NP, my two sport, 4.0+ freshman son has walked through UVA, W&L and W&M. After our quick walkthrough his initial impression is W&L is too small and hilly(?). It was 95 degrees. UVA was dirty (??). Don't know what that means and W&M was AWESOME. One dumb kid's perspective!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Applications could be falling because W&M is expensive.

Has it gotten more expensive? More so than every other college?

Certainly not with “every other college.” Tuition gets frozen after you’re in, which is nice, but entering students get a not insignificant increase. Good return on investment, in state, in my view. And pretty good out of state still, I think, if we’re pretty much talking about a core group of out of state students from NJ/NY who didn’t want to go to their bad state schools and were rejected by Ivies (or Duke Duke-like places).

W&M uses high tuition to provide relatively high aid. If you look at average graduate debt, W&M is about the same as UVA and lower than VT, JMU, and GMU.

And it’s been fairly successful at “buying” top students with scholarships or partial scholarships.

The increase in aid from tuition goes to financial aid, not merit aid. The merit aid scholarships are privately funded (e.g. 1693 Scholars).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DC is a senior at W&M. Accepted at 10 highly rated schools including UVA. I honestly do not think DC could have had s better experience at any other college.
Accepted W&M partly because very generous scholarship/ aid package.
Being frankly a bit less competitive than UVA DC rose to the top of everything (something that would not have happened at a bigger school) This led to many awards competitions internships etc etc. Good overseas programs too.
Also DC very happy there and sad to leave.
We had our doubts but a lot of information about W&M either outdated or inaccurate.
Suicide school for example. No same as any other school but they have a new student mental health center.
On the contrary I think W&M is rising not falling in stature.

Grading is less competitive than at UVA? Wow...lots had changed since the 90s.

I wouldn’t say grading is less competitive but UVA is a very large school. They can’t be everything for everyone.

The average GPA at W&M is the same as UVA now.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But you’re on this thread. On page 8.

Weird post.

Try to keep up.

With botched responses?

You seem overinvested. Take a deep breath. It’ll be okay.

Again...huh?

Confused again. Happens a lot.

Go outside. Relax.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Applications could be falling because W&M is expensive.

Has it gotten more expensive? More so than every other college?

Certainly not with “every other college.” Tuition gets frozen after you’re in, which is nice, but entering students get a not insignificant increase. Good return on investment, in state, in my view. And pretty good out of state still, I think, if we’re pretty much talking about a core group of out of state students from NJ/NY who didn’t want to go to their bad state schools and were rejected by Ivies (or Duke Duke-like places).

W&M uses high tuition to provide relatively high aid. If you look at average graduate debt, W&M is about the same as UVA and lower than VT, JMU, and GMU.

And it’s been fairly successful at “buying” top students with scholarships or partial scholarships.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But you’re on this thread. On page 8.

Weird post.

Try to keep up.

With botched responses?

You seem overinvested. Take a deep breath. It’ll be okay.

Again...huh?

Confused again. Happens a lot.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But you’re on this thread. On page 8.

Weird post.

Try to keep up.

With botched responses?

You seem overinvested. Take a deep breath. It’ll be okay.

Again...huh?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Applications could be falling because W&M is expensive.

Has it gotten more expensive? More so than every other college?

Certainly not with “every other college.” Tuition gets frozen after you’re in, which is nice, but entering students get a not insignificant increase. Good return on investment, in state, in my view. And pretty good out of state still, I think, if we’re pretty much talking about a core group of out of state students from NJ/NY who didn’t want to go to their bad state schools and were rejected by Ivies (or Duke Duke-like places).

W&M uses high tuition to provide relatively high aid. If you look at average graduate debt, W&M is about the same as UVA and lower than VT, JMU, and GMU.

Anonymous wrote:^^^ If the former could be accurately assessed, sure. But US News attempts to do so via a peer assessment survey. Ask yourself how much someone from one school knows about what goes on in the classroom at all the others. Now look at that list. Do you really think that the quality of undergraduate teaching at Elon or Belmont is miles better than at Caltech, Duke, Vandy, or MIT. You may but I don’t. I think it’s laughable. All rankings are goofy on some level but this one particularly so.

