A Gay "Brownish" low income immigrant kid visits Washington and Lee!

Colleges and Universities A-Z Washington & Lee University
1 
 So I recently visited Washington and Lee and given the enormous amount of speculation as to whether or not the school is "racist" or otherwise offensive, I have decided to write a comprehensive review of my experience there as a low income, gay, brownish immigrant.

PROS
ACADEMICS: I was very impressed with the faculty and the resources of the University. To be perfectly honest, this is a University that will have plummeting admissions rates in the next few years and I foresee it becoming a very elite school. The new science center is better than the labs offered at many graduate schools, let alone undergrad. They have made a major commitment to improving campus resources and if it seems like a good fit for you, I would try and get in while the school is still accessible to mere mortals.
ADMINISTRATION: I cannot begin to cover how much I enjoyed my time with the faculty and staff at W and L. They are impeccably considerate and considerably more liberal than the student body. They are working very hard to try and improve the diversity of their campus and to make Washington and Lee more accessible to wider variety of students. They have partnered with QuestBridge, offered Merit scholarships and equal financial aid to foreign students and have an immense amount of resources put aside to help students come to school there.
CAMPUS: Gorgeous. Nothing more to say about it really. The dorms are excellent, the town is very close, and they are constantly improving their campus.
HONOR CODE: This is the real deal. I really did not realize how convenient it would be to be able to just leave my stuff anywhere but it’s very convenient and also taken very seriously. The student body is VERY involved on campus and most disciplinary action is student run. This could potentially be a bad thing but for the most part it’s a really great way to keep students in charge of their education.

NEUTRAL

 PARTY SCENE: If you're a big partier, this is school for you! If you're not a big party person, don't listen to them tell you that it won't bother you. The quiet hours in the dorm are non-existent. Greek life is huge on campus and you can expect to be woken up by drunken hall mates throughout the entire night. I was told that Wednesdays and Fridays are party nights, but when I was there so was Thursday and Saturday. If you like drinking and partying then this is a huge plus, if you like being well slept for your Thursday morning class....maybe not so much.

CONS

  WHITENESS: When people say W and L is a white school, they really aren't joking, more than 80% of the student body there is white and it reflects in the social environment and a certain lack of perspective and understanding on racial and ethnic issues. I will say that not being white isn't a problem for direct racism but there is definitely some scrutiny placed on those who do not meet the norm, including foreign whites and those of a different religion. There really is a staggering lack of diversity, both racial and economic and while the administration is working very hard to change this, they are likely in a constant struggle between supporting alumni and welcoming new types of issues on campus.
  LGBT Issues: The school has no policy on trans students and no definitive policy on handling hate speech with regards to sexual orientation. To sum it up, when someone asked a faculty member about LGBT issues he said "It's better than it was in 2005". I was made very uncomfortable by the idea that not only was being gay or transgender not accepted socially, there really wasn't an active policy in place to move forward from that. So to you LGBT kids out there, remember not all schools are created equal with regard to your rights and comfort in an educational atmosphere. 
 RACISM? I will say this, I never encountered outright racism in which a person was directly attacked for their heritage or skin color but I definitely noticed some strange things that prospective students should decide whether or not they are comfortable with. First of all, Robert E Lee is enshrined on the campus in the chapel and he is largely revered on campus. If you're uncomfortable with that, you might want to consider elsewhere for school. I heard a couple of students discussing how Washington was the real traitor, not Robert E Lee and the confederate flag appears to be largely supported on campus, in all venues public and private. The community surrounding the college is also very confederate flag heavy. If this is something you find very offensive you may want to look elsewhere. The school has taken very active measures to hire faculty of color and faculty who are "out" but there remains a lot of low key prejudice that I think comes from a lack of understanding about racial issues because,in my experience, the vast majority of these students have always interacted in predominantly white environments. I heard a female student complain also about some of the other prospects "speaking in Mexican"....take that as you will. All in all, if you're not comfortable with an environment that will force you to stand up for yourself a lot, and which might offend you regularly, then W and L may not be the school for you. As much as I enjoyed many parts of the school, I completely understand why most students of color would choose to go elsewhere.

