UVA in-state v. Davidson v. Washington and Lee

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do NoVA UVA students really run into HS classmates all the time? Isn’t there a high # of OOS? Does it feel like an international, global school or does it truly feel like “13th grade”?

It's 70% in-state so of course it's going to have a far more regional feel than a top 20 private....how could it not? And as much as UVA parents want to believe that it's a school with international pedigree it simply isn't It's a fine state school but go into it with realistic expectations about diversity.

No, it's 57% in-state. And only a few students (depending on size) from a fellow classmate's school show up. My DC knew four. He never sees them. The only school that sends a large (50 or so) contingent is TJ.

lol....typical dull and delusional UVA parent.

What's delusional? The same posters keep coming on DCUm and say "I don't want my kid and 500 of their high school friends going down to UVA together" but what they don't realize is that NO high school sends 500 kids to UVA. The giants like Langley or McLean might get 50 in (top ten percent) but those are the creme de la creme and often go off to Ivies or Tech schools so don't show up. The only school to get huge numbers into UVA is TJ which gets 200 to 250 on any given year but again TJ students use UVA as a safety so at most 50 of 60 TJ students might show up. That's it. There are 21,000 students down there. My DD says she never sees her 2 besties from public high school. Like everything in life, it is what you make of it.

You'll run into grads from your high school, but I agree it is not going to be too frequent. I think UVA has cottoned on that many TJ grads are using it as a backup and is rejecting more of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While it is true that few Americans have heard of Davidson, Every person in the world of academia have. And they are the ones who count. Davidson, a small private college, is ranked in the Top Ten Liberal Arts Colleges in America. It focuses exclusively on a quality undergraduate education. Small classes, and top notch professors. UVA on the other hand is a huge public school, which to a large extent is focused on graduate degrees. Tens of thousands of Undergrad students face large classes, in a far less personalized environment. Davidson, with less than 2000 carefully selected students, punches way above it’s weight, both in academics and in athletics. It has produced a US President (Wilson), a US Secretary of State (Rusk), a White House Spokesman (Snow), one of the greatest athletes ever (Curry)... and many more. Davidson is probably less prestigious and known than UVA in the general public, but Davidson is FAR more prestigious than UVA among those in the know.

Steph Curry undid a lot of the Davidson prestige by claiming the moon landings were a hoax.

Guess we can rule out Duke too. Thanks, Kyrie, for being a moron.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, please think about what you're asking. UVA is in-rank with at least two Ivies. It's highly regarded throughout the world. It exhibits astounding alumni loyalty. And compared to most high-ranking US universities, it might as well be free.

Davidson and W&L are a notch above Elon or something.

Is this question serious?

I doubt UVA is known one way or another in most of the world. You certainly can't say UVA the same way you can say MIT and expect any understanding. Same for Davidson and W&L. I don't think you really have any facts on most of your other assertions either. In terms of alumni loyalty, W&L and Davidson have much higher alumni giving rates than UVA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While it is true that few Americans have heard of Davidson, Every person in the world of academia have. And they are the ones who count. Davidson, a small private college, is ranked in the Top Ten Liberal Arts Colleges in America. It focuses exclusively on a quality undergraduate education. Small classes, and top notch professors. UVA on the other hand is a huge public school, which to a large extent is focused on graduate degrees. Tens of thousands of Undergrad students face large classes, in a far less personalized environment. Davidson, with less than 2000 carefully selected students, punches way above it’s weight, both in academics and in athletics. It has produced a US President (Wilson), a US Secretary of State (Rusk), a White House Spokesman (Snow), one of the greatest athletes ever (Curry)... and many more. Davidson is probably less prestigious and known than UVA in the general public, but Davidson is FAR more prestigious than UVA among those in the know.

Steph Curry undid a lot of the Davidson prestige by claiming the moon landings were a hoax.

Guess we can rule out Duke too. Thanks, Kyrie, for being a moron.

Duke might now have a bigger problem with one of its basketball alums. . .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Davidson's latest NATIONAL rankiing is #10 for LAC, and #7 for Best undergraduate teaching .

I think DCUM posters need to stay current .

Sure, but that's just ranking gamesmanship. LACs don't have broad brand recognition to begin with but nobody is going to mention Davidson in the same breadth as Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, Pomona, Midd, Bowdoin, etc.

On the contrary, I know plenty of people who consider Davidson in the same league.

There was a Chronicle tool for assessing peer schools: https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/peers-network

Bowdoin and Swarthmore both named Davidson a peer.

Ha ha ha! Rich white boy clubs patting each other on the back.

These are who the schools name as peers. The more elite privates pretty much never list publics.

[Anonymous]

If the concern is your kid wants an SLAC type of experience and UVA is too big, I'd look at W&M. It is larger than W&L and Davidson (closer to Dartmouth and Brown size), but it is a great LAC alternative and it would have a significant cost advantage.

If you think Davidson or W&L is going to provide a leg up on medical school compared to UVA (or W&M) all things being equal, I don't think that is the case. Regardless of where they go, your kid will have to buckle down and work hard and they'll have to have a really good GPA and MCAT. Top, top privates like the Ivy League may provide some advantage because they have the highest average GPAs (the highest grade inflation), but admission is a crap shoot there.

