<p>So I am going to be a freshman next year (as I mentioned in another thread) and one thing I was worrying about was the scholastic prestige of W&M. I chose it over Haverford, but I'm still having doubts. While obviously W&M is nothing to sneeze at, I can't help but have doubts...to be honest, W&M was my second choice (though it had been my first until this past summer), and I just want to be able to dispel this little nagging feeling that I was forced to settle. Plus, like I said, I chose it over Haverford, and it just seems that more people recognize Haverford as a serious academic center. I realize of course that nothing can really change anything by this point...but I am just a terrible decision maker, and I can't help but second guess every choice I make, especially one this big. Guess I am just looking for peace-of-mind, so if someone can just tell me I am thinking like an idiot, it will be appreciated :)</p>
<p>On a completely unrelated note--and yet somehow linked--how many students at W&M are in-state? As an out-of-stater, I just don't really want to feel isolated.</p>
<p>I teach in a graduate program at W&M. We had a student enter this year from Haverford, and he was very mediocre. Not that it proves anything. The academics at W&M are excellent. In an undergraduate seminar I taught this semester, one student will be going to Stanford law, another to Georgetown law on a merit scholarship. A third student who is better then either of the other two will be applying to law school in a year or so and should be a candidate for Harvard or Yale. Another is in teach for America. A great group of typical W&M students.</p>
<p>One third are from Northern Virginia, one Third are from the rest of Virginia, and one third are from out of state (with a large number from Maryland, PA, NJ, NY, Connecticut, and MA). Everyone mixes really well and there are no regional biases in friends or groups as they are initially formed in Freshman halls and expand outward from there through organizations and social clubs and everyday life.</p>
<p>Employers and Grad Schools are recognize W&M as the premier academic state university for undergraduates. Not only that, but it is part of the College’s identity. There is the expectation that students will excel at their fields. Within 5 years 60% of students go on to Grad or Law School. If your priority is academics and you want to do research in any field as an undergraduate, W&M is the right place for you to go.</p>
<p>Thanks, that does relieve some of the second doubts…even though the admissions process has only just ended for me (and I do mean JUST, I got rejected from Harvard’s–which had been my top choice to be honest–waitlist about 4 hours ago and received a letter rejecting me from Swarthmore’s waitlist an hour before that), I’ve already begun to obsess about grad. school. I hope to become a professor, and I’d like to go to Harvard for my grad. work, since I think that might make it slightly easier to find a job once I actually get my degree (or at least that is what I gained from my talks with a few professors I know)</p>
<p>W&M is considered as good, if not better than Haverford and is known for fairly brutal workloads. I’m an incoming freshmen myself so I can’t comment from experience but it definitely won’t be easy. Undergrad prestige doesn’t matter if you are planning on going to grad, but W&M is more reputable than Haverford simply because the sheer number of students graduating is ~4x. The whole 1693 thing probably doesn’t hurt either. If you want to be a professor you will want to shoot for Harvard/other ridiculously elite schools for graduate, but they aren’t as nice as they appear. A friend of mine is at Stanford now and while the academics are interesting he finds his classmates to be fairly run-of-the-mill and not particularly impressive. That’s not to say HYPSM etc. are bad schools, they just do not match the typical high school student’s fantasy. Hopefully you visited both, it’s a horrible idea to decide on a college without visiting first (like buying a house without looking at it). </p>
<p>I’m sure there is quite a bit of crossover between W&M and Haverford. I was considering Haverford but opted for W&M due to the weather (medical condition) and haverford felt like it might be too small (High school 2.0) . Getting a job as a professor will be a pain regardless of the field, competition is very fierce for the tenure-track positions. After that it’s great. Good luck!</p>
<p>A W&M degree isn’t going to close any grad school doors for you, W&M kids go on to top grad programs in all fields. With that being said, don’t focus on getting into grad school when you’re not even in college yet. I can almost guaranteed you that you’ll change your mind about what you want to do or at least think a lot about it once you get to college…</p>
<p>I can understand the fear of having buyer’s remorse, especially because W&M was not your first choice. The question of “academic reputation” comes up a lot here, and it’s a nebulous term that often veers the discussion into one about general brand recognition, which is a different thing. But if by academic reputation you mean the perception by other universities of W&M’s 1) quality of students, 2) quality of teaching, 3) rigor of curriculum, and 4) ability to prepare students for graduate study, you have nothing to worry about. </p>
<p>Haverford is a great school but any graduate program in the country that recognizes it as a serious academic center will also recognize W&M as an equally if not more serious academic center. I seldom speak in absolutes here but I can guarantee that. Plus, W&M’s size and unique mission (that whole “liberal arts university” thing) may afford you extracurricular and research opportunities that you might not find at a strictly liberal arts college. </p>
