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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1. Sure, but CS at W&M has been for the longest time extremely mediocre. It ranks in the 70's in all national CS rankings.

2. There's a difference between rigor and stress. W&M is stressful, and it is rigorous in lower level and BS courses compared to other similar universities. The floor is higher at W&M. But the ceiling for rigor is much higher at research universities given top undergrads regularly take Ph.D. level courses at those research universities. Those research universities also have courses dedicated to the most specialized subjects and the latest research, again something not found at W&M or most LACs.

Undergrads don't have to fight with grad students at research universities, professors are happy to get as much help as they can for their research labs. And the "STEM and humanities research option" is little more than a science project compared to working on the cutting edge research of a professor.

The ISC at major research universities would be home to a single science department, with other science departments having similar buildings of their own. For W&M it's state of the art and houses 7+ departments and research labs. That shows you the difference between W&M and major research universities. Look at the CS building at UIUC for instance - https://cs.illinois.edu/about/contact-us#page-gallery-1


3. No one thinks that they are at MIT, Cornell or U. Chicago, but the students think W&M is as rigorous and stressful as those schools. The stress perception among both the student population and prospective students is higher than what it should be. The stress feeds itself and this makes the school more stressful that the rigor suggests.


4. Never said there wasn't a Greek scene, the Greek scene is (unfortunately) quite dominant in fact.


6. Yes business is stressful and competitive, and so is pre-med because it is curved. That there is a reason for the competitiveness doesn't change the fact that there's a lot of competition among students, and this image as W&M as some haven of cooperation and collaboration is simply false.



1. There's not a lot to do, and anything there is to do is touristy and overly expensive. The students do not interact much with the town at all, outside of the three college bars that's not even in the main tourist trap area. Students don't go out for dates and eatings in the tourist trap area because it's ridiculously overpriced and expensive.

2. You admit yourself that majority of students are from NoVA, why would they want to go back to NoVA? Amtrak realistically takes 4-5 hours because it waits on freight trains and costs $70 per ticket one-way. DC really is not a "weekend getaway". Compare that to schools like Princeton and Yale that are within an hour of NYC.


3. Cheese Shoppe is the exact type of tourist trap that I've been talking about.


4. Senior citizens is always an issue because they make laws that are anti-student life. Can't blame them because everyone hates living next to drunk and high college students, but they chose to live next to a college.


5. Most students are from Fairfax and Loudon, not DC. Neither Fairfax nor Loudon are swamps. And because you come from a swamp doesn't mean that you want to live in a swamp for college.


6. It's quite literally, geographically, in the South. It's south of Richmond, the former confederate capital. It's south of UVA, the epitome of antebellum South. You leave campus and you're in the tidewater South.

Culturally, the Greek scene at W&M dominates the social scene, even if it is not as bad as W&L or UVA. W&M is most similar to Wake Forest in North Carolina, both geographically and culturally Southern schools that don't have the big time sports.

To say it's more similar to the Mid-Atlantic schools than Southern schools is a ridiculous statement. Compare W&M and Williamsburg to Penn and Drexel in Philly, Rutgers in NJ, NYU and Fordham in NYC versus UNC in Chapel Hill, UVA in Charlottesville, Wake Forest in Winston-Salem. It's obvious which schools and towns that W&M and Williamsburg are more similar to.


My post was extremely fair and balanced. Yours, meanwhile, looks like you are reaching in frantic desperation to defend the school as something it is not.

Thank you for your many subjective opinions and false assertions (e.g., high stress that feeds on itself, dominance of Greek life, students don't go out for dates, $70 one-way train tickets, etc ) that are directly contradicted by my DC's experience and the experience of many other students at the school (as well as Princeton Review surveys and other data). To be fair, you do make some valid claims, but you obviously have it out for W&M for some reason.

1. High stress does feed on itself, that's how it works at both the individual and the campus level.

2. Greek Life dominates W&M social life. 32% of men are in frats and 36% of women are in sororities at W&M. Compare that with UVA where it's 28% total. Now Greek Life at W&M is certainly more laid back than at schools like UVA, but that's because the social scene at W&M is more subdued. What social scene there is, is dominated by Greek Life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1. Sure, but CS at W&M has been for the longest time extremely mediocre. It ranks in the 70's in all national CS rankings.

2. There's a difference between rigor and stress. W&M is stressful, and it is rigorous in lower level and BS courses compared to other similar universities. The floor is higher at W&M. But the ceiling for rigor is much higher at research universities given top undergrads regularly take Ph.D. level courses at those research universities. Those research universities also have courses dedicated to the most specialized subjects and the latest research, again something not found at W&M or most LACs.

Undergrads don't have to fight with grad students at research universities, professors are happy to get as much help as they can for their research labs. And the "STEM and humanities research option" is little more than a science project compared to working on the cutting edge research of a professor.

The ISC at major research universities would be home to a single science department, with other science departments having similar buildings of their own. For W&M it's state of the art and houses 7+ departments and research labs. That shows you the difference between W&M and major research universities. Look at the CS building at UIUC for instance - https://cs.illinois.edu/about/contact-us#page-gallery-1


3. No one thinks that they are at MIT, Cornell or U. Chicago, but the students think W&M is as rigorous and stressful as those schools. The stress perception among both the student population and prospective students is higher than what it should be. The stress feeds itself and this makes the school more stressful that the rigor suggests.


4. Never said there wasn't a Greek scene, the Greek scene is (unfortunately) quite dominant in fact.


6. Yes business is stressful and competitive, and so is pre-med because it is curved. That there is a reason for the competitiveness doesn't change the fact that there's a lot of competition among students, and this image as W&M as some haven of cooperation and collaboration is simply false.



1. There's not a lot to do, and anything there is to do is touristy and overly expensive. The students do not interact much with the town at all, outside of the three college bars that's not even in the main tourist trap area. Students don't go out for dates and eatings in the tourist trap area because it's ridiculously overpriced and expensive.

2. You admit yourself that majority of students are from NoVA, why would they want to go back to NoVA? Amtrak realistically takes 4-5 hours because it waits on freight trains and costs $70 per ticket one-way. DC really is not a "weekend getaway". Compare that to schools like Princeton and Yale that are within an hour of NYC.


3. Cheese Shoppe is the exact type of tourist trap that I've been talking about.


4. Senior citizens is always an issue because they make laws that are anti-student life. Can't blame them because everyone hates living next to drunk and high college students, but they chose to live next to a college.


5. Most students are from Fairfax and Loudon, not DC. Neither Fairfax nor Loudon are swamps. And because you come from a swamp doesn't mean that you want to live in a swamp for college.


6. It's quite literally, geographically, in the South. It's south of Richmond, the former confederate capital. It's south of UVA, the epitome of antebellum South. You leave campus and you're in the tidewater South.

Culturally, the Greek scene at W&M dominates the social scene, even if it is not as bad as W&L or UVA. W&M is most similar to Wake Forest in North Carolina, both geographically and culturally Southern schools that don't have the big time sports.

To say it's more similar to the Mid-Atlantic schools than Southern schools is a ridiculous statement. Compare W&M and Williamsburg to Penn and Drexel in Philly, Rutgers in NJ, NYU and Fordham in NYC versus UNC in Chapel Hill, UVA in Charlottesville, Wake Forest in Winston-Salem. It's obvious which schools and towns that W&M and Williamsburg are more similar to.


My post was extremely fair and balanced. Yours, meanwhile, looks like you are reaching in frantic desperation to defend the school as something it is not.

Thank you for your many subjective opinions and false assertions (e.g., high stress that feeds on itself, dominance of Greek life, students don't go out for dates, $70 one-way train tickets, etc ) that are directly contradicted by my DC's experience and the experience of many other students at the school (as well as Princeton Review surveys and other data). To be fair, you do make some valid claims, but you obviously have it out for W&M for some reason.

