Perceptions of VCU?

[Anonymous]

My dd is a freshman there, and it's a great fit for her.
Though it's a big school, I think the main Monroe Park campus feels compact and very walkable. She has never not felt safe, and I think the school makes safety awareness front and center.
She likes all the coffee shops, that she can walk to Whole Foods/Kroger, that clubs and activites have been welcoming, that she's not seeing all the same kids in her classes. And the Amtrak station is walkable too.
She went to a diverse HS and VCU's diversity is what she was used to.

[Anonymous]

Referring to places as “ghetto” is racist coded. Even if they are a quirky, Trump-hating liberal. Liberals can be racist. That said, my one concern about the school is housing availability after the dorms & the cost of that (if it’s significantly more). So far, VCU isn’t a top choice for my kid so I haven’t investigated closely.

If your kid is excited about VCU, ignore everyone else. It’s a solid school, sounds like the price is unbeatable w that scholarship & Richmond is a fun city.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP, sorry I forgot to address the "ghetto" comment. I don't consider any school "ghetto," but some are definitely near rough neighborhoods (ie Temple, UPenn, Duke, GW, Marquette, UChicago, Fordham) which I usually split into people struggling in public assisted living vs working class vs homeless people with mental health issue. However, my DC at UVA learned there's plenty of crime in Charlottesville and her friend at VT had their laptop and backpack stolen from the library and reports quite a few situations with roofies. A friend at Dartmouth had her Canada Goose jacket stolen at a frat party. So safety is relative and crime is everywhere. OP, your child's perspective will be shaped by their level of awareness and experience in different surroundings.

While there are homeless people around GW, as a grad I am unaware of any sketchy neighborhoods in the vicinity. They simply don’t exist.

Yes, and the homeless are of a better tier: drink only imported wine, if they wrap themselves in Newspaper, it’s usually the Wall Street Journal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Referring to places as “ghetto” is racist coded. Even if they are a quirky, Trump-hating liberal. Liberals can be racist.

+1

The comments say more about your friend than VCU…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My daughter was offered a very generous merit scholarship to VCU for engineering so we are considering it. But my daughter said one of her friends’ moms won’t let her go there because it is “ghetto” and I have also heard measured responses from other adults when I mention it as part of my daughter’s list. One mom said her older daughter went there and it was “the right school for HER.” Another mom said, “I have heard that is very good for the arts.”

Eeek? Is it a well-known thing that VCU is “ghetto” and therefore we should steer away? Thanks.

Go to Pitt

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm from Virginia and my sister and BIL live in Richmond so I'm there a lot.

Are you asking if VCU is IN the "ghetto" or if VCU itself IS "ghetto"?

Because parts of campus brush up against sketch neighborhoods, but the school and students aren't "ghetto." It's mostly artsy kids. The kids from my graduating class who went there went for visual arts and were quirky/artsy. Zohran Mamdani's wife went there for visual arts. I don't know anything about engineering there bc most kids went to Tech for that.

Why don't you take a tour and see what you and your DD *actually* think before you take the word of adult women who still describe things as ghetto.

Its pretty decent. ‘Nuf said.

[Anonymous]

I would feel comfortable ignoring the opinions of anyone who would use the word "ghetto" as an adjective to describe a university.

[Anonymous]

I wouldn't call it ghetto but the neighborhood outside of it has a homeless population that might scare some people.

[Anonymous]

I have a VCU grad. She absolutely loved the school and has made what are looking like very strong lifelong friends there. The school is very diverse and has students of all stripes and academic and career interests. It has no majority ethnic groups and it is definitely not ghetto.

The surrounding neighborhood is funky and interesting and has a lot to offer.

The student body is overwhelmingly Virginian.

[Anonymous]

My impression of VCU was positive and I agree that “ghetto” is coded racism, your friend’s anti-Trump posts notwithstanding.

My DD was interested in both the arts and pre-med (weirdly!) and wanted a diverse, urban campus, so VCU floated to the top of her list quickly. They offered her such great merit aid that it would have been LESS than our state school.

She ended up not choosing it because she wanted to keep doing her job in the DMV area, and UMBC let her do that on the weekends.

