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

[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.

No offense but your child doesn't seem very smart if they blindly believe rumors. They also just sound kinda nasty.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

It's really not important what people on this board (including me) have to say. This is all anecdotal. The kids at my DS's school in NoVa mostly consider VT a backup, mostly for kids who won't get into UVa. That is also just anecdotal. Again, the numbers are what matter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I don't know how Princeton Review's ranking criteria but to say it's #1 for internships among publics is tough to believe. There's Georgia Tech which is known for it's co-op program. I'd bet a lot of those at W&M are non-paying internships in DC for government/international organizations, which as you can imagine is not going to be popular for middle-class students.

Top 20 among public schools for average graduate yearly salary according to WSJ is nothing to write home about. W&M is #23 among publics according to USNews but that means it's under the likes of Texas A&M and Florida State and next to the likes of Stoney Brook and the University of Connecticut. Most would not consider these schools to be peers of W&M.

W&M has the highest median parent income among publics (which should mean more opportunities for students for high paying jobs) and targets students that otherwise can go to Berkeley, UCLA, Michigan, UVA, UNC and Georgia Tech. It never could match those schools in outcomes but it's fallen far behind now. I don't know if it still can target those same students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I don't know how Princeton Review's ranking criteria but to say it's #1 for internships among publics is tough to believe. There's Georgia Tech which is known for it's co-op program. I'd bet a lot of those at W&M are non-paying internships in DC for government/international organizations, which as you can imagine is not going to be popular for middle-class students.

Top 20 among public schools for average graduate yearly salary according to WSJ is nothing to write home about. W&M is #23 among publics according to USNews but that means it's under the likes of Texas A&M and Florida State and next to the likes of Stoney Brook and the University of Connecticut. Most would not consider these schools to be peers of W&M.

W&M has the highest median parent income among publics (which should mean more opportunities for students for high paying jobs) and targets students that otherwise can go to Berkeley, UCLA, Michigan, UVA, UNC and Georgia Tech. It never could match those schools in outcomes but it's fallen far behind now. I don't know if it still can target those same students.

Engineering graduates make about 2X as much through their early-to-mid career compared to the average college graduate. Colleges with a higher percentage of students graduating with engineering degrees therefore get a boost in average "outcome" ratings because of this. But a student has to major in engineering to get this expected boost. William and Mary does not have engineering. If you compare William and Mary to UNC (one of the schools you list as having far better outcomes), which only has a very limited engineering program, the WSJ salary data shows William and Mary graduates earn more than UNC graduates in the areas of finance, technology, marketing, and law. UNC is ranked #22 in USNWR.

The Princeton Review internship ranking is based on on "students’ ratings of accessibility of internship placement at their school". Georgia Tech ranks #6 in internships and #1 in career placement. 65%+ of Georgia Tech graduates earn their degrees in engineering.

[Anonymous]

This is a thread from 4 years ago someone restarted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I don't know how Princeton Review's ranking criteria but to say it's #1 for internships among publics is tough to believe. There's Georgia Tech which is known for it's co-op program. I'd bet a lot of those at W&M are non-paying internships in DC for government/international organizations, which as you can imagine is not going to be popular for middle-class students.

Top 20 among public schools for average graduate yearly salary according to WSJ is nothing to write home about. W&M is #23 among publics according to USNews but that means it's under the likes of Texas A&M and Florida State and next to the likes of Stoney Brook and the University of Connecticut. Most would not consider these schools to be peers of W&M.

W&M has the highest median parent income among publics (which should mean more opportunities for students for high paying jobs) and targets students that otherwise can go to Berkeley, UCLA, Michigan, UVA, UNC and Georgia Tech. It never could match those schools in outcomes but it's fallen far behind now. I don't know if it still can target those same students.