3. Students don't go out on dates to tourist trap area. The tourist trap restaurants cater to senior citizens.
4. Easy to check Amtrak ticket fares from Williamsburg to DC on short (<1 week) notice. If you need to buy tickets >1 week in advance for it to not cost $70, it's not exactly a weekend getaway is it?

Actually it's $80, booking 1 week ahead - https://www.amtrak.com/tickets/departure.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1. Sure, but CS at W&M has been for the longest time extremely mediocre. It ranks in the 70's in all national CS rankings.

2. There's a difference between rigor and stress. W&M is stressful, and it is rigorous in lower level and BS courses compared to other similar universities. The floor is higher at W&M. But the ceiling for rigor is much higher at research universities given top undergrads regularly take Ph.D. level courses at those research universities. Those research universities also have courses dedicated to the most specialized subjects and the latest research, again something not found at W&M or most LACs.

Undergrads don't have to fight with grad students at research universities, professors are happy to get as much help as they can for their research labs. And the "STEM and humanities research option" is little more than a science project compared to working on the cutting edge research of a professor.

The ISC at major research universities would be home to a single science department, with other science departments having similar buildings of their own. For W&M it's state of the art and houses 7+ departments and research labs. That shows you the difference between W&M and major research universities. Look at the CS building at UIUC for instance - https://cs.illinois.edu/about/contact-us#page-gallery-1


3. No one thinks that they are at MIT, Cornell or U. Chicago, but the students think W&M is as rigorous and stressful as those schools. The stress perception among both the student population and prospective students is higher than what it should be. The stress feeds itself and this makes the school more stressful that the rigor suggests.


4. Never said there wasn't a Greek scene, the Greek scene is (unfortunately) quite dominant in fact.


6. Yes business is stressful and competitive, and so is pre-med because it is curved. That there is a reason for the competitiveness doesn't change the fact that there's a lot of competition among students, and this image as W&M as some haven of cooperation and collaboration is simply false.



1. There's not a lot to do, and anything there is to do is touristy and overly expensive. The students do not interact much with the town at all, outside of the three college bars that's not even in the main tourist trap area. Students don't go out for dates and eatings in the tourist trap area because it's ridiculously overpriced and expensive.

2. You admit yourself that majority of students are from NoVA, why would they want to go back to NoVA? Amtrak realistically takes 4-5 hours because it waits on freight trains and costs $70 per ticket one-way. DC really is not a "weekend getaway". Compare that to schools like Princeton and Yale that are within an hour of NYC.


3. Cheese Shoppe is the exact type of tourist trap that I've been talking about.


4. Senior citizens is always an issue because they make laws that are anti-student life. Can't blame them because everyone hates living next to drunk and high college students, but they chose to live next to a college.


5. Most students are from Fairfax and Loudon, not DC. Neither Fairfax nor Loudon are swamps. And because you come from a swamp doesn't mean that you want to live in a swamp for college.


6. It's quite literally, geographically, in the South. It's south of Richmond, the former confederate capital. It's south of UVA, the epitome of antebellum South. You leave campus and you're in the tidewater South.

Culturally, the Greek scene at W&M dominates the social scene, even if it is not as bad as W&L or UVA. W&M is most similar to Wake Forest in North Carolina, both geographically and culturally Southern schools that don't have the big time sports.

To say it's more similar to the Mid-Atlantic schools than Southern schools is a ridiculous statement. Compare W&M and Williamsburg to Penn and Drexel in Philly, Rutgers in NJ, NYU and Fordham in NYC versus UNC in Chapel Hill, UVA in Charlottesville, Wake Forest in Winston-Salem. It's obvious which schools and towns that W&M and Williamsburg are more similar to.


My post was extremely fair and balanced. Yours, meanwhile, looks like you are reaching in frantic desperation to defend the school as something it is not.

Thank you for your many subjective opinions and false assertions (e.g., high stress that feeds on itself, dominance of Greek life, students don't go out for dates, $70 one-way train tickets, etc ) that are directly contradicted by my DC's experience and the experience of many other students at the school (as well as Princeton Review surveys and other data). To be fair, you do make some valid claims, but you obviously have it out for W&M for some reason.

3. Students don't go out on dates to tourist trap area. The tourist trap restaurants cater to senior citizens.
4. Easy to check Amtrak ticket fares from Williamsburg to DC on short (<1 week) notice. If you need to buy tickets >1 week in advance for it to not cost $70, it's not exactly a weekend getaway is it?

Actually it's $80, booking 1 week ahead - https://www.amtrak.com/tickets/departure.html

Ok? So then plan ahead and dont take trips during a holiday like most normal people do (apparently not you though). The average ticket cost is not $80. You're acting like a short turnaround and a holiday travel period represents the typical cost.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1. Sure, but CS at W&M has been for the longest time extremely mediocre. It ranks in the 70's in all national CS rankings.

2. There's a difference between rigor and stress. W&M is stressful, and it is rigorous in lower level and BS courses compared to other similar universities. The floor is higher at W&M. But the ceiling for rigor is much higher at research universities given top undergrads regularly take Ph.D. level courses at those research universities. Those research universities also have courses dedicated to the most specialized subjects and the latest research, again something not found at W&M or most LACs.

Undergrads don't have to fight with grad students at research universities, professors are happy to get as much help as they can for their research labs. And the "STEM and humanities research option" is little more than a science project compared to working on the cutting edge research of a professor.

The ISC at major research universities would be home to a single science department, with other science departments having similar buildings of their own. For W&M it's state of the art and houses 7+ departments and research labs. That shows you the difference between W&M and major research universities. Look at the CS building at UIUC for instance - https://cs.illinois.edu/about/contact-us#page-gallery-1


3. No one thinks that they are at MIT, Cornell or U. Chicago, but the students think W&M is as rigorous and stressful as those schools. The stress perception among both the student population and prospective students is higher than what it should be. The stress feeds itself and this makes the school more stressful that the rigor suggests.


4. Never said there wasn't a Greek scene, the Greek scene is (unfortunately) quite dominant in fact.


6. Yes business is stressful and competitive, and so is pre-med because it is curved. That there is a reason for the competitiveness doesn't change the fact that there's a lot of competition among students, and this image as W&M as some haven of cooperation and collaboration is simply false.



1. There's not a lot to do, and anything there is to do is touristy and overly expensive. The students do not interact much with the town at all, outside of the three college bars that's not even in the main tourist trap area. Students don't go out for dates and eatings in the tourist trap area because it's ridiculously overpriced and expensive.

2. You admit yourself that majority of students are from NoVA, why would they want to go back to NoVA? Amtrak realistically takes 4-5 hours because it waits on freight trains and costs $70 per ticket one-way. DC really is not a "weekend getaway". Compare that to schools like Princeton and Yale that are within an hour of NYC.


3. Cheese Shoppe is the exact type of tourist trap that I've been talking about.


4. Senior citizens is always an issue because they make laws that are anti-student life. Can't blame them because everyone hates living next to drunk and high college students, but they chose to live next to a college.


5. Most students are from Fairfax and Loudon, not DC. Neither Fairfax nor Loudon are swamps. And because you come from a swamp doesn't mean that you want to live in a swamp for college.


6. It's quite literally, geographically, in the South. It's south of Richmond, the former confederate capital. It's south of UVA, the epitome of antebellum South. You leave campus and you're in the tidewater South.

Culturally, the Greek scene at W&M dominates the social scene, even if it is not as bad as W&L or UVA. W&M is most similar to Wake Forest in North Carolina, both geographically and culturally Southern schools that don't have the big time sports.

To say it's more similar to the Mid-Atlantic schools than Southern schools is a ridiculous statement. Compare W&M and Williamsburg to Penn and Drexel in Philly, Rutgers in NJ, NYU and Fordham in NYC versus UNC in Chapel Hill, UVA in Charlottesville, Wake Forest in Winston-Salem. It's obvious which schools and towns that W&M and Williamsburg are more similar to.


