U of Richmond fast becoming elite

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The University of Richmond has an excellent reputation and is especially well regarded among people native to Virginia and North Carolina. What it lacks is the same level of national awareness enjoyed by some of the other schools listed above. I suspect most of the previous one-liners come from DMV transplants who don't know any better.

This might be unfair, but it really has a weaker academic brand outside of Virginia than Washington & Lee, Davidson or Goucher. At least Goucher has a disease named after it.

Just hearing the name, I picture a bunch of students with so so SATs who are premeds, or majoring in business or computer science, because golf club dues don’t pay themselves.

If the University of Richmond really is a Colby equivalent, it needs to figure out how to convey the idea that it’s safe for wonks. Or, if it’s not safe for wonks, how to sell people on the idea that it’s the Colby alternative for people who don’t take that school stuff all that seriously.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately, Richmond has major league $$ right now and W&M doesn't. All W&M would need is a Bloomberg-like financial aid donation ($1.8 billion just for ugrad aid at Hopkins). W&M is a unique school but is caught in an awkward place as an underfunded national university.

Why is that unfortunate?

+1. It’s not unfortunate. The PP apparently doesn’t know that one can’t compare the endowments of publics funded by the Commonwealth to privates

[Anonymous]

This ranking uses completely different factors and also has Richmond near the top.

https://lesshighschoolstress.com/blog/6/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The University of Richmond has an excellent reputation and is especially well regarded among people native to Virginia and North Carolina. What it lacks is the same level of national awareness enjoyed by some of the other schools listed above. I suspect most of the previous one-liners come from DMV transplants who don't know any better.

This might be unfair, but it really has a weaker academic brand outside of Virginia than Washington & Lee, Davidson or Goucher. At least Goucher has a disease named after it.

Just hearing the name, I picture a bunch of students with so so SATs who are premeds, or majoring in business or computer science, because golf club dues don’t pay themselves.

If the University of Richmond really is a Colby equivalent, it needs to figure out how to convey the idea that it’s safe for wonks. Or, if it’s not safe for wonks, how to sell people on the idea that it’s the Colby alternative for people who don’t take that school stuff all that seriously.

GOUCHER?????

[Anonymous]

Goucher??? Lol

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The University of Richmond has an excellent reputation and is especially well regarded among people native to Virginia and North Carolina. What it lacks is the same level of national awareness enjoyed by some of the other schools listed above. I suspect most of the previous one-liners come from DMV transplants who don't know any better.

This might be unfair, but it really has a weaker academic brand outside of Virginia than Washington & Lee, Davidson or Goucher. At least Goucher has a disease named after it.

Just hearing the name, I picture a bunch of students with so so SATs who are premeds, or majoring in business or computer science, because golf club dues don’t pay themselves.

If the University of Richmond really is a Colby equivalent, it needs to figure out how to convey the idea that it’s safe for wonks. Or, if it’s not safe for wonks, how to sell people on the idea that it’s the Colby alternative for people who don’t take that school stuff all that seriously.

GOUCHER?????

Goucher was not correct, but the point does stand for W&L and Davidson. Richmond has a lovely campus and as mentioned, a healthy endowment. It hadn't translated that into the same kind of academic respect as W&L and Davidson have, though. Perhaps that it changing, but that part of the PP's point I think was correct.

[Anonymous]

I think Richmond’s reputation has continued to climb the last 10-15 years. Admittedly I first learned of the school when they beat Syracuse in the NCAA tournament back in the nineties.

Surprised all the anti-Richmond posts. I think it is the clear #4 college in VA and on par with say Lehigh and Bucknell. Historically, I have thought of it as close but slightly below Wake Forest. C

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Damn, how the hell did they get an endowment bigger than a lot of other more famous & larger universities?

A lot of it flows from a gift of $50M from E. Claiborne Robins in 1969, which was the largest gift at the time in the history of higher education. He also gave the money for the basketball arena. If you invested that much money in the stock market and reinvested returns, it would be worth $9.2B. They have been taking out probably about 5% a year, which is why the endowment isn't nearly that large. But a lot of the current endowment probably comes from that gift from over 50 years ago.

