promptly and professionally.
Getting into Middlebury off of the waitlist isn’t easy, but it also isn’t impossible. The first step is to start implementing a strong strategy. Now, go.
We help strong waitlist candidates implement acceptance-earning strategies. Email us to learn more.