My post was extremely fair and balanced. Yours, meanwhile, looks like you are reaching in frantic desperation to defend the school as something it is not.

Thank you for your many subjective opinions and false assertions (e.g., high stress that feeds on itself, dominance of Greek life, students don't go out for dates, $70 one-way train tickets, etc ) that are directly contradicted by my DC's experience and the experience of many other students at the school (as well as Princeton Review surveys and other data). To be fair, you do make some valid claims, but you obviously have it out for W&M for some reason.

1. High stress does feed on itself, that's how it works at both the individual and the campus level.

2. Greek Life dominates W&M social life. 32% of men are in frats and 36% of women are in sororities at W&M. Compare that with UVA where it's 28% total. Now Greek Life at W&M is certainly more laid back than at schools like UVA, but that's because the social scene at W&M is more subdued. What social scene there is, is dominated by Greek Life.

The point is not that high stress can't feed on itself, but that W&M is infused with high stress, which we haven't found to be true. I'm sure there are kids who are stressed out, but that's at any university and my DS and his friends are serious about studies but relaxed. My DC also has a very active social life along with the 60+% of students who aren't Greek. True, if you want to regularly attend parties with lots of alcohol, the Greek scene is probably the way to go, but lots of kids aren't really into that and other groups host parties.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They just reported an increase (again) in ED applications.

They’ve also been reported on for antisemitism on campus:


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

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

Every single school with politically aware students has supposedly been reported for antisemitism. It seems a deliberate strategy to stifle any criticism of Israel

You didn’t open the links, did you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1. Sure, but CS at W&M has been for the longest time extremely mediocre. It ranks in the 70's in all national CS rankings.

2. There's a difference between rigor and stress. W&M is stressful, and it is rigorous in lower level and BS courses compared to other similar universities. The floor is higher at W&M. But the ceiling for rigor is much higher at research universities given top undergrads regularly take Ph.D. level courses at those research universities. Those research universities also have courses dedicated to the most specialized subjects and the latest research, again something not found at W&M or most LACs.

Undergrads don't have to fight with grad students at research universities, professors are happy to get as much help as they can for their research labs. And the "STEM and humanities research option" is little more than a science project compared to working on the cutting edge research of a professor.

The ISC at major research universities would be home to a single science department, with other science departments having similar buildings of their own. For W&M it's state of the art and houses 7+ departments and research labs. That shows you the difference between W&M and major research universities. Look at the CS building at UIUC for instance - https://cs.illinois.edu/about/contact-us#page-gallery-1


3. No one thinks that they are at MIT, Cornell or U. Chicago, but the students think W&M is as rigorous and stressful as those schools. The stress perception among both the student population and prospective students is higher than what it should be. The stress feeds itself and this makes the school more stressful that the rigor suggests.


4. Never said there wasn't a Greek scene, the Greek scene is (unfortunately) quite dominant in fact.


6. Yes business is stressful and competitive, and so is pre-med because it is curved. That there is a reason for the competitiveness doesn't change the fact that there's a lot of competition among students, and this image as W&M as some haven of cooperation and collaboration is simply false.



1. There's not a lot to do, and anything there is to do is touristy and overly expensive. The students do not interact much with the town at all, outside of the three college bars that's not even in the main tourist trap area. Students don't go out for dates and eatings in the tourist trap area because it's ridiculously overpriced and expensive.

2. You admit yourself that majority of students are from NoVA, why would they want to go back to NoVA? Amtrak realistically takes 4-5 hours because it waits on freight trains and costs $70 per ticket one-way. DC really is not a "weekend getaway". Compare that to schools like Princeton and Yale that are within an hour of NYC.


3. Cheese Shoppe is the exact type of tourist trap that I've been talking about.


4. Senior citizens is always an issue because they make laws that are anti-student life. Can't blame them because everyone hates living next to drunk and high college students, but they chose to live next to a college.


5. Most students are from Fairfax and Loudon, not DC. Neither Fairfax nor Loudon are swamps. And because you come from a swamp doesn't mean that you want to live in a swamp for college.


6. It's quite literally, geographically, in the South. It's south of Richmond, the former confederate capital. It's south of UVA, the epitome of antebellum South. You leave campus and you're in the tidewater South.

Culturally, the Greek scene at W&M dominates the social scene, even if it is not as bad as W&L or UVA. W&M is most similar to Wake Forest in North Carolina, both geographically and culturally Southern schools that don't have the big time sports.

To say it's more similar to the Mid-Atlantic schools than Southern schools is a ridiculous statement. Compare W&M and Williamsburg to Penn and Drexel in Philly, Rutgers in NJ, NYU and Fordham in NYC versus UNC in Chapel Hill, UVA in Charlottesville, Wake Forest in Winston-Salem. It's obvious which schools and towns that W&M and Williamsburg are more similar to.


My post was extremely fair and balanced. Yours, meanwhile, looks like you are reaching in frantic desperation to defend the school as something it is not.

Thank you for your many subjective opinions and false assertions (e.g., high stress that feeds on itself, dominance of Greek life, students don't go out for dates, $70 one-way train tickets, etc ) that are directly contradicted by my DC's experience and the experience of many other students at the school (as well as Princeton Review surveys and other data). To be fair, you do make some valid claims, but you obviously have it out for W&M for some reason.

3. Students don't go out on dates to tourist trap area. The tourist trap restaurants cater to senior citizens.
4. Easy to check Amtrak ticket fares from Williamsburg to DC on short (<1 week) notice. If you need to buy tickets >1 week in advance for it to not cost $70, it's not exactly a weekend getaway is it?

Actually it's $80, booking 1 week ahead - https://www.amtrak.com/tickets/departure.html

Ok? So then plan ahead and dont take trips during a holiday like most normal people do (apparently not you though). The average ticket cost is not $80. You're acting like a short turnaround and a holiday travel period represents the typical cost.

+1. Amtrak costs seem to be based on a particular train’s open capacity. DD takes Amtrak to and from Williamsburg to Alexandria for most breaks (along with a couple hundred other WM students). As long as I book a month out, it’s $20 one way, before the student discount, which makes it about $16. It was $60 the one time we had a last minute change of plans. But, WM students don’t tend to randomly come home to NOVA at the last minute, and if they do, they can almost always catch a ride with another student. They don’t Amtrak anywhere else last minute during classes either. I mean… 5+ hours each way to NY on a random weekend when the have schoolwork? Not so much.

Plus, if you think an $80 train ticket is steep, wait until you see the cost if they spontaneously fly somewhere.

[Anonymous]

Not reading a 4 year old thread. But yes. After reading the title, I’m surprised anyone thinks that an already competitive college with a 45% increase in ED1 apps over two years has a “lack of interest”. That’s 45% more kids willing to make a binding commitment to attend WM in October 2023 than we’re willing to do so in October 2021. (Which makes me thank my lucky stars my DC was ED to WM in 2021. She was not a shoe in to start with. Not sure she would have been accepted in is years pool).

Also, WM is 1st or 2nd among VA state schools in terms of applicants per seat and admits a very high stats class— in fact, with nearly identical stats to UVA last year. So again, this is “lack of interest”? Seems like high stats kids are very interested.

So, to whoever redirected this thread (since OP’s kid is now a college senior) please cite to concrete data/ explain why you believe there is a “lack of interest” in WM. Not “I think,” or “my neighbors kid said,” but actual numbers showing low or declining interest. Because at our HS several 4.4+WGPA girls were flat out denied. They didn’t even get the WL, community college or study abroad, then spring admission offer.

It’s one thing to hate on WM because it’s not you or your kid’s ideal college. Not Greek enough, sporty enough, etc. That’s fair. It’s another to announce that no one wants to attend, which is a lie. Why would someone re-start that thread when the numbers prove them wrong?

Hey, wait a minute. Didn’t ED just come out? I guess it’s no coincidence that some salty parent decided to bash WM for rejecting their kid, rather than using that energy to help their kid focus on ED2, RD and the many other great options their kid almost certainly has.