[Anonymous]

I just tuned into this cain and have to respond to a completely ridiculous assertion above - that there are two types of schools in America: "Harvard and everyone else." Coupled with the idea that no one has heard of Yale.
Baloney. I have a degree from Yale and a degree from Harvard - one is an undergraduate degree and the other is from a prestigious graduate program. Plus I have a degree from one of the other fine schools mentioned here. Some might pick Harvard as the number one college in the country - some might pick, Yale or Stanford or Princeton - or another school. And for some kids, an Amherst or a Williams or a Pomona might be best for them. There are a ton of good schools out there, and the only excuse for a pronouncement that Harvard is a world apart from the rest of them is the kind of snobbiness that justifiably turns off many as regards Harvard. It's just as brainless as thinking that because a school is in the Ivy League - which has a wide assortment of schools - it's better than a non-Ivy League school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If the concern is your kid wants an SLAC type of experience and UVA is too big, I'd look at W&M. It is larger than W&L and Davidson (closer to Dartmouth and Brown size), but it is a great LAC alternative and it would have a significant cost advantage.

If you think Davidson or W&L is going to provide a leg up on medical school compared to UVA (or W&M) all things being equal, I don't think that is the case. Regardless of where they go, your kid will have to buckle down and work hard and they'll have to have a really good GPA and MCAT. Top, top privates like the Ivy League may provide some advantage because they have the highest average GPAs (the highest grade inflation), but admission is a crap shoot there.

I'd agree with comment on William & Mary as a good alternative, but I assume they've already submitted applications.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just tuned into this cain and have to respond to a completely ridiculous assertion above - that there are two types of schools in America: "Harvard and everyone else." Coupled with the idea that no one has heard of Yale.
Baloney. I have a degree from Yale and a degree from Harvard - one is an undergraduate degree and the other is from a prestigious graduate program. Plus I have a degree from one of the other fine schools mentioned here. Some might pick Harvard as the number one college in the country - some might pick, Yale or Stanford or Princeton - or another school. And for some kids, an Amherst or a Williams or a Pomona might be best for them. There are a ton of good schools out there, and the only excuse for a pronouncement that Harvard is a world apart from the rest of them is the kind of snobbiness that justifiably turns off many as regards Harvard. It's just as brainless as thinking that because a school is in the Ivy League - which has a wide assortment of schools - it's better than a non-Ivy League school.

Harvard undergrad is undoubtedly great, but the ratio to grad students is a number for concern for many when choosing an undergraduate college:

Harvard enrolled 6,655 students in undergraduate programs, and over 14,000 students in graduate and professional programs.

vs

Princeton has some 5,000 undergrads and 2,500 grad students, a 2:1 undergrad:grad student ratio

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonma/2012/10/11/when-to-say-no-to-harvard/#12231e276ea1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MY DD was accepted at all three with aid. BTW congrats OP it wasn’t easy! The schools are very different. UVA is a great school but very large. Half of the class will be edited from the top spots just because of the size. But if big state school is what you want UVA is the ticket.
W&L attracts an elite crowd from all over the US. Big help if you are going into law business or any field where connections count. It’s the Potomac school of colleges.
Davidson is more or less the same but with a southern focus. The price was the same & DD chose Davidson.

W&L attracts an “elite crowd from all over the US”? That’s news to me.

Yes. It’s very highly ranked school of the 1%. Some people think that’s a drawback.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I doubt UVA is known one way or another in most of the world. You certainly can't say UVA the same way you can say MIT and expect any understanding. Same for Davidson and W&L. I don't think you really have any facts on most of your other assertions either. In terms of alumni loyalty, W&L and Davidson have much higher alumni giving rates than UVA.

There's a college in China that tried to look like UVA. It's called Tsinghua University. It's kind of funny.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MY DD was accepted at all three with aid. BTW congrats OP it wasn’t easy! The schools are very different. UVA is a great school but very large. Half of the class will be edited from the top spots just because of the size. But if big state school is what you want UVA is the ticket.
W&L attracts an elite crowd from all over the US. Big help if you are going into law business or any field where connections count. It’s the Potomac school of colleges.
Davidson is more or less the same but with a southern focus. The price was the same & DD chose Davidson.

W&L attracts an “elite crowd from all over the US”? That’s news to me.

Yes. It’s very highly ranked school of the 1%. Some people think that’s a drawback.

Cool. Hey thanks.

[Anonymous]

OP - For all the yammering on...

They offer different experiences. All good.

You look at your resources, your kid's interest, and you look at the costs and then you pick.

All three are good choices. UVA is a good state school, but it is not the beez neez in all things. For some kids, it is the wrong choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP - For all the yammering on...

They offer different experiences. All good.

You look at your resources, your kid's interest, and you look at the costs and then you pick.

All three are good choices. UVA is a good state school, but it is not the beez neez in all things. For some kids, it is the wrong choice.

Your yammering is different. Gotcha.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While it is true that few Americans have heard of Davidson, Every person in the world of academia have. And they are the ones who count. Davidson, a small private college, is ranked in the Top Ten Liberal Arts Colleges in America. It focuses exclusively on a quality undergraduate education. Small classes, and top notch professors. UVA on the other hand is a huge public school, which to a large extent is focused on graduate degrees. Tens of thousands of Undergrad students face large classes, in a far less personalized environment. Davidson, with less than 2000 carefully selected students, punches way above it’s weight, both in academics and in athletics. It has produced a US President (Wilson), a US Secretary of State (Rusk), a White House Spokesman (Snow), one of the greatest athletes ever (Curry)... and many more. Davidson is probably less prestigious and known than UVA in the general public, but Davidson is FAR more prestigious than UVA among those in the know.

Steph Curry undid a lot of the Davidson prestige by claiming the moon landings were a hoax.

Guess we can rule out Duke too. Thanks, Kyrie, for being a moron.

Duke might now have a bigger problem with one of its basketball alums. . .

Do you mean the player from the girl from the Justin Fairfax allegation?