What’s wrong with William & Mary?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Have you attended the school or even been to the campus? The average rent in the whole city does not matter.

My post has been specifically about the walkable area adjacent to campus, where most students would congregate if it was not so expensive cause - you know - college students tend not to have cars (and freshmen/sophomore actually can't get parking on campus regardless). The restaurants and shops there are extremely expensive and cater to tourists and wealthy retirees that live in Williamsburg. The area is a tourist destination because of Colonial Williamsburg. The rest of the area near campus consists of 3 restaurant/delis/bars total.
The comparison is to most college towns, such as UVA and even Virginia Tech, that have a walkable center right outside the university where a lot of students gather and afford to eat at. Williamsburg does not have that. It's a terrible college town by any standard as soon as you set a foot outside of campus. It's essentially a dead town.

So many students have cars and simply drive themselves to local places which are cheap once you leave the very small historic area. Your hate says more about you than Williamsburg.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son is strongly considering W&M and likes the size, teacher/student ratio and the good things he has heard about the Business school. His only concern is that he has heard there is little to do outside of studying and that Williamsburg is very boring for college students. He has heard great things about the school spirit at UVA and VT. He wants a good balance of academics/social life.

If he wants that kind of all college town all college spirit party a lot he should probably make another choice. Like VT.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son is strongly considering W&M and likes the size, teacher/student ratio and the good things he has heard about the Business school. His only concern is that he has heard there is little to do outside of studying and that Williamsburg is very boring for college students. He has heard great things about the school spirit at UVA and VT. He wants a good balance of academics/social life.

If he wants that kind of all college town all college spirit party a lot he should probably make another choice. Like VT.

He should go to UVA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have you attended the school or even been to the campus? The average rent in the whole city does not matter.

My post has been specifically about the walkable area adjacent to campus, where most students would congregate if it was not so expensive cause - you know - college students tend not to have cars (and freshmen/sophomore actually can't get parking on campus regardless). The restaurants and shops there are extremely expensive and cater to tourists and wealthy retirees that live in Williamsburg. The area is a tourist destination because of Colonial Williamsburg. The rest of the area near campus consists of 3 restaurant/delis/bars total.
The comparison is to most college towns, such as UVA and even Virginia Tech, that have a walkable center right outside the university where a lot of students gather and afford to eat at. Williamsburg does not have that. It's a terrible college town by any standard as soon as you set a foot outside of campus. It's essentially a dead town.

So many students have cars and simply drive themselves to local places which are cheap once you leave the very small historic area. Your hate says more about you than Williamsburg.

Freshmen and sophomores aren't allowed to have cars on campus, and no, not everyone has a car. Local places are cheap but far away and un-walkable, and the bus only comes every hour.
Again, this is criticism of the college town, not hate. You seem to be weirdly sensitive to any criticism of Williamsburg. It's a terrible college town, even when compared to Blacksburg/Charlottesville which aren't the best college towns in the nation either, which further shows how terrible of a college town Williamsburg is. Don't give bad information to others based on personal sensitivity.

[Anonymous]

I’m sorry you didn’t get into W&M but were forced to live there because your partner did. Made you very angry. Got it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m sorry you didn’t get into W&M but were forced to live there because your partner did. Made you very angry. Got it.

Your sensitivity to the merits of Williamsburg as a college town comes off as very insecure. It's not even criticism of the school itself, its criticism of the college town, which possibly could affect a student's desire to attend the school considering that they will be living there for some 4 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son is strongly considering W&M and likes the size, teacher/student ratio and the good things he has heard about the Business school. His only concern is that he has heard there is little to do outside of studying and that Williamsburg is very boring for college students. He has heard great things about the school spirit at UVA and VT. He wants a good balance of academics/social life.

If he wants that kind of all college town all college spirit party a lot he should probably make another choice. Like VT.

Maybe your son should consider other sources of information. Princeton Review (survey based) has William & Mary #6 for Happiest Students, #12 for Best Quality of Life, #6 for Their Students Love These Colleges.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m sorry you didn’t get into W&M but were forced to live there because your partner did. Made you very angry. Got it.