So, to the parent who pulled this thread back up— rejection sucks. Especially when it’s your kid who is rejected. I’m still a little pissed at the one school that rejected my older kid 3 years ago— which is ridiculous, because they ended up at a great place for them and they don’t care anymore. But to me, it felt personal. So, I needed to grow up, zip it, and cheer on the school he chose.

Your kid will also end up at a great school and this time next year won’t even remember they applied to WM. But it will be easier for them to get there if you aren’t constantly bashing “the one that got away”.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1. Sure, but CS at W&M has been for the longest time extremely mediocre. It ranks in the 70's in all national CS rankings.

2. There's a difference between rigor and stress. W&M is stressful, and it is rigorous in lower level and BS courses compared to other similar universities. The floor is higher at W&M. But the ceiling for rigor is much higher at research universities given top undergrads regularly take Ph.D. level courses at those research universities. Those research universities also have courses dedicated to the most specialized subjects and the latest research, again something not found at W&M or most LACs.

Undergrads don't have to fight with grad students at research universities, professors are happy to get as much help as they can for their research labs. And the "STEM and humanities research option" is little more than a science project compared to working on the cutting edge research of a professor.

The ISC at major research universities would be home to a single science department, with other science departments having similar buildings of their own. For W&M it's state of the art and houses 7+ departments and research labs. That shows you the difference between W&M and major research universities. Look at the CS building at UIUC for instance - https://cs.illinois.edu/about/contact-us#page-gallery-1


3. No one thinks that they are at MIT, Cornell or U. Chicago, but the students think W&M is as rigorous and stressful as those schools. The stress perception among both the student population and prospective students is higher than what it should be. The stress feeds itself and this makes the school more stressful that the rigor suggests.


4. Never said there wasn't a Greek scene, the Greek scene is (unfortunately) quite dominant in fact.


6. Yes business is stressful and competitive, and so is pre-med because it is curved. That there is a reason for the competitiveness doesn't change the fact that there's a lot of competition among students, and this image as W&M as some haven of cooperation and collaboration is simply false.



1. There's not a lot to do, and anything there is to do is touristy and overly expensive. The students do not interact much with the town at all, outside of the three college bars that's not even in the main tourist trap area. Students don't go out for dates and eatings in the tourist trap area because it's ridiculously overpriced and expensive.

2. You admit yourself that majority of students are from NoVA, why would they want to go back to NoVA? Amtrak realistically takes 4-5 hours because it waits on freight trains and costs $70 per ticket one-way. DC really is not a "weekend getaway". Compare that to schools like Princeton and Yale that are within an hour of NYC.


3. Cheese Shoppe is the exact type of tourist trap that I've been talking about.


4. Senior citizens is always an issue because they make laws that are anti-student life. Can't blame them because everyone hates living next to drunk and high college students, but they chose to live next to a college.


5. Most students are from Fairfax and Loudon, not DC. Neither Fairfax nor Loudon are swamps. And because you come from a swamp doesn't mean that you want to live in a swamp for college.


6. It's quite literally, geographically, in the South. It's south of Richmond, the former confederate capital. It's south of UVA, the epitome of antebellum South. You leave campus and you're in the tidewater South.

Culturally, the Greek scene at W&M dominates the social scene, even if it is not as bad as W&L or UVA. W&M is most similar to Wake Forest in North Carolina, both geographically and culturally Southern schools that don't have the big time sports.

To say it's more similar to the Mid-Atlantic schools than Southern schools is a ridiculous statement. Compare W&M and Williamsburg to Penn and Drexel in Philly, Rutgers in NJ, NYU and Fordham in NYC versus UNC in Chapel Hill, UVA in Charlottesville, Wake Forest in Winston-Salem. It's obvious which schools and towns that W&M and Williamsburg are more similar to.


My post was extremely fair and balanced. Yours, meanwhile, looks like you are reaching in frantic desperation to defend the school as something it is not.

Thank you for your many subjective opinions and false assertions (e.g., high stress that feeds on itself, dominance of Greek life, students don't go out for dates, $70 one-way train tickets, etc ) that are directly contradicted by my DC's experience and the experience of many other students at the school (as well as Princeton Review surveys and other data). To be fair, you do make some valid claims, but you obviously have it out for W&M for some reason.

3. Students don't go out on dates to tourist trap area. The tourist trap restaurants cater to senior citizens.
4. Easy to check Amtrak ticket fares from Williamsburg to DC on short (<1 week) notice. If you need to buy tickets >1 week in advance for it to not cost $70, it's not exactly a weekend getaway is it?

Actually it's $80, booking 1 week ahead - https://www.amtrak.com/tickets/departure.html

Ok? So then plan ahead and dont take trips during a holiday like most normal people do (apparently not you though). The average ticket cost is not $80. You're acting like a short turnaround and a holiday travel period represents the typical cost.

+1. Amtrak costs seem to be based on a particular train’s open capacity. DD takes Amtrak to and from Williamsburg to Alexandria for most breaks (along with a couple hundred other WM students). As long as I book a month out, it’s $20 one way, before the student discount, which makes it about $16. It was $60 the one time we had a last minute change of plans. But, WM students don’t tend to randomly come home to NOVA at the last minute, and if they do, they can almost always catch a ride with another student. They don’t Amtrak anywhere else last minute during classes either. I mean… 5+ hours each way to NY on a random weekend when the have schoolwork? Not so much.

Plus, if you think an $80 train ticket is steep, wait until you see the cost if they spontaneously fly somewhere.

Thanks for getting to my point - that Washington DC being 3+ hours away does not count as "close to a major metro area". Because it's not close to a major metro area, and neither is going to DC on Amtrak convenient in any way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1. Sure, but CS at W&M has been for the longest time extremely mediocre. It ranks in the 70's in all national CS rankings.

2. There's a difference between rigor and stress. W&M is stressful, and it is rigorous in lower level and BS courses compared to other similar universities. The floor is higher at W&M. But the ceiling for rigor is much higher at research universities given top undergrads regularly take Ph.D. level courses at those research universities. Those research universities also have courses dedicated to the most specialized subjects and the latest research, again something not found at W&M or most LACs.

Undergrads don't have to fight with grad students at research universities, professors are happy to get as much help as they can for their research labs. And the "STEM and humanities research option" is little more than a science project compared to working on the cutting edge research of a professor.

The ISC at major research universities would be home to a single science department, with other science departments having similar buildings of their own. For W&M it's state of the art and houses 7+ departments and research labs. That shows you the difference between W&M and major research universities. Look at the CS building at UIUC for instance - https://cs.illinois.edu/about/contact-us#page-gallery-1


3. No one thinks that they are at MIT, Cornell or U. Chicago, but the students think W&M is as rigorous and stressful as those schools. The stress perception among both the student population and prospective students is higher than what it should be. The stress feeds itself and this makes the school more stressful that the rigor suggests.


4. Never said there wasn't a Greek scene, the Greek scene is (unfortunately) quite dominant in fact.


6. Yes business is stressful and competitive, and so is pre-med because it is curved. That there is a reason for the competitiveness doesn't change the fact that there's a lot of competition among students, and this image as W&M as some haven of cooperation and collaboration is simply false.



1. There's not a lot to do, and anything there is to do is touristy and overly expensive. The students do not interact much with the town at all, outside of the three college bars that's not even in the main tourist trap area. Students don't go out for dates and eatings in the tourist trap area because it's ridiculously overpriced and expensive.

2. You admit yourself that majority of students are from NoVA, why would they want to go back to NoVA? Amtrak realistically takes 4-5 hours because it waits on freight trains and costs $70 per ticket one-way. DC really is not a "weekend getaway". Compare that to schools like Princeton and Yale that are within an hour of NYC.


3. Cheese Shoppe is the exact type of tourist trap that I've been talking about.


4. Senior citizens is always an issue because they make laws that are anti-student life. Can't blame them because everyone hates living next to drunk and high college students, but they chose to live next to a college.