Disclaimer: This was my experience at W and L. Maybe someone else went there and did not experience any of these things, that’s great for them. There are people who probably think that W and L is a great fit, good for them. I am sharing my experience to kind of shed some light on W and L and to help prospective students who may not get the chance to visit. I think W and L has the potential to be a great school for some very confident, very outspoken and very determined students of color but I think that it also may present a stressful environment for some students who would just rather not have to worry about it.

Feel free to ask me any questions and I will try to answer them. If someone has something they’d like to expand on, go ahead!

2

This school sounds like the exact opposite of what I would want. I honestly would not feel safe on that campus. Thanks for writing this in-depth review!

3

I don’t think you would have any safety issues but it would probably be a bit uncomfortable for you there. Everyone is very, very nice there, they just tend to be a little ignorant about how the things they say could make someone feel very slighted. The major issue though, is that they are very ingrained in these ways of thinking and it is not enough to simply say “the confederate flag offends me, please don’t show it”.

4

W&L sends my son stuff constantly. I was concerned about the party and Greek scene.

5

It really is huge there. They took a lot of the kids on the visit program out to party and drink and many of the kids who were still in high school went drinking with their host. If he doesn’t want a party school ( or if you don’t want him to go to a party school :slight_smile: ) then W and L may not be for him. They are a great institution otherwise but I think it is impossible to be unaffected by the Greek system and party culture, if nothing else, you will be up at all hours of the night with people arriving back to the dorms.

6

I appreciate the time you took to give such an in-depth review.

7

It is remarkable that your prism is so precise in evaluating the presumption that others will judge you.
In a place that celebrates academics and Liberal exploration with a commitment to the past (in all its truth)
and focus on the future it is unfortunate to reject it based on their failure to reflect your preferences for how you are to be viewed and treated by the institution and its inhabitants. You express relief that the faculty is more “liberal” than the student body, inferring inferiority of those who may be conservative. You applaud the efforts of the University to “improve the diversity of the campus” thus implying that without this they are lacking something universally required to be a great university. But you define this “diversity” through the narrow and shallow prism of race, ethnicty and sexual orientation as though those are the primary factors with which university students interpret, engage, and learn from one another in a learning community. This is a rather simple and selfish prism to view the world at large, never mind the campus of Washington and Lee University. You have determined criteria to access the comfort you will have and are rejecting W&L because they do not conform to those critieria… who is the judgmental one? Who is the narrow thinker? Who demands conformity to pre-conceived notions of how individuals - with independent thoughts -
should behave.

You remark the campus is “impeccably considerate” but that is not enough for your sensitivities. You must be flattered and congratulated for who you happen to be while feeling that the people there, while you did not encounter “outright racism” your highly tuned oh-so-sensitive super duper sensibilities knew, just knew, that there was that underlying, inherent, implied kind of racism they managed to eek out during all that “impeccably considerate” free hosting of your elevated self on their campus.
REAL diversity is the tolerance, embrace and celebration of a diversity of thought. College campuses used to be places where rowdy, raucous and riotous voices of debate and discourse trained the mind of the best and brightest among us. You are correct, Washington and Lee University is perhaps not for you. Best look for a place where you will be nested on a special silk pillow of superficial, visual diversity. Leave the thinking to others.

Best to you.

8

Let me make this perfectly clear. My education is my choice. I want to go to a school which will provide me with the environment that I feel will be best for me to learn in and an environment where things unrelated to my intellectual development, such as race, ethnicity, sexuality and to a certain degree political views will not be detrimental to the opportunities offered me socially and academically. I did not feel that W and L was one such a school. I do not apologize for that.

You would complain because I am judging the school but is that not the whole point of this process? I will be committing a full four years to an institution and will likely have to invest a lot of time and money in that institution. I won’t ask for anyone’s forgiveness in being highly selective in that decision.