<p>So congrats on getting into W&M, and, equally impressive in my eyes, having a clear vision of what you want to do after graduation. The ambition is great, though I’ll echo Datkid and say that I hope you keep an open mind about how where that ambition might take you. </p>
<p>As for the geographical composition of the student body, I was also from out of state, and I occasionally found the College to be a bit parochial, especially at first, though that may have just been part of my overall adjustment to the east coast. But you won’t be isolated simply because you’re not from Virginia. After all, there are more out-of-state students at W&M than the entire student body of Haverford, so there are plenty of other students that share your situation. In fact, it just occurred to me that my four best friends from school all happened to be fellow out-of-staters.</p>
<p>but seriously, if you do well at W&M you can definitely head for Harvard 4 years later.</p>
<p>W&M’s student body is pretty down to earth except when they get overly stressed about their school work. It doesn’t matter if you are from in state or out of state. You will bond with your freshmen hall, and then expand your friends through classes and activities.</p>
<p>To the initial poster, there are plenty of reasons to choose one school over another without regret. W&M is an excellent school and you made the right choice for yourself. You’re going to a top college and your ultimate success will depend more on you than any incremental benefit you will get from going to one top school over another. I’ve sat on 2 top 20 md school amissions committees and I know we don’t make significant distinction in the top 20-30 colleges, with 30-40 colleges deserving to be on that list.</p>
<p>I just wanted to point out that the assertions that W&M is “better” or has a better “academic reputation” than HC appear, to me, unfounded. While I would never use the following stats to support the opinion that HC is better than W&M (given methodological flaws in the data), they certainly argue against the comments on this thread that W&M is somehow better.</p>
<p>Total active funding from National Science Foundation
W&M $19,974,034.00 (5700 undergrads+1900 grad students)
Haverford $4,761,125.00 (1200 undergrads)</p>
<p>William and Mary is an excellent school that will open plenty of doors for you at top graduate schools if you do well. You can confidently go there without looking back. Having said that, it’s not better than Haverford academically, and its reputation isn’t better than Haverford’s either. Probably the other way around. </p>
<p>It’s also not accurate that employers and grad schools consider William and Mary to be “the” premier state school for undergraduates. It’s more fair to say that there’s no clear distinction between U-Va and William and Mary and that in the end it’s all about fit. The WSJ article referenced above, for example, suggests that certain top grad schools hold U-Va in higher regard.</p>
<p>Wow, I’m honestly shocked someone took that WSJ data seriously. Statistical significance definitely comes into play here. You could easily have double the admission rate to 6-7% for a given year, the rankings mean nothing outside of maybe looking at schools with 8% and up. Correlation does not imply causation etc. It’s easy to believe the data as proof of X and assume 100% accuracy, but in reality its use is very limited. </p>
<p>I said William and Mary is more reputable because it is. That’s not particularly relevant to the quality, but I do think W&M has more prestige. For related reasons UCLA has more prestige than deep springs, primarily because no one knows about deep springs. The difference is less with W&M vs HC but it’s still there. If you have only 1200 undergraduates you simply won’t have as many people out there making a name for the college. My dad is a professor and literally had no idea Carleton was a good school (#8 on USNWR) because it’s just so damn small! W&M is already a bit small but people have at least heard of the place, and in the real world what really matters is someone knowing that you went to a good school. If you ask someone if they have heard of Pomona, Davidson, Carleton, Haverford Williams etc. most of the time they say “What?” Ask them about UCB/UCLA/CMU or any fairly large-ish school and they will know at least roughly where it is and if it’s good or not. Don’t go to a LAC for the reputation, you’ll be disappointed. </p>
<p>Remember size matters. A lot. For many people, including myself, going to a school with a smaller enrollment than my highschool (which isn’t very big to begin with) is a drawback. Endowment per student only works well if the schools you are comparing have similar enrollment sizes. An LAC with 1k students and 100 million will not have the same quality of facilities as a larger school with 10k students and 1 billion. Science facilities cost a boatload and larger schools can more easily distribute that burden. At larger schools you can also afford to higher/offer more specialized courses. At Haverford you’ll have smaller class sizes but you will be limited by its size. It’s a tradeoff.</p>