5. Most students are from Fairfax and Loudon, not DC. Neither Fairfax nor Loudon are swamps. And because you come from a swamp doesn't mean that you want to live in a swamp for college.


6. It's quite literally, geographically, in the South. It's south of Richmond, the former confederate capital. It's south of UVA, the epitome of antebellum South. You leave campus and you're in the tidewater South.

Culturally, the Greek scene at W&M dominates the social scene, even if it is not as bad as W&L or UVA. W&M is most similar to Wake Forest in North Carolina, both geographically and culturally Southern schools that don't have the big time sports.

To say it's more similar to the Mid-Atlantic schools than Southern schools is a ridiculous statement. Compare W&M and Williamsburg to Penn and Drexel in Philly, Rutgers in NJ, NYU and Fordham in NYC versus UNC in Chapel Hill, UVA in Charlottesville, Wake Forest in Winston-Salem. It's obvious which schools and towns that W&M and Williamsburg are more similar to.


My post was extremely fair and balanced. Yours, meanwhile, looks like you are reaching in frantic desperation to defend the school as something it is not.

Thank you for your many subjective opinions and false assertions (e.g., high stress that feeds on itself, dominance of Greek life, students don't go out for dates, $70 one-way train tickets, etc ) that are directly contradicted by my DC's experience and the experience of many other students at the school (as well as Princeton Review surveys and other data). To be fair, you do make some valid claims, but you obviously have it out for W&M for some reason.

3. Students don't go out on dates to tourist trap area. The tourist trap restaurants cater to senior citizens.
4. Easy to check Amtrak ticket fares from Williamsburg to DC on short (<1 week) notice. If you need to buy tickets >1 week in advance for it to not cost $70, it's not exactly a weekend getaway is it?

Actually it's $80, booking 1 week ahead - https://www.amtrak.com/tickets/departure.html

Ok? So then plan ahead and dont take trips during a holiday like most normal people do (apparently not you though). The average ticket cost is not $80. You're acting like a short turnaround and a holiday travel period represents the typical cost.

+1. Amtrak costs seem to be based on a particular train’s open capacity. DD takes Amtrak to and from Williamsburg to Alexandria for most breaks (along with a couple hundred other WM students). As long as I book a month out, it’s $20 one way, before the student discount, which makes it about $16. It was $60 the one time we had a last minute change of plans. But, WM students don’t tend to randomly come home to NOVA at the last minute, and if they do, they can almost always catch a ride with another student. They don’t Amtrak anywhere else last minute during classes either. I mean… 5+ hours each way to NY on a random weekend when the have schoolwork? Not so much.

Plus, if you think an $80 train ticket is steep, wait until you see the cost if they spontaneously fly somewhere.

Thanks for getting to my point - that Washington DC being 3+ hours away does not count as "close to a major metro area". Because it's not close to a major metro area, and neither is going to DC on Amtrak convenient in any way.

I think it's time to lock the thread. You need to find a new hobby besides being spiteful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1. Sure, but CS at W&M has been for the longest time extremely mediocre. It ranks in the 70's in all national CS rankings.

2. There's a difference between rigor and stress. W&M is stressful, and it is rigorous in lower level and BS courses compared to other similar universities. The floor is higher at W&M. But the ceiling for rigor is much higher at research universities given top undergrads regularly take Ph.D. level courses at those research universities. Those research universities also have courses dedicated to the most specialized subjects and the latest research, again something not found at W&M or most LACs.

Undergrads don't have to fight with grad students at research universities, professors are happy to get as much help as they can for their research labs. And the "STEM and humanities research option" is little more than a science project compared to working on the cutting edge research of a professor.

The ISC at major research universities would be home to a single science department, with other science departments having similar buildings of their own. For W&M it's state of the art and houses 7+ departments and research labs. That shows you the difference between W&M and major research universities. Look at the CS building at UIUC for instance - https://cs.illinois.edu/about/contact-us#page-gallery-1


3. No one thinks that they are at MIT, Cornell or U. Chicago, but the students think W&M is as rigorous and stressful as those schools. The stress perception among both the student population and prospective students is higher than what it should be. The stress feeds itself and this makes the school more stressful that the rigor suggests.


4. Never said there wasn't a Greek scene, the Greek scene is (unfortunately) quite dominant in fact.


6. Yes business is stressful and competitive, and so is pre-med because it is curved. That there is a reason for the competitiveness doesn't change the fact that there's a lot of competition among students, and this image as W&M as some haven of cooperation and collaboration is simply false.



1. There's not a lot to do, and anything there is to do is touristy and overly expensive. The students do not interact much with the town at all, outside of the three college bars that's not even in the main tourist trap area. Students don't go out for dates and eatings in the tourist trap area because it's ridiculously overpriced and expensive.

2. You admit yourself that majority of students are from NoVA, why would they want to go back to NoVA? Amtrak realistically takes 4-5 hours because it waits on freight trains and costs $70 per ticket one-way. DC really is not a "weekend getaway". Compare that to schools like Princeton and Yale that are within an hour of NYC.


3. Cheese Shoppe is the exact type of tourist trap that I've been talking about.


4. Senior citizens is always an issue because they make laws that are anti-student life. Can't blame them because everyone hates living next to drunk and high college students, but they chose to live next to a college.


5. Most students are from Fairfax and Loudon, not DC. Neither Fairfax nor Loudon are swamps. And because you come from a swamp doesn't mean that you want to live in a swamp for college.


6. It's quite literally, geographically, in the South. It's south of Richmond, the former confederate capital. It's south of UVA, the epitome of antebellum South. You leave campus and you're in the tidewater South.

Culturally, the Greek scene at W&M dominates the social scene, even if it is not as bad as W&L or UVA. W&M is most similar to Wake Forest in North Carolina, both geographically and culturally Southern schools that don't have the big time sports.

To say it's more similar to the Mid-Atlantic schools than Southern schools is a ridiculous statement. Compare W&M and Williamsburg to Penn and Drexel in Philly, Rutgers in NJ, NYU and Fordham in NYC versus UNC in Chapel Hill, UVA in Charlottesville, Wake Forest in Winston-Salem. It's obvious which schools and towns that W&M and Williamsburg are more similar to.


My post was extremely fair and balanced. Yours, meanwhile, looks like you are reaching in frantic desperation to defend the school as something it is not.

Thank you for your many subjective opinions and false assertions (e.g., high stress that feeds on itself, dominance of Greek life, students don't go out for dates, $70 one-way train tickets, etc ) that are directly contradicted by my DC's experience and the experience of many other students at the school (as well as Princeton Review surveys and other data). To be fair, you do make some valid claims, but you obviously have it out for W&M for some reason.

1. High stress does feed on itself, that's how it works at both the individual and the campus level.

2. Greek Life dominates W&M social life. 32% of men are in frats and 36% of women are in sororities at W&M. Compare that with UVA where it's 28% total. Now Greek Life at W&M is certainly more laid back than at schools like UVA, but that's because the social scene at W&M is more subdued. What social scene there is, is dominated by Greek Life.

The point is not that high stress can't feed on itself, but that W&M is infused with high stress, which we haven't found to be true. I'm sure there are kids who are stressed out, but that's at any university and my DS and his friends are serious about studies but relaxed. My DC also has a very active social life along with the 60+% of students who aren't Greek. True, if you want to regularly attend parties with lots of alcohol, the Greek scene is probably the way to go, but lots of kids aren't really into that and other groups host parties.

W&M is certainly infused with more stress than other similar universities like VT and UVA. But as I said, it's not because the rigor is necessarily worse (those schools also have pre-meds, UVA has very competitive pre-business, and VT has very competitive engineering), but it's perceived to be worse by the students themselves which becomes a self-reinforcing cycle. Perhaps your DC went to a highly competitive high school and so for them, this is normal.