Engineering graduates make about 2X as much through their early-to-mid career compared to the average college graduate. Colleges with a higher percentage of students graduating with engineering degrees therefore get a boost in average "outcome" ratings because of this. But a student has to major in engineering to get this expected boost. William and Mary does not have engineering. If you compare William and Mary to UNC (one of the schools you list as having far better outcomes), which only has a very limited engineering program, the WSJ salary data shows William and Mary graduates earn more than UNC graduates in the areas of finance, technology, marketing, and law. UNC is ranked #22 in USNWR.

The Princeton Review internship ranking is based on on "students’ ratings of accessibility of internship placement at their school". Georgia Tech ranks #6 in internships and #1 in career placement. 65%+ of Georgia Tech graduates earn their degrees in engineering.

Not sure the relevance of this. Yes, W&M doesn't have engineering and that hurts both its outcomes and its attractiveness.

I don't know what WSJ salary ranking you are referring to so I have no reference point. And UNC is ranked #22 among all universities, not just public universities.

UNC is a good comparison point.

It is in suburban environment far from major cities like W&M, but it's a top hub for bio and health science research. The pay is lower than tech/engineering and does not have much of a premium over liberal arts, but it's another field that has gained great popularity over the past several decades at the expense of the liberal arts. And while W&M is decent for the natural sciences, that's at a bachelors level since the school is non-existent for research which is rather important for natural science given it revolves around research.

And please don't mention the undergraduate research opportunities that W&M keeps advertising, they are incomparable to the ones at actual research universities.

So #3 on my original list should be STEM, not solely tech/engineering.

As for campus recruiting, we can do a quick estimate by the number of companies that come to recruit at the career fairs for each school. I don't have that data right now, but I can guarantee you that UNC will have far more and far more varied companies than W&M. It's a simple numbers games for companies - travel to Williamsburg which is far away from any metro for a school of <10,000 students, or travel to the Research Triangle where you can recruit from three major universities with a total of 86,000 students within 20 minutes of each other?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I don't know how Princeton Review's ranking criteria but to say it's #1 for internships among publics is tough to believe. There's Georgia Tech which is known for it's co-op program. I'd bet a lot of those at W&M are non-paying internships in DC for government/international organizations, which as you can imagine is not going to be popular for middle-class students.

Top 20 among public schools for average graduate yearly salary according to WSJ is nothing to write home about. W&M is #23 among publics according to USNews but that means it's under the likes of Texas A&M and Florida State and next to the likes of Stoney Brook and the University of Connecticut. Most would not consider these schools to be peers of W&M.

W&M has the highest median parent income among publics (which should mean more opportunities for students for high paying jobs) and targets students that otherwise can go to Berkeley, UCLA, Michigan, UVA, UNC and Georgia Tech. It never could match those schools in outcomes but it's fallen far behind now. I don't know if it still can target those same students.

Engineering graduates make about 2X as much through their early-to-mid career compared to the average college graduate. Colleges with a higher percentage of students graduating with engineering degrees therefore get a boost in average "outcome" ratings because of this. But a student has to major in engineering to get this expected boost. William and Mary does not have engineering. If you compare William and Mary to UNC (one of the schools you list as having far better outcomes), which only has a very limited engineering program, the WSJ salary data shows William and Mary graduates earn more than UNC graduates in the areas of finance, technology, marketing, and law. UNC is ranked #22 in USNWR.

The Princeton Review internship ranking is based on on "students’ ratings of accessibility of internship placement at their school". Georgia Tech ranks #6 in internships and #1 in career placement. 65%+ of Georgia Tech graduates earn their degrees in engineering.

Not sure the relevance of this. Yes, W&M doesn't have engineering and that hurts both its outcomes and its attractiveness.

I don't know what WSJ salary ranking you are referring to so I have no reference point. And UNC is ranked #22 among all universities, not just public universities.

UNC is a good comparison point.

It is in suburban environment far from major cities like W&M, but it's a top hub for bio and health science research. The pay is lower than tech/engineering and does not have much of a premium over liberal arts, but it's another field that has gained great popularity over the past several decades at the expense of the liberal arts. And while W&M is decent for the natural sciences, that's at a bachelors level since the school is non-existent for research which is rather important for natural science given it revolves around research.