Duke University was a similar situation (it was renamed based on the gift) about 40 years before the Robins gift. The Robins gift didn't have the same level of impact.

Yup, and they got a lot of money from the Dalcon Shield settlement. A friend of mine who went there on a Robins scholarship called it the Dalcon Shield scholarship.

The Dalcon shield was an iud that was highly defective and there was a huge class action lawsuit.

Not sure I understand how it benefited Richmond. The Dalcon Shield settlement put A. H. Robins into bankruptcy in 1985. The gift to Richmond was from well before the A. H. Robins bankruptcy.

Yeah, PP’s recollection is muddled. The school got nothing from the settlement. The donation was made about the same time as the company bought the rights to Dalcon Shield and began marketing it aggressively. It was off the market within five years and in litigation for decades. No doubt students would have a nickname for the scholarship as the donor became notorious exactly when it was created.

[Anonymous]

*Dalkon not Dalcon

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The University of Richmond has an excellent reputation and is especially well regarded among people native to Virginia and North Carolina. What it lacks is the same level of national awareness enjoyed by some of the other schools listed above. I suspect most of the previous one-liners come from DMV transplants who don't know any better.

This might be unfair, but it really has a weaker academic brand outside of Virginia than Washington & Lee, Davidson or Goucher. At least Goucher has a disease named after it.

Just hearing the name, I picture a bunch of students with so so SATs who are premeds, or majoring in business or computer science, because golf club dues don’t pay themselves.

If the University of Richmond really is a Colby equivalent, it needs to figure out how to convey the idea that it’s safe for wonks. Or, if it’s not safe for wonks, how to sell people on the idea that it’s the Colby alternative for people who don’t take that school stuff all that seriously.

GOUCHER?????

Ha! Was thinking the same thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: I think it is the clear #4 college in VA and on par with say Lehigh and Bucknell.

Yay?

[Anonymous]

It’s better than Bucknell.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Surprised all the anti-Richmond posts. I think it is the clear #4 college in VA and on par with say Lehigh and Bucknell. Historically, I have thought of it as close but slightly below Wake Forest. C

As a Wake grad (late 90s), I can confirm several of my classmates had also applied to Richmond.

Funny enough, my two cousins closest in age to me went to Lehigh and Richmond. I actually also applied to Bucknell - Wake and Bucknell were built by the same architect and share several building names.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:University of Richmond holds appeal in a lot of ways - beautiful campus, small but not "NESCAC small," strong merit aid, proximity to a decent sized city, mild climate, strong athletic programs (Division 1) and Greek life (which does still appeal to some people). Frankly, it is really more of a small university than a liberal arts college. It has grad programs and a law school. When they started in the rankings many years ago, it was under the category of regional universities. If they were classified under national universities they'd be nowhere close to becoming elite. For a school ranked as high as they are on this list, they don't rank terribly well for best undergraduate teaching (#41) - many of schools OP listed score much higher.

U of Richmond has a beautiful campus and a large endowment on a per capita basis. Despite this, it has not historically been viewed as being on the same academic level as schools like Washington & Lee and Davidson.

No. I went to a private high school in one of the wealthiest counties in NC and UR was a safety. Davidson was a solid choice. No one applied to W&L.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:University of Richmond holds appeal in a lot of ways - beautiful campus, small but not "NESCAC small," strong merit aid, proximity to a decent sized city, mild climate, strong athletic programs (Division 1) and Greek life (which does still appeal to some people). Frankly, it is really more of a small university than a liberal arts college. It has grad programs and a law school. When they started in the rankings many years ago, it was under the category of regional universities. If they were classified under national universities they'd be nowhere close to becoming elite. For a school ranked as high as they are on this list, they don't rank terribly well for best undergraduate teaching (#41) - many of schools OP listed score much higher.

U of Richmond has a beautiful campus and a large endowment on a per capita basis. Despite this, it has not historically been viewed as being on the same academic level as schools like Washington & Lee and Davidson.

No. I went to a private high school in one of the wealthiest counties in NC and UR was a safety. Davidson was a solid choice. No one applied to W&L.

What are you disagreeing with?