There are literally words to describe this phenomenon - TWAMP (Typical William and Mary Person) and Swemming (going to the main library, Swem).

As for other social options, of course there is. Beyond Greek Life, those options tend to be related to international students, student-athletes, ethnic clubs, political clubs (which consist of the worst types of people), etc.

But Williamsburg being the place it is makes social outings very limited for those not in Greek Life (and also for those in Greek Life). Of course there are students that are fine with the limited offerings, but this whole thread is about why certain students don't want W&M.

For example, there are three rather mediocre college bars, no movie theaters, no night clubs, etc.

[Anonymous]

No night clubs—what decade are you living in?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1. Sure, but CS at W&M has been for the longest time extremely mediocre. It ranks in the 70's in all national CS rankings.

2. There's a difference between rigor and stress. W&M is stressful, and it is rigorous in lower level and BS courses compared to other similar universities. The floor is higher at W&M. But the ceiling for rigor is much higher at research universities given top undergrads regularly take Ph.D. level courses at those research universities. Those research universities also have courses dedicated to the most specialized subjects and the latest research, again something not found at W&M or most LACs.

Undergrads don't have to fight with grad students at research universities, professors are happy to get as much help as they can for their research labs. And the "STEM and humanities research option" is little more than a science project compared to working on the cutting edge research of a professor.

The ISC at major research universities would be home to a single science department, with other science departments having similar buildings of their own. For W&M it's state of the art and houses 7+ departments and research labs. That shows you the difference between W&M and major research universities. Look at the CS building at UIUC for instance - https://cs.illinois.edu/about/contact-us#page-gallery-1


3. No one thinks that they are at MIT, Cornell or U. Chicago, but the students think W&M is as rigorous and stressful as those schools. The stress perception among both the student population and prospective students is higher than what it should be. The stress feeds itself and this makes the school more stressful that the rigor suggests.


4. Never said there wasn't a Greek scene, the Greek scene is (unfortunately) quite dominant in fact.


6. Yes business is stressful and competitive, and so is pre-med because it is curved. That there is a reason for the competitiveness doesn't change the fact that there's a lot of competition among students, and this image as W&M as some haven of cooperation and collaboration is simply false.



1. There's not a lot to do, and anything there is to do is touristy and overly expensive. The students do not interact much with the town at all, outside of the three college bars that's not even in the main tourist trap area. Students don't go out for dates and eatings in the tourist trap area because it's ridiculously overpriced and expensive.

2. You admit yourself that majority of students are from NoVA, why would they want to go back to NoVA? Amtrak realistically takes 4-5 hours because it waits on freight trains and costs $70 per ticket one-way. DC really is not a "weekend getaway". Compare that to schools like Princeton and Yale that are within an hour of NYC.


3. Cheese Shoppe is the exact type of tourist trap that I've been talking about.


4. Senior citizens is always an issue because they make laws that are anti-student life. Can't blame them because everyone hates living next to drunk and high college students, but they chose to live next to a college.


5. Most students are from Fairfax and Loudon, not DC. Neither Fairfax nor Loudon are swamps. And because you come from a swamp doesn't mean that you want to live in a swamp for college.


6. It's quite literally, geographically, in the South. It's south of Richmond, the former confederate capital. It's south of UVA, the epitome of antebellum South. You leave campus and you're in the tidewater South.

Culturally, the Greek scene at W&M dominates the social scene, even if it is not as bad as W&L or UVA. W&M is most similar to Wake Forest in North Carolina, both geographically and culturally Southern schools that don't have the big time sports.

To say it's more similar to the Mid-Atlantic schools than Southern schools is a ridiculous statement. Compare W&M and Williamsburg to Penn and Drexel in Philly, Rutgers in NJ, NYU and Fordham in NYC versus UNC in Chapel Hill, UVA in Charlottesville, Wake Forest in Winston-Salem. It's obvious which schools and towns that W&M and Williamsburg are more similar to.


My post was extremely fair and balanced. Yours, meanwhile, looks like you are reaching in frantic desperation to defend the school as something it is not.

Thank you for your many subjective opinions and false assertions (e.g., high stress that feeds on itself, dominance of Greek life, students don't go out for dates, $70 one-way train tickets, etc ) that are directly contradicted by my DC's experience and the experience of many other students at the school (as well as Princeton Review surveys and other data). To be fair, you do make some valid claims, but you obviously have it out for W&M for some reason.

1. High stress does feed on itself, that's how it works at both the individual and the campus level.

2. Greek Life dominates W&M social life. 32% of men are in frats and 36% of women are in sororities at W&M. Compare that with UVA where it's 28% total. Now Greek Life at W&M is certainly more laid back than at schools like UVA, but that's because the social scene at W&M is more subdued. What social scene there is, is dominated by Greek Life.

The point is not that high stress can't feed on itself, but that W&M is infused with high stress, which we haven't found to be true. I'm sure there are kids who are stressed out, but that's at any university and my DS and his friends are serious about studies but relaxed. My DC also has a very active social life along with the 60+% of students who aren't Greek. True, if you want to regularly attend parties with lots of alcohol, the Greek scene is probably the way to go, but lots of kids aren't really into that and other groups host parties.

W&M is certainly infused with more stress than other similar universities like VT and UVA. But as I said, it's not because the rigor is necessarily worse (those schools also have pre-meds, UVA has very competitive pre-business, and VT has very competitive engineering), but it's perceived to be worse by the students themselves which becomes a self-reinforcing cycle. Perhaps your DC went to a highly competitive high school and so for them, this is normal.

There are literally words to describe this phenomenon - TWAMP (Typical William and Mary Person) and Swemming (going to the main library, Swem).

As for other social options, of course there is. Beyond Greek Life, those options tend to be related to international students, student-athletes, ethnic clubs, political clubs (which consist of the worst types of people), etc.

But Williamsburg being the place it is makes social outings very limited for those not in Greek Life (and also for those in Greek Life). Of course there are students that are fine with the limited offerings, but this whole thread is about why certain students don't want W&M.

For example, there are three rather mediocre college bars, no movie theaters, no night clubs, etc.

Your info seems to be very outdated. 4 bars (which are no worse than the ones in Hooville), two movie theaters, plenty of places to eat, miles of walking/hiking/running trails, a lake where people can go boating, Busch Gardens, an outlet mall, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1. Sure, but CS at W&M has been for the longest time extremely mediocre. It ranks in the 70's in all national CS rankings.

2. There's a difference between rigor and stress. W&M is stressful, and it is rigorous in lower level and BS courses compared to other similar universities. The floor is higher at W&M. But the ceiling for rigor is much higher at research universities given top undergrads regularly take Ph.D. level courses at those research universities. Those research universities also have courses dedicated to the most specialized subjects and the latest research, again something not found at W&M or most LACs.

Undergrads don't have to fight with grad students at research universities, professors are happy to get as much help as they can for their research labs. And the "STEM and humanities research option" is little more than a science project compared to working on the cutting edge research of a professor.

The ISC at major research universities would be home to a single science department, with other science departments having similar buildings of their own. For W&M it's state of the art and houses 7+ departments and research labs. That shows you the difference between W&M and major research universities. Look at the CS building at UIUC for instance - https://cs.illinois.edu/about/contact-us#page-gallery-1


3. No one thinks that they are at MIT, Cornell or U. Chicago, but the students think W&M is as rigorous and stressful as those schools. The stress perception among both the student population and prospective students is higher than what it should be. The stress feeds itself and this makes the school more stressful that the rigor suggests.


4. Never said there wasn't a Greek scene, the Greek scene is (unfortunately) quite dominant in fact.


6. Yes business is stressful and competitive, and so is pre-med because it is curved. That there is a reason for the competitiveness doesn't change the fact that there's a lot of competition among students, and this image as W&M as some haven of cooperation and collaboration is simply false.