<p>We can throw around rankings a bunch and W&M/HC will trade blows but in the end both schools are damn similar. Both have the LAC atmosphere and the honor code. Both are known for rigorous workloads. Both are known for professors that care about undergraduate teaching etc. What matters is feel. I hope you have visited both since that’s what really makes all the difference. When I visited W&M it just felt right. Rice, while ranked higher, didn’t. If you don’t feel comfortable somewhere the ranking is irrelevant. Grad schools (outside of top law schools), do not care where you went to college, they care about what you accomplished. Good luck.</p>
<p>That data might be more relevant if it was actually “admission rate” instead of “attending” - where you choose to attend grad school, (for that matter, which undergrad you attend) is often an economic decision as much (or more) than an “admissions” decision. I know many W&M undergrads who were admitted to top-10 schools on that feeder list who simply couldn’t afford to attend them (DD among them with 2 admissions of those 10 - full disclosure, 2 rejections, and 1 WL as well.) When faced with the reality of the woeful aid offered by those schools, W&M was an easy choice. </p>
<p>I suspect there’s a <em>very</em> strong correlation with family income/resources, attendance at those top-10 undergraduate schools, <em>and</em> attendance at those top-15 grad schools. Even then, “affordability” was a key selector in which grad schools DD applied to; there’s little point in making the effort / paying the expense of applying to a grad school you know you have no realistic chance of being able to afford. </p>
<p>While I’m at it, comparing UVA and W&M in-state, in our social circle, there was a nearly perfect correlation with family incomes and which school they chose to attend, despite nearly identical COA - those with incomes of > than, say, $150K all chose UVA, while those with < $150k (1, far less, and 1 likely a straddler), all chose W&M (all of the W&M attendees were also accepted at UVA.) Small sample size, (8), make of it what you will. </p>
<p>“reputation” is a such a nebulous thing, and thinking there’s some absolute values list kept in admissions offices’ safes that they consult is absurd. W&M has a “very good” reputation for academics and rigor, and that <em>will</em> serve you well when applying to those “Top” grad schools. But ultimately, you still have to do the work - a 2.0 GPA at W&M, or Harvard, isn’t going to impress <em>anyone</em>. As ADHDFTL said, it’s all about what you’ve achieved, wherever you go.</p>
<p>“Small sample size, (8), make of it what you will.”</p>
<p>Amazing. You diss the WSJ article, then proceed to fashion an argument based on eight people in your own little social circle! The fact is that neither U-Va nor William and Mary is known as a poor man’s college. The percentage of students receiving Pell grants is equally low at both. </p>
<p>I don’t think the WSJ article should be taken real seriously. I merely suggested that it’s one piece of anecdotal evidence that William and Mary isn’t necessarily considered “the” state school in Virginia with the best reputation among top grad schools.</p>
<p>Which brings me to my final point. ADHDFTL says that William and Mary has to have a better reputation than Haverford because it’s bigger. Maybe that’s the case in the whole world, but the original poster’s question was about reputation among top graduate schools. Graduate schools know Haverford, and there’s no question that its reputation there is as high as, and likely higher than, William and Mary.</p>
<p>Really? Do you think so? What argument was I making? Did you just jump to some conclusion, and not like the neighborhood? I didn’t argue <em>anything</em> - and I never disclosed what I thought it represented. And you didn’t even bother to ask. I just found it mildly interesting, and since “family income” was what I was talking about, I digressed - I do that a lot. Anyway, I never advertised at as anything other than a personal anecdote - and certainly didn’t publish an ordered list in a newspaper. </p>
<p>Anyway, your absurd strawmen are getting tiresome - who said anything about “poor”, unless you think that <em>all</em> people making under $150K are “poor”? </p>
<p>And, the specific quote was “…as the premier academic state university for undergraduates” - you’ve misquoted it twice now. Did you deliberately remove “academic” and substitute “reputation among top grad schools”? </p>
<p>You do have a history of misquoting people. Could it be that you couldn’t convincingly argue that UVA has a better “academic reputation” than W&M? </p>
<p>Anyway, do you seriously think the percentage of undergrads that attended prep schools are the same for HYPS are the same as W&M / UVA? </p>
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<p>Do you believe you know this for a fact, and can thus speak for all grad schools now? You make fun of my 8-person dataset - what’s <em>your</em> first-hand data say?</p>
<p>And more to the point, what exactly does “higher reputation” mean? To whom? In what context? Are you saying that <em>all</em> Haverford graduates will be admitted to a competitive program before the first W&M graduate will? </p>
<p>I’d say the two programs are close enough in quality that the differences in their reputation in most admissions committees minds (the only ones whose perceptions of “reputation” can possibly matter) will be small enough to be at most a “noise-level” factor in admissions decisions. </p>
<p>Here’s the test - If the identical transcript and resume of a student were presented to a graduate school admissions committee, and the only difference was the name of the undergraduate institution, how would that effect the outcome? A little? Not at all? </p>
<p>I’ll repeat my view - that W&M’s reputation for academic quality is “good enough”; I think the number of W&M undergrads who’ll soon be starting at Oxford, Harvard, UCB, UMich, UPenn, Duke, UVA, WUSTL, Johns Hopkins, Pitt, Mt Sinai, etc, etc, should support that modest claim.</p>
