Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s hard to find a balance of small school, good academics and not crazy expensive. I’m guessing we will have to sacrifice on school size for the other applications?

If you want the academic peers of William and Mary and want similar size(4k-9k), it is Emory, Wake, WashU, Vanderbilt. If you want hardest academics for the size, add Duke and the ivies. There are no other true academic peers in that size range for the in-state price. The ones that offer lots of merit are NOT academic peers. Not close. You get what you pay for: virginia residents get a huge deal for a near-T15 type experience and peers.

Sorry - these are not peers of W&M. They are several steps UP.

Whatever you need to tell yourself to write $400k in checks.

My kids attend other excellent in-state universities.

So you have no experience with any of the schools mentioned in this thread. Let me guess, your opinions are based on USNWR rankings.

Like 99% of all Americans?
DP

Anonymous wrote:CNU is about 4,000 students. Great dorms, almost entirely residential, small classes, liberal learning core. Greek life and football games but neither overwhelm those uninterested. And low tuition. A nice school. I think it gets really overlooked on this website.

I think it’s just because it is not selective at all. It accepts 88% of applicants and its 75th percentile SAT (of those who even submit) is a 1300. It hard to jump to that if you are targeting WM and just miss it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Elon is a nice campus, similar size. Easier acceptance rate. Mine is at WM, but also applied there and Wake.

Interesting.
Did you kid visit Wake before applying? I know the stats are similar to W&M but the student vibe is completely different so just wondering.

OP here. Wake is too expensive and doesn’t seem to give much merit aid. I’m sure it’s nice but doesn’t seem like a realistic option for us. I think the same of Richmond.

It’s hard to find a similar size, similar geography that offers merit and has close to the same reputation as W&M. Mostly what we found were smaller size and further away. Maybe Denison for mid-west, University of Richmond for a VA LAC and Lafayette for a Pennsylvania LAC. If applicable , a women’s college that offers merit and is in a consortium like Smith or Bryn Mawr. While not a LAC, maybe Case Western. Not sure of your max budget but Richmond offers merit - including presidential 1/3 tuition scholarship.

If we had been in-state, my kid probably would have applied ED for W&M because most of the higher ranked schools would be at least double the cost (if you don’t qualify for need-based aid). Based on where and how much merit my kids got at other schools, they had to go a tier down to a likely school to have a good chance of the bigger merit (25-40K vs 0-20K).

Not our family but a friend of DC who has WM as their target is also applying to Bucknell, Furman, and Wake. In-state "safeties" will probably be MWU and CNU. UR was deemed....too local (could literally walk there!).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s hard to find a balance of small school, good academics and not crazy expensive. I’m guessing we will have to sacrifice on school size for the other applications?

It is difficult. No other state offers a slac-like experience like W&M. Think about UVA. The class is only 4400, so, yes, not small like W&M but same caliber of student and, if your child winds up in humanities (bear in mind some 80% of students change their majors ar least once), the smaller seminar courses start very soon. My UVA history kid had seminar courses starting second year. I was very impressed by the small courses and topics he was having from third year on. He received a far better education and experience than I did at my slac.

Not a Virginia parent. I’m envious that Virginia has a great public mid-size SLAC option like W & M. Wish other states had the same.

Same. Virginia families are extremely lucky. I would never pay OOS tuition if I had the choices you have.

CNU is about 4,000 students. Great dorms, almost entirely residential, small classes, liberal learning core. Greek life and football games but neither overwhelm those uninterested. And low tuition. A nice school. I think it gets really overlooked on this website.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:CNU
Charleston
Elon
TCNJ
UNCA

Not a lot of schools like WM. I believe the 3 OOS options grant merit.

Could not get my DS to apply to TCNJ, even though it sounds a lot like W&M to me. DS was accepted to and attends W&M, but he was offered merit aid at Rhodes and Sewanee that would have made either choice equal to or less than W&M in price.

NJ native here, TCNJ is not remotely like William and Mary. Formerly known at Trenton State, it was a teacher’s college for most of its existence. Roughly comparable to Towson in MD.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s hard to find a balance of small school, good academics and not crazy expensive. I’m guessing we will have to sacrifice on school size for the other applications?

It is difficult. No other state offers a slac-like experience like W&M. Think about UVA. The class is only 4400, so, yes, not small like W&M but same caliber of student and, if your child winds up in humanities (bear in mind some 80% of students change their majors ar least once), the smaller seminar courses start very soon. My UVA history kid had seminar courses starting second year. I was very impressed by the small courses and topics he was having from third year on. He received a far better education and experience than I did at my slac.

Not a Virginia parent. I’m envious that Virginia has a great public mid-size SLAC option like W & M. Wish other states had the same.

Anonymous wrote:It’s hard to find a balance of small school, good academics and not crazy expensive. I’m guessing we will have to sacrifice on school size for the other applications?

It is difficult. No other state offers a slac-like experience like W&M. Think about UVA. The class is only 4400, so, yes, not small like W&M but same caliber of student and, if your child winds up in humanities (bear in mind some 80% of students change their majors ar least once), the smaller seminar courses start very soon. My UVA history kid had seminar courses starting second year. I was very impressed by the small courses and topics he was having from third year on. He received a far better education and experience than I did at my slac.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s hard to find a balance of small school, good academics and not crazy expensive. I’m guessing we will have to sacrifice on school size for the other applications?

If you want the academic peers of William and Mary and want similar size(4k-9k), it is Emory, Wake, WashU, Vanderbilt. If you want hardest academics for the size, add Duke and the ivies. There are no other true academic peers in that size range for the in-state price. The ones that offer lots of merit are NOT academic peers. Not close. You get what you pay for: virginia residents get a huge deal for a near-T15 type experience and peers.

Sorry - these are not peers of W&M. They are several steps UP.

Whatever you need to tell yourself to write $400k in checks.

My kids attend other excellent in-state universities.

So you have no experience with any of the schools mentioned in this thread. Let me guess, your opinions are based on USNWR rankings.

Schools in the range of 5,000 - 15,000 are generally considered mid-sized. Less than 5,000 = small (Lehigh is right about 5k). Most SLACs for instance are less than 3,000.
William & Mary at 7,000 is a mid-sized school. Twice the size of Richmond.
Only talking size here - W&M is a “size medium”, not small

Lehigh?

University of Richmond, Washington and Lee, Mary Washington

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s hard to find a balance of small school, good academics and not crazy expensive. I’m guessing we will have to sacrifice on school size for the other applications?

If you want the academic peers of William and Mary and want similar size(4k-9k), it is Emory, Wake, WashU, Vanderbilt. If you want hardest academics for the size, add Duke and the ivies. There are no other true academic peers in that size range for the in-state price. The ones that offer lots of merit are NOT academic peers. Not close. You get what you pay for: virginia residents get a huge deal for a near-T15 type experience and peers.

Sorry - these are not peers of W&M. They are several steps UP.

Whatever you need to tell yourself to write $400k in checks.

My kids attend other excellent in-state universities.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s hard to find a balance of small school, good academics and not crazy expensive. I’m guessing we will have to sacrifice on school size for the other applications?

If you want the academic peers of William and Mary and want similar size(4k-9k), it is Emory, Wake, WashU, Vanderbilt. If you want hardest academics for the size, add Duke and the ivies. There are no other true academic peers in that size range for the in-state price. The ones that offer lots of merit are NOT academic peers. Not close. You get what you pay for: virginia residents get a huge deal for a near-T15 type experience and peers.

Sorry - these are not peers of W&M. They are several steps UP.

Whatever you need to tell yourself to write $400k in checks.