1. There's not a lot to do, and anything there is to do is touristy and overly expensive. The students do not interact much with the town at all, outside of the three college bars that's not even in the main tourist trap area. Students don't go out for dates and eatings in the tourist trap area because it's ridiculously overpriced and expensive.

2. You admit yourself that majority of students are from NoVA, why would they want to go back to NoVA? Amtrak realistically takes 4-5 hours because it waits on freight trains and costs $70 per ticket one-way. DC really is not a "weekend getaway". Compare that to schools like Princeton and Yale that are within an hour of NYC.


3. Cheese Shoppe is the exact type of tourist trap that I've been talking about.


4. Senior citizens is always an issue because they make laws that are anti-student life. Can't blame them because everyone hates living next to drunk and high college students, but they chose to live next to a college.


5. Most students are from Fairfax and Loudon, not DC. Neither Fairfax nor Loudon are swamps. And because you come from a swamp doesn't mean that you want to live in a swamp for college.


6. It's quite literally, geographically, in the South. It's south of Richmond, the former confederate capital. It's south of UVA, the epitome of antebellum South. You leave campus and you're in the tidewater South.

Culturally, the Greek scene at W&M dominates the social scene, even if it is not as bad as W&L or UVA. W&M is most similar to Wake Forest in North Carolina, both geographically and culturally Southern schools that don't have the big time sports.

To say it's more similar to the Mid-Atlantic schools than Southern schools is a ridiculous statement. Compare W&M and Williamsburg to Penn and Drexel in Philly, Rutgers in NJ, NYU and Fordham in NYC versus UNC in Chapel Hill, UVA in Charlottesville, Wake Forest in Winston-Salem. It's obvious which schools and towns that W&M and Williamsburg are more similar to.


My post was extremely fair and balanced. Yours, meanwhile, looks like you are reaching in frantic desperation to defend the school as something it is not.

Thank you for your many subjective opinions and false assertions (e.g., high stress that feeds on itself, dominance of Greek life, students don't go out for dates, $70 one-way train tickets, etc ) that are directly contradicted by my DC's experience and the experience of many other students at the school (as well as Princeton Review surveys and other data). To be fair, you do make some valid claims, but you obviously have it out for W&M for some reason.

1. High stress does feed on itself, that's how it works at both the individual and the campus level.

2. Greek Life dominates W&M social life. 32% of men are in frats and 36% of women are in sororities at W&M. Compare that with UVA where it's 28% total. Now Greek Life at W&M is certainly more laid back than at schools like UVA, but that's because the social scene at W&M is more subdued. What social scene there is, is dominated by Greek Life.

The point is not that high stress can't feed on itself, but that W&M is infused with high stress, which we haven't found to be true. I'm sure there are kids who are stressed out, but that's at any university and my DS and his friends are serious about studies but relaxed. My DC also has a very active social life along with the 60+% of students who aren't Greek. True, if you want to regularly attend parties with lots of alcohol, the Greek scene is probably the way to go, but lots of kids aren't really into that and other groups host parties.

W&M is certainly infused with more stress than other similar universities like VT and UVA. But as I said, it's not because the rigor is necessarily worse (those schools also have pre-meds, UVA has very competitive pre-business, and VT has very competitive engineering), but it's perceived to be worse by the students themselves which becomes a self-reinforcing cycle. Perhaps your DC went to a highly competitive high school and so for them, this is normal.

There are literally words to describe this phenomenon - TWAMP (Typical William and Mary Person) and Swemming (going to the main library, Swem).

As for other social options, of course there is. Beyond Greek Life, those options tend to be related to international students, student-athletes, ethnic clubs, political clubs (which consist of the worst types of people), etc.

But Williamsburg being the place it is makes social outings very limited for those not in Greek Life (and also for those in Greek Life). Of course there are students that are fine with the limited offerings, but this whole thread is about why certain students don't want W&M.

For example, there are three rather mediocre college bars, no movie theaters, no night clubs, etc.

Your info seems to be very outdated. 4 bars (which are no worse than the ones in Hooville), two movie theaters, plenty of places to eat, miles of walking/hiking/running trails, a lake where people can go boating, Busch Gardens, an outlet mall, etc.

He has no interest in fact or being objective. This is the guy who is bitter because of an ex that went to W&M

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1. Sure, but CS at W&M has been for the longest time extremely mediocre. It ranks in the 70's in all national CS rankings.

2. There's a difference between rigor and stress. W&M is stressful, and it is rigorous in lower level and BS courses compared to other similar universities. The floor is higher at W&M. But the ceiling for rigor is much higher at research universities given top undergrads regularly take Ph.D. level courses at those research universities. Those research universities also have courses dedicated to the most specialized subjects and the latest research, again something not found at W&M or most LACs.

Undergrads don't have to fight with grad students at research universities, professors are happy to get as much help as they can for their research labs. And the "STEM and humanities research option" is little more than a science project compared to working on the cutting edge research of a professor.

The ISC at major research universities would be home to a single science department, with other science departments having similar buildings of their own. For W&M it's state of the art and houses 7+ departments and research labs. That shows you the difference between W&M and major research universities. Look at the CS building at UIUC for instance - https://cs.illinois.edu/about/contact-us#page-gallery-1


3. No one thinks that they are at MIT, Cornell or U. Chicago, but the students think W&M is as rigorous and stressful as those schools. The stress perception among both the student population and prospective students is higher than what it should be. The stress feeds itself and this makes the school more stressful that the rigor suggests.


4. Never said there wasn't a Greek scene, the Greek scene is (unfortunately) quite dominant in fact.


6. Yes business is stressful and competitive, and so is pre-med because it is curved. That there is a reason for the competitiveness doesn't change the fact that there's a lot of competition among students, and this image as W&M as some haven of cooperation and collaboration is simply false.



1. There's not a lot to do, and anything there is to do is touristy and overly expensive. The students do not interact much with the town at all, outside of the three college bars that's not even in the main tourist trap area. Students don't go out for dates and eatings in the tourist trap area because it's ridiculously overpriced and expensive.

2. You admit yourself that majority of students are from NoVA, why would they want to go back to NoVA? Amtrak realistically takes 4-5 hours because it waits on freight trains and costs $70 per ticket one-way. DC really is not a "weekend getaway". Compare that to schools like Princeton and Yale that are within an hour of NYC.


3. Cheese Shoppe is the exact type of tourist trap that I've been talking about.


4. Senior citizens is always an issue because they make laws that are anti-student life. Can't blame them because everyone hates living next to drunk and high college students, but they chose to live next to a college.


5. Most students are from Fairfax and Loudon, not DC. Neither Fairfax nor Loudon are swamps. And because you come from a swamp doesn't mean that you want to live in a swamp for college.


6. It's quite literally, geographically, in the South. It's south of Richmond, the former confederate capital. It's south of UVA, the epitome of antebellum South. You leave campus and you're in the tidewater South.

Culturally, the Greek scene at W&M dominates the social scene, even if it is not as bad as W&L or UVA. W&M is most similar to Wake Forest in North Carolina, both geographically and culturally Southern schools that don't have the big time sports.

To say it's more similar to the Mid-Atlantic schools than Southern schools is a ridiculous statement. Compare W&M and Williamsburg to Penn and Drexel in Philly, Rutgers in NJ, NYU and Fordham in NYC versus UNC in Chapel Hill, UVA in Charlottesville, Wake Forest in Winston-Salem. It's obvious which schools and towns that W&M and Williamsburg are more similar to.


My post was extremely fair and balanced. Yours, meanwhile, looks like you are reaching in frantic desperation to defend the school as something it is not.

Thank you for your many subjective opinions and false assertions (e.g., high stress that feeds on itself, dominance of Greek life, students don't go out for dates, $70 one-way train tickets, etc ) that are directly contradicted by my DC's experience and the experience of many other students at the school (as well as Princeton Review surveys and other data). To be fair, you do make some valid claims, but you obviously have it out for W&M for some reason.

