Is there any reason not to go to George Mason?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's fine. It's sort of a manufactured university setting. No traditions. Student Life is not a priority.

I suspect PP meant this as a negative but the vast majority of universities in other countries don't give two hoots about traditions, student life, frats, football and all the nonsense whose primary reason is to build a brand and eventually charge more. Most focus on educating students so they can go out and get jobs. GMU (or is is GM now?) does a fantastic job at that!

DP here. WTH kind of student does not want to actually have the college experience? It doesn't have to be frats or football games, but something? Anything? Do they not want or need human interaction?? That's.....odd.....

Mason is not the same as colleges overseas, though. Overseas is well, overseas.

Mason is for kids who want/need close to home, even if they are not commuting. Though it seems primarily still a commuter school.

[/quote

utterly false. DD spent four great years enjoyinf a full dorm experience at GMU with INTERNATIONAL and OOS (as in Akaska,CA and Nevada) students as her room or suite-mates! she went to Mason Korea and Japan. Mason arranged for three paid internships in her field during the three summers and was hired by MicroSoft before graduation. GMU is now the largest R1 University in the Commonwealth with five VA campuses and the Korea one with 41,000 students. GMU was reclassified by the Carnegie Foundation as a "primarily residential" college (i.e., not resudential) more than 16 years ago. Go and visit all five VA campuses and see the dorm life before you make such ignorant comments. i know several GMU Honors students now in T3 law schools.

Not sure where to start with this one.

[Anonymous]

All these posts seem to be about law and policy majors at Mason. How about undergraduate majors in biology, bioengineering and related fields? Does a Mason degree hurt finding jobs upon graduation compared to the other higher pedigree schools in the DMV area (say UMD)? Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The only negative about Mason is that they give no financial aid to in-state students. The NPC showed that we would get a $2k scholarship based on GPA and test scores, but in the actual financial aid letter today, we got nothing.

THis is why you should always take a pix of the NPC so you can take it back to the college when they offer nothing. And for the record we got nothing at GMU and at UVA. It's determined by FAFSA so blaming the state schools (already discounted) is not fair.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid went there, not by choice.

They will graduate debt free, with some really great opportunities. Some of the professors also teach at universities like Georgetown and GW.

I won't sugar coat it, but the social scene is not a typical college experience. They have a newer president. It seems that under his tenure, the "typical" college social experiences are growing. The basketball team is good and brings in fun, but they really need a football team, in my opinion. I think adding that facet of college life would really up the desirability of the school. The town is not a "college town" so the kids miss out on that type of culture that UVA, VT, JMU, etc offer.

If your kid is okay with the social part being more low key, then academically, financially, and outcome wise, GM is a solid choice.

He's been there four years! And the first African-American! what ARE you talking about?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid went there, not by choice.

They will graduate debt free, with some really great opportunities. Some of the professors also teach at universities like Georgetown and GW.

I won't sugar coat it, but the social scene is not a typical college experience. They have a newer president. It seems that under his tenure, the "typical" college social experiences are growing. The basketball team is good and brings in fun, but they really need a football team, in my opinion. I think adding that facet of college life would really up the desirability of the school. The town is not a "college town" so the kids miss out on that type of culture that UVA, VT, JMU, etc offer.

If your kid is okay with the social part being more low key, then academically, financially, and outcome wise, GM is a solid choice.

He's been there four years! And the first African-American! what ARE you talking about?

4 years woulld definitely fall in the category of "newer" president. He definitely is doing a good job of moving GMU towards a more typical college experience under his tenure.

We definitely see the school going in the right direction under his leadership. Well, except for the ugly new logo. But otherwise, he has been a positive.

Not sure what his race has to do with this discussion...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's fine. It's sort of a manufactured university setting. No traditions. Student Life is not a priority.

I suspect PP meant this as a negative but the vast majority of universities in other countries don't give two hoots about traditions, student life, frats, football and all the nonsense whose primary reason is to build a brand and eventually charge more. Most focus on educating students so they can go out and get jobs. GMU (or is is GM now?) does a fantastic job at that!

DP here. WTH kind of student does not want to actually have the college experience? It doesn't have to be frats or football games, but something? Anything? Do they not want or need human interaction?? That's.....odd.....

Mason is not the same as colleges overseas, though. Overseas is well, overseas.

Mason is for kids who want/need close to home, even if they are not commuting. Though it seems primarily still a commuter school.

[/quote

utterly false. DD spent four great years enjoyinf a full dorm experience at GMU with INTERNATIONAL and OOS (as in Akaska,CA and Nevada) students as her room or suite-mates! she went to Mason Korea and Japan. Mason arranged for three paid internships in her field during the three summers and was hired by MicroSoft before graduation. GMU is now the largest R1 University in the Commonwealth with five VA campuses and the Korea one with 41,000 students. GMU was reclassified by the Carnegie Foundation as a "primarily residential" college (i.e., not resudential) more than 16 years ago. Go and visit all five VA campuses and see the dorm life before you make such ignorant comments. i know several GMU Honors students now in T3 law schools.