And please don't mention the undergraduate research opportunities that W&M keeps advertising, they are incomparable to the ones at actual research universities.

So #3 on my original list should be STEM, not solely tech/engineering.

As for campus recruiting, we can do a quick estimate by the number of companies that come to recruit at the career fairs for each school. I don't have that data right now, but I can guarantee you that UNC will have far more and far more varied companies than W&M. It's a simple numbers games for companies - travel to Williamsburg which is far away from any metro for a school of <10,000 students, or travel to the Research Triangle where you can recruit from three major universities with a total of 86,000 students within 20 minutes of each other?

I think this is the guy with an axe to grind because of an ex.

[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.

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

https://www.13newsnow.com/amp/article/news/local/virginia/williamsburg/brick-thrown-william-mary-presidents-home-university-spokesperson-confirms/291-0542584c-c566-4999-9bd4-4e10f7931c2e

https://www.wavy.com/news/local-news/williamsburg/jewish-wm-students-say-other-students-verbally-assaulted-them-due-to-war-in-israel/amp/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I don't know how Princeton Review's ranking criteria but to say it's #1 for internships among publics is tough to believe. There's Georgia Tech which is known for it's co-op program. I'd bet a lot of those at W&M are non-paying internships in DC for government/international organizations, which as you can imagine is not going to be popular for middle-class students.

Top 20 among public schools for average graduate yearly salary according to WSJ is nothing to write home about. W&M is #23 among publics according to USNews but that means it's under the likes of Texas A&M and Florida State and next to the likes of Stoney Brook and the University of Connecticut. Most would not consider these schools to be peers of W&M.

W&M has the highest median parent income among publics (which should mean more opportunities for students for high paying jobs) and targets students that otherwise can go to Berkeley, UCLA, Michigan, UVA, UNC and Georgia Tech. It never could match those schools in outcomes but it's fallen far behind now. I don't know if it still can target those same students.

Engineering graduates make about 2X as much through their early-to-mid career compared to the average college graduate. Colleges with a higher percentage of students graduating with engineering degrees therefore get a boost in average "outcome" ratings because of this. But a student has to major in engineering to get this expected boost. William and Mary does not have engineering. If you compare William and Mary to UNC (one of the schools you list as having far better outcomes), which only has a very limited engineering program, the WSJ salary data shows William and Mary graduates earn more than UNC graduates in the areas of finance, technology, marketing, and law. UNC is ranked #22 in USNWR.

The Princeton Review internship ranking is based on on "students’ ratings of accessibility of internship placement at their school". Georgia Tech ranks #6 in internships and #1 in career placement. 65%+ of Georgia Tech graduates earn their degrees in engineering.

Not sure the relevance of this. Yes, W&M doesn't have engineering and that hurts both its outcomes and its attractiveness.

I don't know what WSJ salary ranking you are referring to so I have no reference point. And UNC is ranked #22 among all universities, not just public universities.

UNC is a good comparison point.

It is in suburban environment far from major cities like W&M, but it's a top hub for bio and health science research. The pay is lower than tech/engineering and does not have much of a premium over liberal arts, but it's another field that has gained great popularity over the past several decades at the expense of the liberal arts. And while W&M is decent for the natural sciences, that's at a bachelors level since the school is non-existent for research which is rather important for natural science given it revolves around research.

And please don't mention the undergraduate research opportunities that W&M keeps advertising, they are incomparable to the ones at actual research universities.

So #3 on my original list should be STEM, not solely tech/engineering.

As for campus recruiting, we can do a quick estimate by the number of companies that come to recruit at the career fairs for each school. I don't have that data right now, but I can guarantee you that UNC will have far more and far more varied companies than W&M. It's a simple numbers games for companies - travel to Williamsburg which is far away from any metro for a school of <10,000 students, or travel to the Research Triangle where you can recruit from three major universities with a total of 86,000 students within 20 minutes of each other?

