UVA Culture
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Anonymous
| I hear that UVA culture is hyper competitive. Not an academic stress culture like W&M but cutthroat socially. Is this true? |
Anonymous
| I haven’t seen this with ds. |
Anonymous
| My kid had four wondeful years there and made what I think will be lifelong friends, whom I've met. He never mentioned this. But also had no interest in the Greek scene and never set foot in a house. |
Anonymous
|
Question to the OP.
When you say "cut-throat socially", what do you mean? |
Anonymous
| The dominant culture appears Greek and there is SEC-like disappointment if you don’t get in. But plenty of kids are not in frats or sororities and have lots to do. |
Anonymous
DC is first semester, first year and has found it to be friendly, inclusive, and academically challenging but not overwhelmingly so. They are involved and have a ton of great friends in their dorm and in the activities they've joined. Not at all their experience. |
Anonymous
|
UVA culture. Hmmm.
Part middle class nova kid plus old money southern kid plus urm kid from all 50 states. Add in preppy and fratty. Add in competitive academically. Add in a ton of beer and bourbon. Add in great soccer, swimming, softball and lacrosse teams, inconsistent basketball teams, and a football team that can be ahead by 21 points but lose the game more times than I can count. I’m proud to have gone there but I developed a bad relationship with alcohol and dating/ hookup culture that it took me years to overcome. Could have happened at any d1 party school but I think UVA’s fraternity and drinking culture is especially toxic. People do think I, smart and add IQ points when I say I went there though. |
Anonymous
| It’s a big place. Not everyone tunes into the same group and “culture.” Hopefully, professors teach how to not over-generalize. |
Anonymous
| UVA is rapey af. |
Anonymous
This is accurate (except you forget the old money Northerners/NYC/boarding school contingency), and I developed that same bad relationship that took me a long time to get a handle on. I think UVA works well for kids with the right combo of looks/money/connections to get the best out the Greek system, or the kids with enough confidence/smarts/self-respect to know they want no part of that. The floaters in between can have the hardest time socially. |
Anonymous
Do you think this is all still the case in 2024? Admissions to UVA has become MUCH harder and I would think leans heavily to the brainy over simply the monied (like every top20 school in 2024 vs 2000 or 1996). There are no more legacy admissions so you're either top 10% instate or top of your out-of-state school. I have a smart kid who is actually looking for a pretty mainstream university experience (what you describe hopefully minus most of the toxicity of the drinking and hook-up culture). |
Anonymous
Traditionally, yes. But in 2024? The kids getting in from NOVA are not the frat types. They are more of the Olympiad grinders. |
Anonymous
UVA's sexual assault survey/questionnaire had 25% of girls saying they'd been raped or that they'd been incapacitated and assaulted or threatened with rape (not sure what the wording was exactly) and W&M's survey had the percent of women who experienced rape/sexual assault at 4% for women. Both pre-covid so maybe data different now. |
Anonymous
DP. The kids getting in from NoVa don’t really set the tone socially. They never have. |
Anonymous
Even if the absolute numbers have changed, that's still a huge difference. |