Why is George Mason so often overlooked?
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Anonymous
72% graduation rate is not low for a moderately selective state school! Graduation rate is considered one of their strengths--sure it's not going to equal UVA or WM where everyone has 4.3+ and 1450+ SATs--but it's above what you would expect. |
Anonymous
It also feels like a huge school in terms of how many people are on campus. Our kids toured it and hated how crowded it felt on the main parts of campus. They didn’t like how the campus itself didn’t have the same physical space feel as other large campuses. |
Anonymous
I went there a while back, for an interdisciplinary STEM grad degree (also TA'd in one of the departments), and I could not tell you if the staff tended to skew conservative or liberal. It just did not come up, which is as it should be. My niece was offered a free ride to the GMU Econ program 6 or 7 years ago, and turned it down for full pay UChicago Econ. She said the deciding factor for her was that Mason Econ skewed Libertarian, and that was not the direction she wanted to go. |
Anonymous
Those departments plus it's cyber security program are the only reason that it has any reputation at all. |
Anonymous
No, it's got dozens of programs ranked in the top 100 nationally and plenty in the top 50. |
Anonymous
Indeed. And, it is not aspirational. It is fine + good to go there to earn a degree. But anyone can get in, so it is nothing to brag about OP. I was once a commuter schlub myself, so I worked hard to make sure my kid could do better. |
Anonymous
| I think it is because it is a dense and compact campus with homogenous looking buildings in the middle of suburbia. Not a lot of local watering holes that appeal to young people. If you are a local kid, you probably do not want to have access to cafes, bars, music and art scene and do not want to live that close to your parents. So having good academic programs only goes so far. It can't compete with the look and feel of a sprawling campus with leafy trees, quads, old but pretty buildings, and a thriving off-campus cafe and bar scene. |
Anonymous
yea but who cares about the college experience when you can get your CS degree cheap and will be making 6 figue in no time. |
Anonymous
| Too close to home and primarily a commuter school. That said, any school with 26k undergrads is hardly overlooked. |
Anonymous
Someone had the brilliant idea of taking a mediocre commuter school and building a brand in these small niches, and it has worked well. Primarily, because there is not a lot of completion in that space. |
Anonymous
Exactly. Everyone knows exactly what GMU is. Lots of people choose it. Lots don't--but not because they're overlooking it; they want something different and have an option they prefer. |
Anonymous
| Econ Dept, especially, funded by the Koch brothers. That's obnoxious. |
Anonymous
I guess if making six figures quickly is your big goal in life, then you're right, who cares. I have a 14 year old who doesn't have that as a goal. |
Anonymous
GMU has a strategy of not trying to become a lot more selective as its academic reputation has grown--rather to just grow its programs and support services along with demand. I think it's a pretty good thing to do as we don't need more public schools that are mainly trying to weed kids out. So even as its programs and faculty are getting increasingly recognized, they are not responding by making admissions standards that much harder. So they have 26k undergrads rather than limiting size and necessarily becoming harder to get into. |
Anonymous
+1 I really wanted to like it. My DD thought it was her first choice. Until we went there for visits. (yes, more than one). We live close by, and my DD prefers staying close. But we just could NOT get a sense of place. Like it was missing the sense of centrality... like a university central lawn. It's just so big and impersonal. And by god, NO ONE wants to hear loud band music at 9:30 a.m. at the Patriot center with some REALLY BAD SINGING on top of it! The Green Machine should be sent away, I beg you! That said, my younger kid is assuming he'll go to GMU (he's never been there) for video game design. When the time comes, we'll go to the tours and open house day as well. If he goes there, it'll be for the academics, not the sense of community/university. I think the academics are fully sufficient. It's all the hassle, impersonal-ness, and lack of identity/community that disappoints me. |