I think this is the guy with an axe to grind because of an ex.

Totally agree that it’s him!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

No offense but your child doesn't seem very smart if they blindly believe rumors. They also just sound kinda nasty.

The funniest part to me about all of these rumors is that I heard the same thing about WM when I went there 25 years ago. I knew kids who were really studious, I knew kids who were total partiers and most people were somewhere in between. They certainly weren't handing out As like the Ivies apparently do, but it's not like they were impossible to get either. I knew cool, sophisticated kids and kids who were more awkward. And as to the buildings being old, I don't know what to tell you. Yep, some of them are old. Some of them are brand new. None of that affected my academic or social experience there.

My point is that it's dumb for kids and parents to believe longstanding rumors without really putting some critical thought into it, just as it would be unfair to listen to rumors that UVa has become too aimed at partiers and full of "Bro" culture. Every school is going to have some of everything. And no school is perfect for everyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

DP: The ranking is based on students' answers about political awareness, not activism though--and I would imagine that given the high numbers of majors in international relations, government, public policy etc. that means that W&M students are fairly likely rightly to consider themselves politically aware/informed.

From the Princeton Review:
Most Politically Active Students
Least Politically Active Students
Both lists are based on students' answers to the survey question, "My level of political awareness is: Very High, High, Average, Low, or Very Low."
https://www.princetonreview.com/college-rankings/ranking-methodology

[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.


No offense but your child doesn't seem very smart if they blindly believe rumors. They also just sound kinda nasty.

How could anyone on the receiving end of this not take offense?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

No offense but your child doesn't seem very smart if they blindly believe rumors. They also just sound kinda nasty.

The funniest part to me about all of these rumors is that I heard the same thing about WM when I went there 25 years ago. I knew kids who were really studious, I knew kids who were total partiers and most people were somewhere in between. They certainly weren't handing out As like the Ivies apparently do, but it's not like they were impossible to get either. I knew cool, sophisticated kids and kids who were more awkward. And as to the buildings being old, I don't know what to tell you. Yep, some of them are old. Some of them are brand new. None of that affected my academic or social experience there.

My point is that it's dumb for kids and parents to believe longstanding rumors without really putting some critical thought into it, just as it would be unfair to listen to rumors that UVa has become too aimed at partiers and full of "Bro" culture. Every school is going to have some of everything. And no school is perfect for everyone.

Those are reasonable thoughts from a W&M alum... this is how I want my freshman to turn out!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

No offense but your child doesn't seem very smart if they blindly believe rumors. They also just sound kinda nasty.

The funniest part to me about all of these rumors is that I heard the same thing about WM when I went there 25 years ago. I knew kids who were really studious, I knew kids who were total partiers and most people were somewhere in between. They certainly weren't handing out As like the Ivies apparently do, but it's not like they were impossible to get either. I knew cool, sophisticated kids and kids who were more awkward. And as to the buildings being old, I don't know what to tell you. Yep, some of them are old. Some of them are brand new. None of that affected my academic or social experience there.

My point is that it's dumb for kids and parents to believe longstanding rumors without really putting some critical thought into it, just as it would be unfair to listen to rumors that UVa has become too aimed at partiers and full of "Bro" culture. Every school is going to have some of everything. And no school is perfect for everyone.

Those are reasonable thoughts from a W&M alum... this is how I want my freshman to turn out!

+1 I didn't know much about W&M other than the name/history before we moved here, but my main positive feeling towards it since was due to that nearly every alum I met from there seemed like a particularly smart, decent, reasonable person. I was thrilled when my kid decided to go there as his first choice.

[Anonymous]

It’s expensive out of state, their merit scholarships are a joke (because it is a state a school) and the dorm room they showed us in the absolute worst, which made you wonder how the really bad rooms were!