<p>hey gcall1090- are you from NJ? I met someone at the Coronation Day accepted students luncheon in Montclair who was deciding between the two and lives one town over from me!</p>
<p>But dealing with the subject- I think (from personal experience dealing with family/friends at each) the reputations are equal but due to WM being a “liberal arts university”; you made a great choice the extracurricular and research opportunities that might not be as possible at a smaller school like Haverford.- as hxhsux clearly stated before.</p>
<p>Also; be happy about your decision! Either way; I congratulate you on your choice and you would have clearly been an asset to either great institution!</p>
<p>Undergraduate reputation (for grad school) is severely overestimated on College Confidential. For grad school in general reputation of your undergrad institution is not very important at all, they put schools in large groups and say OK, all these schools are “good”. We’re talking top 50 USNWR. After that it is mostly GPA and GRE scores. </p>
<p>There is a lot of debate (or I guess I should say complaining) by people when they realize that a 3.8 at random decent university looks better than a 3.3 at Harvard, by a long shot. even a 3.5. Admissions people just don’t care. And there is a reason for this: undergrad subject material is often quite similar in scope. If you have a high GPA, high GRE scores and some involvement with a faculty member with some project you’re going to do well, regardless of what your undergrad university is.</p>
<p>This whole discussion is relatively pointless as at W&M or Haverford you will have the opportunity to excel and with admissions the way they are, shooting for Harvard is a long-shot, regardless of the school you attend beforehand. </p>
<p>Try mentioning Rice university outside of the south or Haverford outside of the NE. You will get a lot of “huh?” This is true for most schools. Unless you went to HYPSM + Cambridge or Oxford DO NOT expect people to be impressed or even know anything about your school.</p>
<p>My comment on reputation was that people often overestimate how knowledgeable the average academic is about top LACs. People that hire graduates and pay them top dollar often haven’t heard of their school at all; they don’t know it’s top ranked or medium ranked (1-50) and they don’t really care either. If an applicant has a great honors thesis, or has collaborated with a professor and published some research that speaks volumes more than whether the school is top 25 or top 35. Hopefully the OP finds W&M to be an environment that facilitates this type of progress as it is really the only way to make yourself stand out (outside of GPA and GRE). If you don’t get in from W&M you probably wouldn’t have gotten in from Haverford. Both schools are characterized by an exceptional commitment to undergraduate teaching and involving students with research. In fact if I was going to pick a school that is closest to W&M academically it would be Haverford (honor code and all that jazz). </p>
<p>In the end there have been numerous studies of top schools vs HYPSM and they’ve found a difference of 2.8 vs 2.9 million earned over a lifetime, which probably isn’t even statistically significant (could be based on where graduates live as NE people will be paid more due to cost of living being higher).</p>
<p>W&M has a very strong national reputation as a stellar liberal arts education. What makes W&M academics unique among our competitors is the low student-to-faculty ratio (11:1), the fact that 99% of courses are taught by professors, and the stellar quality of W&M faculty (voted by U.S. News and World Report as 6th among commitment to undergraduate teaching). There is no doubt that you’ll receive a quality education at W&M and as an admitted student, the Committee has absolute faith in your ability to rise to the challenge presented to you by faculty.</p>
<p>As to workload, there’s an important distinction between challenging and hard. W&M professors will challenge you but because they want you to grow academically, not because they just want things to be hard. And again, as an admitted student, we know that you are more than capable of rising to the challenge and given the schools which you were considering it doesn’t sound like you wanted college to be a cakewalk academically.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the input on this. I definitely think I just have a bit of buyer’s remorse, as hxhsux said. As I mentioned in the beginning, I have a lot of trouble with being 100% confident in just about any decision I make. </p>
<p>Also, I just figured another big plus for W&M over Haverford: W&M will give me way more credits from my AP courses than Haverford haha. I’ve already doubled the credit limit they put on AP credits before even getting my scores back from this year. That helped to settle a lot of my doubts lol</p>
<p>But despite any concerns I have now, I am actually really looking forward to next year. Just had my senior prom this past week, and it kind of dawned on me that high school is basically over. Now the excitement for college has really begun to build. I am already planning to stop by W&M on my trip to D.C. next week so that I can raid the campus stores for some Tribe paraphernalia. </p>
<p>And Skeete, no, not from NJ. I’m from PA (right on the border with NY and NJ actually)</p>
<p>Don’t underestimate the value of AP credits. That will give you so much flexibility to take classes that really interest you or to double major.</p>