1. High stress does feed on itself, that's how it works at both the individual and the campus level.

2. Greek Life dominates W&M social life. 32% of men are in frats and 36% of women are in sororities at W&M. Compare that with UVA where it's 28% total. Now Greek Life at W&M is certainly more laid back than at schools like UVA, but that's because the social scene at W&M is more subdued. What social scene there is, is dominated by Greek Life.

The point is not that high stress can't feed on itself, but that W&M is infused with high stress, which we haven't found to be true. I'm sure there are kids who are stressed out, but that's at any university and my DS and his friends are serious about studies but relaxed. My DC also has a very active social life along with the 60+% of students who aren't Greek. True, if you want to regularly attend parties with lots of alcohol, the Greek scene is probably the way to go, but lots of kids aren't really into that and other groups host parties.

W&M is certainly infused with more stress than other similar universities like VT and UVA. But as I said, it's not because the rigor is necessarily worse (those schools also have pre-meds, UVA has very competitive pre-business, and VT has very competitive engineering), but it's perceived to be worse by the students themselves which becomes a self-reinforcing cycle. Perhaps your DC went to a highly competitive high school and so for them, this is normal.

There are literally words to describe this phenomenon - TWAMP (Typical William and Mary Person) and Swemming (going to the main library, Swem).

As for other social options, of course there is. Beyond Greek Life, those options tend to be related to international students, student-athletes, ethnic clubs, political clubs (which consist of the worst types of people), etc.

But Williamsburg being the place it is makes social outings very limited for those not in Greek Life (and also for those in Greek Life). Of course there are students that are fine with the limited offerings, but this whole thread is about why certain students don't want W&M.

For example, there are three rather mediocre college bars, no movie theaters, no night clubs, etc.

Your info seems to be very outdated. 4 bars (which are no worse than the ones in Hooville), two movie theaters, plenty of places to eat, miles of walking/hiking/running trails, a lake where people can go boating, Busch Gardens, an outlet mall, etc.

He has no interest in fact or being objective. This is the guy who is bitter because of an ex that went to W&M

Dear god, what a mental health crisis we have in the US

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1. Sure, but CS at W&M has been for the longest time extremely mediocre. It ranks in the 70's in all national CS rankings.

2. There's a difference between rigor and stress. W&M is stressful, and it is rigorous in lower level and BS courses compared to other similar universities. The floor is higher at W&M. But the ceiling for rigor is much higher at research universities given top undergrads regularly take Ph.D. level courses at those research universities. Those research universities also have courses dedicated to the most specialized subjects and the latest research, again something not found at W&M or most LACs.

Undergrads don't have to fight with grad students at research universities, professors are happy to get as much help as they can for their research labs. And the "STEM and humanities research option" is little more than a science project compared to working on the cutting edge research of a professor.

The ISC at major research universities would be home to a single science department, with other science departments having similar buildings of their own. For W&M it's state of the art and houses 7+ departments and research labs. That shows you the difference between W&M and major research universities. Look at the CS building at UIUC for instance - https://cs.illinois.edu/about/contact-us#page-gallery-1


3. No one thinks that they are at MIT, Cornell or U. Chicago, but the students think W&M is as rigorous and stressful as those schools. The stress perception among both the student population and prospective students is higher than what it should be. The stress feeds itself and this makes the school more stressful that the rigor suggests.


4. Never said there wasn't a Greek scene, the Greek scene is (unfortunately) quite dominant in fact.


6. Yes business is stressful and competitive, and so is pre-med because it is curved. That there is a reason for the competitiveness doesn't change the fact that there's a lot of competition among students, and this image as W&M as some haven of cooperation and collaboration is simply false.



1. There's not a lot to do, and anything there is to do is touristy and overly expensive. The students do not interact much with the town at all, outside of the three college bars that's not even in the main tourist trap area. Students don't go out for dates and eatings in the tourist trap area because it's ridiculously overpriced and expensive.

2. You admit yourself that majority of students are from NoVA, why would they want to go back to NoVA? Amtrak realistically takes 4-5 hours because it waits on freight trains and costs $70 per ticket one-way. DC really is not a "weekend getaway". Compare that to schools like Princeton and Yale that are within an hour of NYC.


3. Cheese Shoppe is the exact type of tourist trap that I've been talking about.


4. Senior citizens is always an issue because they make laws that are anti-student life. Can't blame them because everyone hates living next to drunk and high college students, but they chose to live next to a college.


5. Most students are from Fairfax and Loudon, not DC. Neither Fairfax nor Loudon are swamps. And because you come from a swamp doesn't mean that you want to live in a swamp for college.


6. It's quite literally, geographically, in the South. It's south of Richmond, the former confederate capital. It's south of UVA, the epitome of antebellum South. You leave campus and you're in the tidewater South.

Culturally, the Greek scene at W&M dominates the social scene, even if it is not as bad as W&L or UVA. W&M is most similar to Wake Forest in North Carolina, both geographically and culturally Southern schools that don't have the big time sports.

To say it's more similar to the Mid-Atlantic schools than Southern schools is a ridiculous statement. Compare W&M and Williamsburg to Penn and Drexel in Philly, Rutgers in NJ, NYU and Fordham in NYC versus UNC in Chapel Hill, UVA in Charlottesville, Wake Forest in Winston-Salem. It's obvious which schools and towns that W&M and Williamsburg are more similar to.


My post was extremely fair and balanced. Yours, meanwhile, looks like you are reaching in frantic desperation to defend the school as something it is not.

Thank you for your many subjective opinions and false assertions (e.g., high stress that feeds on itself, dominance of Greek life, students don't go out for dates, $70 one-way train tickets, etc ) that are directly contradicted by my DC's experience and the experience of many other students at the school (as well as Princeton Review surveys and other data). To be fair, you do make some valid claims, but you obviously have it out for W&M for some reason.

1. High stress does feed on itself, that's how it works at both the individual and the campus level.

2. Greek Life dominates W&M social life. 32% of men are in frats and 36% of women are in sororities at W&M. Compare that with UVA where it's 28% total. Now Greek Life at W&M is certainly more laid back than at schools like UVA, but that's because the social scene at W&M is more subdued. What social scene there is, is dominated by Greek Life.

The point is not that high stress can't feed on itself, but that W&M is infused with high stress, which we haven't found to be true. I'm sure there are kids who are stressed out, but that's at any university and my DS and his friends are serious about studies but relaxed. My DC also has a very active social life along with the 60+% of students who aren't Greek. True, if you want to regularly attend parties with lots of alcohol, the Greek scene is probably the way to go, but lots of kids aren't really into that and other groups host parties.

W&M is certainly infused with more stress than other similar universities like VT and UVA. But as I said, it's not because the rigor is necessarily worse (those schools also have pre-meds, UVA has very competitive pre-business, and VT has very competitive engineering), but it's perceived to be worse by the students themselves which becomes a self-reinforcing cycle. Perhaps your DC went to a highly competitive high school and so for them, this is normal.

There are literally words to describe this phenomenon - TWAMP (Typical William and Mary Person) and Swemming (going to the main library, Swem).

As for other social options, of course there is. Beyond Greek Life, those options tend to be related to international students, student-athletes, ethnic clubs, political clubs (which consist of the worst types of people), etc.

But Williamsburg being the place it is makes social outings very limited for those not in Greek Life (and also for those in Greek Life). Of course there are students that are fine with the limited offerings, but this whole thread is about why certain students don't want W&M.

For example, there are three rather mediocre college bars, no movie theaters, no night clubs, etc.

Your info seems to be very outdated. 4 bars (which are no worse than the ones in Hooville), two movie theaters, plenty of places to eat, miles of walking/hiking/running trails, a lake where people can go boating, Busch Gardens, an outlet mall, etc.

He has no interest in fact or being objective. This is the guy who is bitter because of an ex that went to W&M

Wait. I thought his kid was rejected from WM. That at least explains the bitterness. Spending Christmas Eve trashing a college because your ex went there is … sad. It’s just sad.