Extremely defensive mommy whose kid didn't get in anywhere else has entered the chat...

I did a grad degree at Mason fairly recently. The campus felt very much like a commuter school to me. But please, ramble on about how your DC's job at Microsoft somehow contradicts that, lol.

NP but one of her points was that her kid lived in the dorm for and had roommates from outside of the DMV. This does not sound like a commuter school experience to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All these posts seem to be about law and policy majors at Mason. How about undergraduate majors in biology, bioengineering and related fields? Does a Mason degree hurt finding jobs upon graduation compared to the other higher pedigree schools in the DMV area (say UMD)? Thanks.

My DS started in Computer Science then moved to Game Design. He loved his time at Mason. His department set up internships, one with the Virginia SErious Game Design Institute, every summer. He lived on campus. Love it. Was hired before graduation by an I-170 corridor company recently bought out by Microsoft. He's five years out and has no regrets and is making very good money.

If you are looking at anything techy - go visit GMU's state-of-the-art Prince William campus. It's amazing.

Oh, almost forgot, DS went to Seoul Korea for GMU Korea for one term.

[Anonymous]

It's super expensive for what you get IMO

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's fine. It's sort of a manufactured university setting. No traditions. Student Life is not a priority.

Read before posting. GMU was started in 1949 as part of UVA and was part of UVA until 1966. UVA has plenty of traditions. And my GMU students thought student life was wonderful for all four years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's fine. It's sort of a manufactured university setting. No traditions. Student Life is not a priority.

I suspect PP meant this as a negative but the vast majority of universities in other countries don't give two hoots about traditions, student life, frats, football and all the nonsense whose primary reason is to build a brand and eventually charge more. Most focus on educating students so they can go out and get jobs. GMU (or is is GM now?) does a fantastic job at that!

DP here. WTH kind of student does not want to actually have the college experience? It doesn't have to be frats or football games, but something? Anything? Do they not want or need human interaction?? That's.....odd.....

Mason is not the same as colleges overseas, though. Overseas is well, overseas.

Mason is for kids who want/need close to home, even if they are not commuting. Though it seems primarily still a commuter school.

Interesting. I'll have to tell that to the 2,774 foreign students there (7.2% of the school's population) as well as to the 8,600 out-of-state students (22% of the school's population). Perhaps you also didn't know that GMU is the most diverse university in the commonwealth? And its largest R1 University?

[Anonymous]

The grad/law programs are known to be conservative/libertarian. See Mercatus Center for more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's fine. It's sort of a manufactured university setting. No traditions. Student Life is not a priority.

Read before posting. GMU was started in 1949 as part of UVA and was part of UVA until 1966. UVA has plenty of traditions. And my GMU students thought student life was wonderful for all four years.

How would they have UVA traditions? Pretty sure they do not associate with UVA at all and certainly don’t consider themselves a “part of uva”. By they i mean the students.

[Anonymous]

I went to UVA (in-state) and never considered Mason as an option. I didn’t even apply and it wasn’t on my radar. I wanted to get out of Fairfax County and go away to college.

Fast forward and my DS is interested so we toured the school recently. There seem to be a lot of students living on campus and plenty of OOS students as well. Tons of clubs and activities to get involved in. He really liked it. The campus was nice and they are building a lot of off campus student apartments.

DS is a “B+” student with ADHD and some other challenges which make close to home a good option for him. Mason has an EF support program that would be great for him. He's not the party/frat type either so doesn’t care about that. Just wants to make a group of friends to hang out with.

Mason isn’t for everyone but can be a great option for the right kid. I was surprisingly impressed and I think my kid can be happy there and go on to pursue whatever career he desires.

I had a similar impression of VCU. We are quite lucky in Virginia to have these great options that can meet the needs of a range of students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The only negative about Mason is that they give no financial aid to in-state students. The NPC showed that we would get a $2k scholarship based on GPA and test scores, but in the actual financial aid letter today, we got nothing.

DD got $2k scholarship instate, so it does exist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only negative about Mason is that they give no financial aid to in-state students. The NPC showed that we would get a $2k scholarship based on GPA and test scores, but in the actual financial aid letter today, we got nothing.

DD got $2k scholarship instate, so it does exist.

Mason is fairly generous with need aid. I work with low income students and see that they tend to get better aid at GMU than at VT (although UVA, W&M are best for need aid). And $2k merit at GMU is also better than VT which doesn't really give merit to in-state students.