Your sensitivity to the merits of Williamsburg as a college town comes off as very insecure. It's not even criticism of the school itself, its criticism of the college town, which possibly could affect a student's desire to attend the school considering that they will be living there for some 4 years.

Your descriptions come off as someone with an ax to grind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m sorry you didn’t get into W&M but were forced to live there because your partner did. Made you very angry. Got it.

Your sensitivity to the merits of Williamsburg as a college town comes off as very insecure. It's not even criticism of the school itself, its criticism of the college town, which possibly could affect a student's desire to attend the school considering that they will be living there for some 4 years.

Your descriptions come off as someone with an ax to grind.

My descriptions come off as fact based on the merits and demerits of W&M. I have posted on this thread multiple times about the merits - small class sizes for humanities, government and IR - the demerits such as terrible college town, mediocrity of certain majors, and neutral as the social culture i.e. sports clubs, no tailgating, comparisons of W&M to UVA and VT.

Meanwhile you seem to be blindly cheerleading the school, perhaps because you have a personal connection there. But you are giving bad and wrong information out of your personal sensitivities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son is strongly considering W&M and likes the size, teacher/student ratio and the good things he has heard about the Business school. His only concern is that he has heard there is little to do outside of studying and that Williamsburg is very boring for college students. He has heard great things about the school spirit at UVA and VT. He wants a good balance of academics/social life.

There is indeed very little to do outside of campus in the college town itself, but there is indeed a frat scene with ~35% in frats/sororities. But don't expect anything to be set around the town itself (i.e. no movie theaters/concerts/clubs etc.). Mostly house parties.
There is school spirit but its a different kind from VT and UVA. It's not based around sports, its more of what you might expect at a private liberal arts school.
Some kids do seem to outright hate the school initially though; there are a lot of male students that did not get into their first choice of UVA who come to W&M and would much prefer the environment of UVA i.e. large population, big-time sports, huge frat scene, undergrad business school, Charlottesville.

The outright best part of W&M is their humanities, government, and related majors i.e. international relations. The small class size, generally 20-30 students per class in even freshman classes, is very good and necessary for those types of majors because it allows class discussions, and the professors in those majors are generally great and come from great schools. I would say this is a huge advantage that W&M has over UVA, VT and other top public universities.

Majors like Economics are not as good and you don't need small class size for those types of majors. Not much course choice. Computer Science major is extremely mediocre.

UVA business school is probably better than W&M's and certainly has more prestigious employers i.e. investment banks, top management consulting firms recruiting that W&M doesn't have.

Base sciences (chemistry, biology, physics, etc.) and science education are really strong at W&M. Intro classes can be fairly large, but classes are taught by professors who are generally good at teaching (labs can be TA supervised). Upper level classes are small, and professors are very accessible and giving of their time. Most majors do professor supervised research which is really useful in graduate and medical school admissions. Advising in these areas is pretty strong. I believe only Berkeley and New Mexico School of Mines (whose graduates tend to get advanced degrees because of their field) have a higher percentage of their undergraduates go on to get STEM Doctorates according to National Science Foundation tracking data. (Both of those schools have a higher percentage of students getting STEM undergraduate degrees.)

When I was there, the departments were housed in different buildings, and labs needed modernizing, but W&M has now built an integrated science center to enhance interdisciplinary studies and collaboration. Labs seemed very nice when I toured recently.

[Anonymous]

Yes, I'd argue W&M is a very good school or pre-med, although one has to recognize its limits i.e. very small research program which translates to not much research and not as many courses offered as large publics i.e. Berkeley, Michigan and UNC. Although I believe it does have a good amount of research in Physics (NASA Langley is 20 minutes away) and Marine Science (Virginia Institute of Marine Science)

The small class size is a massive advantage when getting letters of recommendations for medical school and getting to know professors.

