We visited UVA this weekend...

[Anonymous]

Sorry you didn't like UVA. It gets such a build up you expect Hogwarts. OK don't go there. Problem solved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And I was not impressed. Driving through town, past the frat and sorority houses was shocking. They looked like drug dens / flop houses with sheets tied up on some of the windows. On Sunday afternoon, the bars with seating outside were packed with students boozing. And this was around 4pm / 5pm. Completely tragic.

UVA's total enrollment is almost 22,000 students. Ridiculous for you to judge the school based on perhaps a couple hundred that you saw rather than the thousands you didn't.

[Anonymous]

Why many go out of state

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And I was not impressed. Driving through town, past the frat and sorority houses was shocking. They looked like drug dens / flop houses with sheets tied up on some of the windows. On Sunday afternoon, the bars with seating outside were packed with students boozing. And this was around 4pm / 5pm. Completely tragic.

UVA's total enrollment is almost 22,000 students. Ridiculous for you to judge the school based on perhaps a couple hundred that you saw rather than the thousands you didn't.

Ridiculous statement. You can only judge what you do see, not what is hidden from view. Are you a UVA grad?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's a good value, I suppose, but locals go a bit overboard on its status. Outside of their law school, nothing about UVA or Charlottesville is elite by any stretch of the imagination.

Of course they are, but it's amusing to watch the usual crowd of bitter, left-leaning twits in DC and MD try to take down places that are not "elite" enough for them. Do you morons still not realize why the rest of the country hates you and your peculiar obsessions so much?

UVA is where rich parents bribe their slacker offspring into (see: Greek life), and where middle class have to send their kids because they can't afford any better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Did you not attend college?

I attended Oxford University, thanks very much.

Bahahahahaha! You do know all we have to do is google 'Oxford drinking parties,' right?? Wow. Not very bright.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/26/drinking-societies-oxbridge-clubs-oxford-piers-gaveston-cambridge-wyverns

Hmmm.. I went to Cambridge, so v similar to Oxford. There was loads of drinking; many students and professors were completely wasted a lot of the time. As a Jew I had to learn the new skill of drinking slowly to seem to be keeping up because there was literally no way I could ingest that much alcohol in one go. I'm not particularly troubled by the idea of students in a bar at 4pm on a Sunday afternoon (actually, I'm not sure where else they are supposed to be?) But having recently visited some US universities including UVA, I think there is a different drinking culture in those schools that I don't really like - or maybe it's the frat boy thing. Anyway, just saying to the OP, I understand where you are coming from.

What does the bolded mean?

NP. Maybe it means...can't drink like WASPs?

This is enlightening! Had I known that I should drink slower, I would have graduated summa cum laude!

-A Jew

I was friends with a Russian-American Jew in grad school (this was in the UK) and he could drink us all under the table! Took us out one night to a Russian restaurant complete with vodka shots and I was secretly pouring out the shots while everyone else did them. And (while in grad school), I was certainly no teetotaler and could generally hold my own with the guys. So, I too have never heard this "Jews don't drink as much as WASPS." (Then again, I am not a WASP either. I am Irish-American, so, hey, there's that.)

[Anonymous]

UVA is where rich parents bribe their slacker offspring into (see: Greek life), and where middle class have to send their kids because they can't afford any better.

Youthink the kids who go to UVA are slackers? What do you expect of your child if those are the slackers?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And I was not impressed. Driving through town, past the frat and sorority houses was shocking. They looked like drug dens / flop houses with sheets tied up on some of the windows. On Sunday afternoon, the bars with seating outside were packed with students boozing. And this was around 4pm / 5pm. Completely tragic.

UVA's total enrollment is almost 22,000 students. Ridiculous for you to judge the school based on perhaps a couple hundred that you saw rather than the thousands you didn't.

Ridiculous statement. You can only judge what you do see, not what is hidden from view. Are you a UVA grad?

What an odd comment, especially if all you did was drive through the town.

No I am not a UVA grad but I have gone on a couple different tours of the campus, sat in on classes, read the school newspaper, ate in one of the cafeterias with current students, attended a couple musical events, and, GASP, briefly and by coincidence, visited a charity fundraiser held by a fraternity - so that my DCs could decide whether it was the right college for them. None of this was hidden from view; you just decided to judge based on what was convenient for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's a good value, I suppose, but locals go a bit overboard on its status. Outside of their law school, nothing about UVA or Charlottesville is elite by any stretch of the imagination.

Of course they are, but it's amusing to watch the usual crowd of bitter, left-leaning twits in DC and MD try to take down places that are not "elite" enough for them. Do you morons still not realize why the rest of the country hates you and your peculiar obsessions so much?

UVA is where rich parents bribe their slacker offspring into (see: Greek life), and where middle class have to send their kids because they can't afford any better.

OP here. I'm glad you said this, because this was the appearance of things for sure. We also saw some students making their way to classes on Monday morning, but there definitely weren't 22,000 of them up at 9am eager to learn, maybe 50.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did you not attend college?

I attended Oxford University, thanks very much.

Brits are universally known as drunks.

This is so true! I've never seen any other nation drink as much as Brits.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, UVA wasn't the school for you guys. There really is no need to put the school down or the Charlottesville area. The solution is to go look at other schools which may be a better fit. That seems a better use of time rather than posting about it on this forum. I'm sure there is a school that will be a good fit your kid, but make sure to get some input from him/her since they will be the one to actually attend the school. The overbearing and opinionated parent who doesn't respect a child's wishes never really wins in the end...

Also, I'm assuming you are looking at the UK for schools since you went to Oxford. Maybe that is the better option and more of what you are seeking.

I would never send an American kid to UK for school this days. We have a friend's daughter attending one of the colleges there now and she feels that she missing so much after seeing all her friend's college life in US on the Facebook.

[Anonymous]

We also visited UVA two weeks ago. We liked it overall, it is a good safety school for us and they do have a program that my child is interested in. The only thing that really jumped up to me is how white is the student body. We've spent on the campus the entire day, and then ate a dinner near UVA and probably saw 3 asian kids and one or two AA. It is such a big difference from what we've seen in Harvard or Columbia.

[Anonymous]

probably saw 3 asian kids and one or two AA.

The numbers don't support your experience as normal.

Googled and found this presentation by admissions (slide 10 is interesting):
http://www.virginia.edu/bov/meetings/13Sept/Diversity%20-%20Undergraduate%20Admissions.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We also visited UVA two weeks ago. We liked it overall, it is a good safety school for us and they do have a program that my child is interested in. The only thing that really jumped up to me is how white is the student body. We've spent on the campus the entire day, and then ate a dinner near UVA and probably saw 3 asian kids and one or two AA. It is such a big difference from what we've seen in Harvard or Columbia.

Just curious what are target schools if UVA is a safety?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We also visited UVA two weeks ago. We liked it overall, it is a good safety school for us and they do have a program that my child is interested in. The only thing that really jumped up to me is how white is the student body. We've spent on the campus the entire day, and then ate a dinner near UVA and probably saw 3 asian kids and one or two AA. It is such a big difference from what we've seen in Harvard or Columbia.

I'm Asian and I hear this all the time from current students at UVA. How white UVA is.