Our impression of VCU though was totally positive … with the exception of housing. And then I met a friend whose daughter had to move to an apartment her sophomore year and it’s just HARD. I was glad for on campus options for my kid all four years (also happy with the teaching/professors/research opportunities at UMBC).

Richmond is SUCH a great town though. Great food, the arts, diverse, a manageable size. I was ultimately a little disappointed my kid don’t wind up there, but it all worked out.

Good luck, OP. Stop listening to people like your friend and just help your kid choose the right place for them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is the person who thinks it's ghetto a MAGA type who watches Fox endlessly and is frightened of cities?

MAGA types are not typically snobs. “Ghetto” comments are more likely from NIMBY liberals.

[Anonymous]

I know 2 students who love it there. They even love the Richmond area as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP, sorry I forgot to address the "ghetto" comment. I don't consider any school "ghetto," but some are definitely near rough neighborhoods (ie Temple, UPenn, Duke, GW, Marquette, UChicago, Fordham) which I usually split into people struggling in public assisted living vs working class vs homeless people with mental health issue. However, my DC at UVA learned there's plenty of crime in Charlottesville and her friend at VT had their laptop and backpack stolen from the library and reports quite a few situations with roofies. A friend at Dartmouth had her Canada Goose jacket stolen at a frat party. So safety is relative and crime is everywhere. OP, your child's perspective will be shaped by their level of awareness and experience in different surroundings.

While there are homeless people around GW, as a grad I am unaware of any sketchy neighborhoods in the vicinity. They simply don’t exist.

There are no longer homeless people around GWU, the State Dept, or the Kennedy Center that is one great thing that occurred in the last year. It’s all cleaned up. No more tents. Gone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, all who are telling us to visit:

We have visited. We visited last Fall when my DD was a junior. We did find it urban as others have described, but we were just there for a day and found it fine, on that one visitation day. I was wondering if there was more to the story that we did not pick up on: that others may already know. EG is it considered “ghetto?” In whatever explanation of this word as someone may take it? Were we the naive dumb-dumbs who did not pick up on something everybody else already knows?

And lastly, the mom who used this word would not really be considered MAGA to me. She is quirky, kind of artsy and creative, divorced mom of two, cute, fun. Posts anti-Trump things on her FB page. So, yeah, I couldn’t easily place where this mom was getting “ghetto” from, as the one-word descriptor of the whole school, like I could have easily write it off if it were from an obviously MAGA type mom. It made me wonder if we had missed something that was a well-known, yet unwritten social understanding of the school: “Oh, VCU, that’s ghetto and artsy. The end.”

Thanks for everyone’s responses.

First, you should know that a white person is using the word "ghetto" as a euphemism for "black." That in itself should cause you to discount that opinion. It's ignorant. Instead you come on DCUM and concern troll about VCU.

This aside, you visited the school. Form your own opinion. Do you want your kid to go there based on your visit?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, all who are telling us to visit:

We have visited. We visited last Fall when my DD was a junior. We did find it urban as others have described, but we were just there for a day and found it fine, on that one visitation day. I was wondering if there was more to the story that we did not pick up on: that others may already know. EG is it considered “ghetto?” In whatever explanation of this word as someone may take it? Were we the naive dumb-dumbs who did not pick up on something everybody else already knows?

And lastly, the mom who used this word would not really be considered MAGA to me. She is quirky, kind of artsy and creative, divorced mom of two, cute, fun. Posts anti-Trump things on her FB page. So, yeah, I couldn’t easily place where this mom was getting “ghetto” from, as the one-word descriptor of the whole school, like I could have easily write it off if it were from an obviously MAGA type mom. It made me wonder if we had missed something that was a well-known, yet unwritten social understanding of the school: “Oh, VCU, that’s ghetto and artsy. The end.”

Thanks for everyone’s responses.

First, you should know that a white person is using the word "ghetto" as a euphemism for "black." That in itself should cause you to discount that opinion. It's ignorant. Instead you come on DCUM and concern troll about VCU.

This aside, you visited the school. Form your own opinion. Do you want your kid to go there based on your visit?

I think OP is worried... not about safety or whatever, but about perceptions. She wants to see if DCUM thinks badly of VCU, and is coming on here with her friend's comment trying to see if there's uptake.