Anyone else surprised by a lack of interest in William & Mary?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are no longer interested in W&M because of their students’ verbal attacks on Jewish W&M students and the brick-throwing incident at the (Katherine Rowe, Jewish) president’s home. It is not for us but good luck to everyone else.

We are Jewish and unfortunately this cr@p is happening on so many campuses. I feel like WM feels less activitist and political than a lot of schools. It doesn’t seem like a reason to veto the school because it sadly could happen anywhere.

[Anonymous]

these incidents happened @ W&M. No sanctioning of students’ behavior nor forthcoming details on investigation of brick incident. So, no thanks from us but gl to you.
it’s an extremely liberal institution that also happily accepts wealthy students with crap state unis e.g. NJ, CT, NY, NY who pay big bucks OOS. it has taken a hard left turn and again isn’t for us. I wish you and all looking at colleges the best.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:these incidents happened @ W&M. No sanctioning of students’ behavior nor forthcoming details on investigation of brick incident. So, no thanks from us but gl to you.
it’s an extremely liberal institution that also happily accepts wealthy students with crap state unis e.g. NJ, CT, NY, NY who pay big bucks OOS. it has taken a hard left turn and again isn’t for us. I wish you and all looking at colleges the best.

Do they know that it was a member of the student body who is responsible? And actually, no it's not an extremely liberal institution.

[Anonymous]

Our oldest (now in college) wouldn't apply to W & M in state. Good student, good grades, would be competitive as an applicant. Why not? I asked. Answer: because everyone tells me it's a pressure cooker environment, and there is severe grade deflation, and all the students are incredibly socially awkward, and the food is horrible, and the dorms are terrible, and Williamsburg is boring, and I just don't want any of that.

Never applied.

[Anonymous]

“59% of students say shouting down a speaker to prevent them from speaking on campus is at least rarely acceptable.
58% of students say they have self-censored on campus at least once or twice a month.
59% of students say they are worried about damaging their reputation because someone misunderstands something they have said or done.
For every one conservative student, there are roughly 5.5 liberal students.“
—FIRE

—FIRE

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are no longer interested in W&M because of their students’ verbal attacks on Jewish W&M students and the brick-throwing incident at the (Katherine Rowe, Jewish) president’s home. It is not for us but good luck to everyone else.

We are Jewish and unfortunately this cr@p is happening on so many campuses. I feel like WM feels less activitist and political than a lot of schools. It doesn’t seem like a reason to veto the school because it sadly could happen anywhere.

WM is very political. It is ranked as having some of the most politically active students by Princeton Review.

[Anonymous]

Both of my recent seniors didn’t apply to WM simply because they toured campus and thought it was a boring school. I’m not saying it is, I’m just repeating what two teens that didn’t apply thought about it. They thought there were way better school options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our oldest (sophomore) has already ruled out W&M and UVA. She's an honors student, and could be on track for both. She thinks W&M is a pressure cooker and UVA is too snobby. She's going with Virginia Tech.

Has she toured there?

DP here. Students tend to shy away from those schools because it feels too much like High School 2.0. I have heard from current students that UVA is easier than their HS and WM is not.

Those schools all have 20k plus undergrads. How os that "shying away?"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Location is terrible, career recruiting is middling and it's a LAC in an era where humanities and social sciences are losing attractiveness to tech and engineering.

All SLACs are struggling for similar reasons.

Students today want
1. Urban environments on the coasts - look at how popular Boston University and NYU have gotten over the past few decades
2. Strong on-campus recruiting - given the high tuition costs and most students going to college are middle-class
3. Tech/engineering degrees - due to high starting pay + lots of job opportunities in a growing industry

The trend is the same in all tiers. Stanford and MIT have decisively surpassed Yale and Princeton. Harvard has an urban campus in a major city on top of having top recruiting and respectable STEM + being Harvard.

It's also why a school like Georgetown, which is so ridiculously overpriced for the education that it provides, is still extremely popular with students, and why American and George Washington have become popular in recent decades as well. NYU was a commuter school, now it's the most-applied-to private university in the country. UCLA is the most popular university.

Well, Princeton Review rates William and Mary #1 for Internships and #13 for Career Placement among public schools. The Wall Street Journal reported this year that William and Mary is in the top 20 among public schools for average graduate yearly salary in the fields of technology, finance, management consulting, marketing, and law.

Princeton Review also rates William and Mary #19 on its list for "their students love these colleges" based on survey data.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are in-state at a public hs and our counselor told us that UVA, VA TECH, JMU and VCU were all "significantly" more popular than WM. We were really surprised given where WM is ranked.

This is very true.

By the numbers, that's just not the case. It is possible that that is true at your school and what the kids are telling your counselor, so I'm not disputing that your counselor thinks that. I think some of this is just regional. A friend who lives near Charlottesville told me that everyone they know wants VT. That's not the case here in NoVa and I have no idea what Tidewater kids want or what Bristol kids want, and so on. But the number of applicants per spot does not indicate that they are more popular, much less "significantly" so.

DP. Actually, that *does* seem to be the case in NoVA, at least among the students at my kid's high school and kids he knows on sports teams, etc. VT seems to be the #1 choice for so many of these students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are no longer interested in W&M because of their students’ verbal attacks on Jewish W&M students and the brick-throwing incident at the (Katherine Rowe, Jewish) president’s home. It is not for us but good luck to everyone else.

Wow, I hadn't heard about these things - could you please tell us more?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our oldest (now in college) wouldn't apply to W & M in state. Good student, good grades, would be competitive as an applicant. Why not? I asked. Answer: because everyone tells me it's a pressure cooker environment, and there is severe grade deflation, and all the students are incredibly socially awkward, and the food is horrible, and the dorms are terrible, and Williamsburg is boring, and I just don't want any of that.

Never applied.

Kids who base their decision on exagerated stereotypes and what "everyone tells me" (and there's obviously plenty of kids who would disagree) , rather than do some research and think for themselves, wouldn't be a good fit at W&M.

[Anonymous]

To me the stereotypes are more correct and at least need to be understood and ok with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would pin it on the current W&M president. All about woke and nothing else. Screwed up hire after hire and messing with the traditions that have made it a great institution.

Can you expand on which traditions she messed up? Still have Yule log, bell ringing, convocation etc. I can’t think of one big tradition that is no longer there.

The Tribe tradition.

What on earth does this mean? I went there and I don't know what you're referencing.

You are correct: There is no tribe tradition. This is a great reminder of why I need to get off this board: misinformation is rampant and anything I learn is ultimately not helpful bc who knows what is real. Good luck to everyone in their (or their kids’ college searches).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My senior just got in ED and heard a lot of the negative talk. I think there are two issues. 1) the big schools are really popular now so if you want the parties, football etc..in a big way it’s not your choice, 2) it suffers from being seen as a touch less prestigious than UVA. My DC know a lot of kids that probably would like WM but their parents really want them to go to UVA.

Sad that so many parents forget who is the one going to college.