Early Decision in the NESCAC: Four Times the Rate at Middlebury, Almost No Edge at Connecticut College (2026)

The eleven colleges of the New England Small College Athletic Conference get compared with each other all the time. Most are similar in size, they're close together on the map, and they draw from overlapping pools of applicants. Their Early Decision rounds are where the resemblance ends.

In its 2025–26 filing, Middlebury admitted 39.0% of its Early Decision applicants and 9.9% of everyone else, nearly four times the rate. Connecticut College admitted 40.7% and 39.1%. Same league, and one binding promise was worth about 29 points while the other was worth less than two.

Nine of the eleven report the round in a form we can use. These are the five we haven't written about before:

"Everyone else" means every first-year applicant who didn't apply Early Decision, and the multiple is the early rate divided by that rate. Both are our arithmetic from the colleges' own counts.

We've covered the other four already. Tufts admitted its early applicants at 3.8 times everyone else's rate (Tufts' two early rounds), Wesleyan at 3.1 times (Wesleyan's round), and Bowdoin and Hamilton at 2.7 and 2.5 times (our liberal arts roundup). Amherst's latest filing doesn't give early-round counts we can use, and Colby hasn't published a recent one we could find.

A ladder with one big step

Put all nine in order and the shape is hard to miss. Seven sit between about 2.5 and 4 times the rate: Middlebury, Tufts, Williams, Wesleyan, Bowdoin, Bates and Hamilton. Then the ladder drops to Trinity at 1.4 and Connecticut College at 1.0.

The two at the bottom are also the two with the most open regular rounds. Trinity admitted 28.5% of everyone else, and Connecticut College 39.1%. None of the other seven admitted more than 15% of its regular applicants. When the regular round already takes two applicants in five, there's less left for a binding promise to add, and at Connecticut College it added almost nothing.

Middlebury makes almost a third of its offers early

One Middlebury applicant in ten applied Early Decision. That tenth received 460 of the 1,511 offers in the filing, about 30%. The other 10,652 applicants shared 1,051.

The second binding round closes January 4, the same day as the regular deadline, so the early door stays open through winter break. The first round closes November 2 this year.

Williams: one binding chance, and the smallest share using it

Williams runs a single Early Decision round, due November 15. Amherst is the only other college in the league without a second round in January; across the country, most colleges with Early Decision run two (one round or two). Of the nine colleges we can read, Williams also draws the smallest share of its applicants into the early round: just 6.2% applied Early Decision, against 7% to 14% at the others, and those 964 applicants still received 19% of the year's offers.

Williams is also one of the colleges where average aid has covered more than the full cost for lower-income families, which we looked at in 9 Colleges Where Aid Beat the Total Cost.

Bates: a large edge we hadn't covered

Bates admitted a third of its Early Decision applicants and about one in eight of everyone else, 2.6 times the rate. The round produced 22% of its admits. Its second round closes January 10, with the regular round.

Trinity and Connecticut College: certainty more than odds

At Trinity, the early round added about 12 points. At Connecticut College, 1.6. Both take a second binding application on January 15, the same day as their regular deadline.

For a student who would be happy at either, that changes what Early Decision is for. It isn't buying much admission there. It's a way to have an answer in December, and it means accepting that college's aid offer without comparing it with others. Weigh that against the price. For families earning $75,001–$110,000, Connecticut College's average net price was $29,797 a year in 2023–24 and Trinity's $24,369, the two highest of the five colleges in the table. Middlebury's was $18,526 and Bates's $19,468.

Connecticut College also runs a non-binding Early Action round this year, due November 1 on the Common App's deadline list. If an early answer is what you're after there, compare it with Early Decision before you sign the binding agreement.

If one of these is your first choice

At the seven colleges near the top of the ladder, the early round moves the rate a long way, and the filings show it. At Trinity and Connecticut College, apply early because you're sure, not because you expect better odds. And if Williams or Amherst is the one, November is the only binding chance there is.

About the numbers

Admit counts come from each college's 2025–26 Common Data Set (Hamilton's from 2024–25): section C1 for the whole first-year pool and C21 for Early Decision, which covers both binding rounds. Middlebury counts only students admitted for September as admits; applicants admitted for February are left out of both admit counts but stay among the applicants, so both of its rates read a little low. The rate for everyone else, the multiples and the shares are our calculation. Net prices are College Scorecard averages for 2023–24, for families who received federal aid. Deadlines are for students entering in fall 2027, read from the colleges' admissions pages or the Common App in September 2026. Check them before you submit.

Leaning toward one of the nine? See what it published and where your score sits, free. The comparison across your whole list is the paid document.