William (Ohio)

Middlebury

The Raconteur

William’s family contacted The Short List during his junior year. He was a bright student near the top of his class, and we learned a few key things about him very quickly: He is extremely mature, a great writer, and a music lover. He is also able to find good in most things.

The Short List explored several options with William and began to make recommendations. The challenge was that William found a reason to attend nearly every school on his growing list. We encouraged him to visit schools and attend the college meetings at his school. He began basing his college list on how well he felt he connected with the schools’ representatives. The problem was that he connected with nearly all of them. We asked him to dig deeper and consider the programs that they offered.

William loves language, which is clear in his writing, as well as his study of Mandarin Chinese. He exhausted every Mandarin course at his high school, and he emphasized that he wanted to attend a school with a strong Chinese language program. William did not have a clear favorite among the schools he was considering. We recommended Middlebury and, characteristically, William was ready to apply early before even visiting. We encouraged him to reconsider that decision, despite our feelings that Middlebury might be a great school for him.

He took our advice and focused on completing and submitting applications to all the schools on his final list. When William was accepted to Middlebury in early spring, among other schools, he was ready to send in his deposit. Again The Short List stressed the importance of visiting different schools before committing. The family decided to visit the three top schools on his list. Middlebury was the first of the three, and by the third night William had made his decision. Before he could even reveal his choice, his parents gave him a Middlebury T-shirt, telling him it was obvious how happy he was on the campus. They had been so certain of his choice that they slipped into the bookstore and bought him the T-shirt while he was occupied at a meeting during their campus visit.