Anonymous wrote:This whole thread is just absurd. William and Mary provides the best undergraduate education in the liberal arts and sciences of any public institution in the country. It exists first and foremost for undergraduates and always has and always will. It's really old and really hard. If you don't want to work, if you want to party and follow big time college sports go elsewhere. Sadly, many young people today will do this and get a degree, but not an education.

It is in a class by itself.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:None of the high achieving, well rounded kids at my DC's school are interested in William & Mary. It seems to attract a certain "type"--which tends to be an academic-only (fewer ECs, no sports) student who would be a fit at certain SLACs, but chooses W&M because of lower in-state tuition.

The high achieving, well rounded kids seem much more interested in UVA, with VT as a safety school. Then looking at privates like Georgetown, Duke, Emory, and Vandy.

Guess that’s why VT was overenrolled.

According to a letter sent by engineering education professor Marie Paretti to fellow members of the Tech Faculty Senate, the university should’ve seen the numbers coming.

“Frankly, it is unacceptable to me to hear anyone in the administration suggest that these numbers are unexpected,” she wrote.

She wrote that a colleague in the College of Engineering had predicted more than 2,600 new freshmen, an oversized class for that college, based on the numbers from the university and shared that with administrators. The prediction was ignored, she wrote.

She wrote that the increase in students would create unnecessary strain on Blacksburg.

“As the Faculty Senate, I believe we need to hold the administration accountable not only for the over-enrollment itself, but for the persistent disregard of faculty and staff on the ground who saw this coming and tried repeatedly to raise concerns and be proactive,” she wrote.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:None of the high achieving, well rounded kids at my DC's school are interested in William & Mary. It seems to attract a certain "type"--which tends to be an academic-only (fewer ECs, no sports) student who would be a fit at certain SLACs, but chooses W&M because of lower in-state tuition.

The high achieving, well rounded kids seem much more interested in UVA, with VT as a safety school. Then looking at privates like Georgetown, Duke, Emory, and Vandy.

If that’s true, then, yes, it’s a big problem for W&M. Too much, ‘we love being nerds’ babble. Turns off a lot of nova students. Back in my day, well rounded kids also had W&M on their list. The common denominator—except for Emory, whose presence on your list I don’t really understand—is higher profile, with better known sports teams (excluding Georgetown football).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems to me that it doesn’t really have a bright future as a public school. In a time of increased popularity for many Virginia public universities, William & Mary seems to be caught in a downward spiral. Its application numbers are stagnant, its female-male ratio is ridiculous, its acceptance rate has increased to almost 40 percent, its yield rate is terrible, it’s poorly positioned in terms of tech growth, it’s very expensive, and it’s now looking to increase (?) enrollment because it needs the bucks. Discouraging my kid from applying. Is it time for the school to consider becoming a private college or to affiliate with Tech or something?

Odd I thought it was in an upward spiral. Just got a huge grant. Lots of OOS students. But it’s not UVA and never will be. Good and bad sides of that. [/quote

Thomas Jefferson attended William and Mary and was like, Been there done that, now I’m going to found UVA.