This is as professional a review of my time on W and L’s campus as I could do and I did my best to highlight the high points of that experience without completely negating the low points. In my opinion the conservative nature of the campus was a low point, I’d rather go to a school with a more equitable or left leaning distribution. That is my prerogative. I would rather go to a school with more students of color. That is also my prerogative. I would rather go to a school with a clear policy on LGBT issues that is CERTAINLY my prerogative. I am not saying that W and L is a bad school by any means, I commend a great many things about it and encourage students who think it’s a good fit for them to go. I was simply shedding some light on some comments I had heard about based on my experience there. I have found that a great many people are quick to condemn it as racist, though they haven’t experienced it themselves. While I didn’t find it racist, I could see how someone else might. So I simply stated the things I experienced and let the reader decide whether or not that would be a deal breaker for them. No need to turn this into an argument.
I am very grateful for the opportunity to visit W and L. It has helped me decide more about what I want in a college, and I don’t think they would regret having had me visit either. They learned more about us as applicants and we learned more about them as a college, that’s what this process is all about and sometimes it just doesn’t work out. It’s not the end of the world, it doesn’t make me a bad student or them a bad college, it just makes us a bad fit. Rather than let a whole lot of rumors fly about the race factor I chose to speak up on that issue. I think you should really just let us, as individual students, decide what is and is not a good fit for us, without the added negativity of implying that we are rude, narrow minded or otherwise less intelligent for deciding that it’s not a good fit for us.

9

Your original post and its presumption and prejudice speak for itself.
You were clear in your disdain for what you could not even see, just what you suspected and presumed the students there thought and felt based on your guess of where they frequented and who they familiarized with in in their backgrounds. So much perceived in so little time. Of course making judgements on your “fit” with a school is part of the college selection process. No one disputes that.

A thourough or cursory reading of your post is replete with your judgements based on presumtions and not facts. You are free to make them, of course.
Others are free to take note, as I did, of the sophistry of your arguments.

I will continue to wish you well and hope your coccon ripens and unfolds in the appropriate hot-house.

10

MODERATOR’S NOTE:

As quoted above, the student is giving an opinion bases upon his/her visit. Others are free to add their own experiences to either defend or repute the position. What is not OK is beating a dead horse. You don’t agree? Fine. Post your rebuttal. Please refrain, however, from having a back-and-forth discussion which would be better handled through PM. It is unlikely that opinions will be swayed, so say your piece and agree to disagree. Carry on.

11

I received an Application Fee Waiver via e-mail today and had been considering the University for some time. That sent me over the edge and motivated me to apply (I was particularly impressed with their essay prompts, specifically the ones addressing income inequality, etc.), but your review has helped me slow down and process what exactly it is I’d like in a school before jumping in headfirst.

Thanks.

12

@SirPepsi
What’s the most troubling is the disparity between the staff and what they want for W and L and the reality of the student body. The administration I think really wants an open and diverse campus but the student body was generally homogeneous and somewhat insensitive in my experience. I also realized that the party scene was WAY too much for me.
It really is frustrating, because there are so many other things I liked about campus but honestly not having LGBT policies is the total deal breaker for me and that’s something the administration could certainly fix. I realized when I was there that it was something that I would have to keep on the down low in my time there, and I really don’t need that added pressure in my life. I know they really want to have the student body in charge but there are some issues that they really need a straight forward policy on.

13

I’m not going to lie, there is definite bias on my part for W&L. With regards to safety, W&L is very safe. At parties, there are police officers to make sure everyone stays safe. They really don’t care about underage drinking, but the community there is very supportive. If people see you looking out of it, then they will come help you.

14

I’m sure students can stay safe, but honestly the amount of partying that goes on there really scared me away. I was realy surprised to learn on my campus visit how such a (once) pristine, gentlemanly college had turned into a place with so much drinking and sex.

15

@KinglyBill I was also kind of surprised by this. I always thought it was sort of traditional and “straight-laced” which, while disadvantageous to certain parts of my identity, would be a great environment for me socially. To be perfectly honest, I’m not comfortable with the big party vibe and atmosphere, nor was I expecting to find it there.

16

fyi I was just there for Johnson weekend and in all of the bathroom stalls and on some walls of the dorm they had flyers talking about some LGBTQ meetings/groups they have on campus. The students were very white and often partiers, yes, but they were also some of the nicest people I have ever met. I could walk through the school and not only have students smile at me as I passed but also ask me how I was doing. Just thought I’d mention it. :slight_smile:

17

@collegebound1516 I’m glad you had such a good experience! Congrats on the Johnson scholars thing, that’s amazing!

18

@cowtownbrown thank you for your great and detailed account of your visit. I’m so curious where you are planning to attend college now. :slight_smile: