I attended WVU. It was a very fun school, and it has some very good programs including engineering, agriculture and journalism. My degree is in Journalism and looking back, the experince was outstanding. The J school was a small, intense program. The school had a daily paper offering an incredible experience for a student writer - you learn a lot about life when there are daily deadlines, AP wires to monitor (this was pre Internet) and content to fill day after day.

There were lots of parties, all the time, but kids find their niche and I met some incredible friends. Two from my freshman dorm went on to become Rhodes Scholars and went Harvard to Harvard Law. Those I am still in touch with are fun, happy and did well in life, I now work as an independent policy consultant- and I have been pleasantly surprised by all of the Mountaineers in this town. When you meet an alum, you have to smile. No matter how old or successful we are, we don't take ourselves too seriously. Attending WVU offers a life perspective I find a bit hard to describe, but I would not trade for the world.

Lots of WVU alumni here in Maryland. The kids I've known who went there were B students in high school. People who went there really seem to have enjoyed their time there.

I went to WVU for undergrad. The school is what you make of it. It's not particularly hard to get into, and it's the flagship university for a poor state, so there's a lot of kids who aren't really prepared for college. They generally flunk out pretty quickly. This leads to a pretty heavy party atmosphere as well.

I will say that you have to earn your grades there. When I went to UVA for grad school and was a TA for a class I was amazed at the leniency of the grading. It was very hard to flunk a class at UVA as an undergrad. That's not the case at WVU.

There are quite a few alums in the area. People from there often come here or Pittsburgh for jobs after college.

Not bad -- not great. Decent alums in region...not a bad drive from DC

Thoughts? Stronge alumni network in region?