There's also a recent program whereby those with a certain GPA at W&M of about ~3.4 and ~509 MCAT score can get guaranteed admissions to Eastern Virginia Medical School and possibly VCU (not sure). That is a massive advantage considering many pre-med students struggle to get into medical school in the US and have to go to medical school in the Caribbean instead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, I'd argue W&M is a very good school or pre-med, although one has to recognize its limits i.e. very small research program which translates to not much research and not as many courses offered as large publics i.e. Berkeley, Michigan and UNC. Although I believe it does have a good amount of research in Physics (NASA Langley is 20 minutes away) and Marine Science (Virginia Institute of Marine Science)

The small class size is a massive advantage when getting letters of recommendations for medical school and getting to know professors.

There's also a recent program whereby those with a certain GPA at W&M of about ~3.4 and ~509 MCAT score can get guaranteed admissions to Eastern Virginia Medical School and possibly VCU (not sure). That is a massive advantage considering many pre-med students struggle to get into medical school in the US and have to go to medical school in the Caribbean instead.

W&M doesn't have a huge externally-sponsored research program but it has long worked to allow students to do their own faculty-mentored research. US News has a ranking of undergraduate research projects and W&M is ranked 13th.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son is strongly considering W&M and likes the size, teacher/student ratio and the good things he has heard about the Business school. His only concern is that he has heard there is little to do outside of studying and that Williamsburg is very boring for college students. He has heard great things about the school spirit at UVA and VT. He wants a good balance of academics/social life.

There is indeed very little to do outside of campus in the college town itself, but there is indeed a frat scene with ~35% in frats/sororities. But don't expect anything to be set around the town itself (i.e. no movie theaters/concerts/clubs etc.). Mostly house parties.
There is school spirit but its a different kind from VT and UVA. It's not based around sports, its more of what you might expect at a private liberal arts school.
Some kids do seem to outright hate the school initially though; there are a lot of male students that did not get into their first choice of UVA who come to W&M and would much prefer the environment of UVA i.e. large population, big-time sports, huge frat scene, undergrad business school, Charlottesville.

The outright best part of W&M is their humanities, government, and related majors i.e. international relations. The small class size, generally 20-30 students per class in even freshman classes, is very good and necessary for those types of majors because it allows class discussions, and the professors in those majors are generally great and come from great schools. I would say this is a huge advantage that W&M has over UVA, VT and other top public universities.

Majors like Economics are not as good and you don't need small class size for those types of majors. Not much course choice. Computer Science major is extremely mediocre.

UVA business school is probably better than W&M's and certainly has more prestigious employers i.e. investment banks, top management consulting firms recruiting that W&M doesn't have.

No movie theaters? There are about 20 screens in Williamsburg. The Regal alone has 12 screens.

[Anonymous]

Troll thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son is strongly considering W&M and likes the size, teacher/student ratio and the good things he has heard about the Business school. His only concern is that he has heard there is little to do outside of studying and that Williamsburg is very boring for college students. He has heard great things about the school spirit at UVA and VT. He wants a good balance of academics/social life.

There is indeed very little to do outside of campus in the college town itself, but there is indeed a frat scene with ~35% in frats/sororities. But don't expect anything to be set around the town itself (i.e. no movie theaters/concerts/clubs etc.). Mostly house parties.
There is school spirit but its a different kind from VT and UVA. It's not based around sports, its more of what you might expect at a private liberal arts school.
Some kids do seem to outright hate the school initially though; there are a lot of male students that did not get into their first choice of UVA who come to W&M and would much prefer the environment of UVA i.e. large population, big-time sports, huge frat scene, undergrad business school, Charlottesville.

The outright best part of W&M is their humanities, government, and related majors i.e. international relations. The small class size, generally 20-30 students per class in even freshman classes, is very good and necessary for those types of majors because it allows class discussions, and the professors in those majors are generally great and come from great schools. I would say this is a huge advantage that W&M has over UVA, VT and other top public universities.

Majors like Economics are not as good and you don't need small class size for those types of majors. Not much course choice. Computer Science major is extremely mediocre.

UVA business school is probably better than W&M's and certainly has more prestigious employers i.e. investment banks, top management consulting firms recruiting that W&M doesn't have.

No movie theaters? There are about 20 screens in Williamsburg. The Regal alone has 12 screens.

Another person who lacks reading comprehension. I'm talking about the area adjacent to W&M campus. Not an area that's a 30 minutes drive away.