I agree that this thread is silly. There’s nothing “wrong” with W&M. The better question is why does the ranking continue to fall.

The main ranking also has peer assessments. Rankings should just be one of many factors kids and families should consider. No single one should . You are singling out of couple of schools you might consider anomalies and don't belong, and that is fair, but if you look at the lists as a whole, you see it is not random and most of the schools likely have relatively strong commitments to undergraduate education (and I would assert that many schools do not have a strong undergraduate commitment). You also use exaggeration to discredit the W&M is consistently high in these categories (teaching quality, undergraduate research, senior capstone, first year experience, etc.) Relatively few do.

I believe W&M's recent drop in USNWR National University ranking is largely because of the changes in metrics. The counselor assessment was dropped, and the Pell Grant metrics (mobility) were added. W&M actually has one of the top Pell Grant recipient graduation rates among public schools (I believe it is 2nd), but a relatively low overall percentage compare to many schools, particularly those like the UC system where Pell Grants recipients can be 4X the percentage at W&M and UVA.

Although it doesn't seem relevant to undergraduate education, over the long term, W&M has been hurt in USNWR ranking for not having a medical school. Medical schools and divisions bring in a huge amount of federal money and fund a lot of staff, and they impact the resources that USNWR gets from IPEDS data. Again, I don't think this is relevant to undergraduate education. There are some highly ranked exceptions (Princeton, Notre Dame, etc.), but most of the top ranked undergraduate schools do have medical schools, and the exceptions are usually extremely well endowed private schools. If you compare W&M and Wake Forest, for instance, this is probably the biggest factor in how they are ranked.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DC is a senior at W&M. Accepted at 10 highly rated schools including UVA. I honestly do not think DC could have had s better experience at any other college.
Accepted W&M partly because very generous scholarship/ aid package.
Being frankly a bit less competitive than UVA DC rose to the top of everything (something that would not have happened at a bigger school) This led to many awards competitions internships etc etc. Good overseas programs too.
Also DC very happy there and sad to leave.
We had our doubts but a lot of information about W&M either outdated or inaccurate.
Suicide school for example. No same as any other school but they have a new student mental health center.
On the contrary I think W&M is rising not falling in stature.

Grading is less competitive than at UVA? Wow...lots had changed since the 90s.

I wouldn’t say grading is less competitive but UVA is a very large school. They can’t be everything for everyone.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Applications could be falling because W&M is expensive.

Has it gotten more expensive? More so than every other college?

YES! Much more expensive than the other VA state colleges

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But you’re on this thread. On page 8.

Weird post.

Try to keep up.

With botched responses?

You seem overinvested. Take a deep breath. It’ll be okay.

Anonymous wrote:My DC is a senior at W&M. Accepted at 10 highly rated schools including UVA. I honestly do not think DC could have had s better experience at any other college.
Accepted W&M partly because very generous scholarship/ aid package.
Being frankly a bit less competitive than UVA DC rose to the top of everything (something that would not have happened at a bigger school) This led to many awards competitions internships etc etc. Good overseas programs too.
Also DC very happy there and sad to leave.
We had our doubts but a lot of information about W&M either outdated or inaccurate.
Suicide school for example. No same as any other school but they have a new student mental health center.
On the contrary I think W&M is rising not falling in stature.

Grading is less competitive than at UVA? Wow...lots had changed since the 90s.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Applications could be falling because W&M is expensive.

Has it gotten more expensive? More so than every other college?

Certainly not with “every other college.” Tuition gets frozen after you’re in, which is nice, but entering students get a not insignificant increase. Good return on investment, in state, in my view. And pretty good out of state still, I think, if we’re pretty much talking about a core group of out of state students from NJ/NY who didn’t want to go to their bad state schools and were rejected by Ivies (or Duke Duke-like places).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But you’re on this thread. On page 8.

Weird post.

Try to keep up.

With botched responses?