Our D graduated from UR last year. While she liked places close to campus in Carytown, my wife and I enjoyed the Boathouse, especially their Rocketts Landing location near downtown Richmond, with great atmosphere and beautiful views of the city. They also have a location in the Short Pump Town Center which is west of campus. We have eaten in both locations and have always enjoyed our experiences https://www.boathouseva.com/.
When our D and I first visited UR when she was a high school senior, we had lunch in the campus dining hall on our formal tour day. The prospective student eats free and parents receive a discount. I wouldn’t miss that opportunity.
Mosaic Restaurant is very good. We really like the restaurants in the Short Pump area, especially Thai Flavor Food and Mama Cucina. Vietnam One nearby is also very good. Several restaurants within Carytown is also good, such as Thai Diner Too. While we are not from the Richmond area, the quality of restaurants is very good. We are looking to try Stella’s (a Greek restaurant) on our next visit.
We always enjoyed eating at The Continental, an upscale diner sort of place. We also liked the bakery called Shindigs, lots of great desserts and pastries. Kuba Kuba has awesome cuban food, great for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Burger Bach in the Carytown area has yummy burgers and fries with dipping sauces. There are also a few good casual thai restaurants in Carytown, we liked Thai diner too, and Mom’s Siam.
I second suggestion by @ARTCC to eat at the dining hall, we often had breakfast/brunch on campus when visiting, and it was always great!
How rigorous are the classes at Richmond? I care a lot about my grades and studies, but I also want to spend time with friends. Was it hard to balance academics and social life?
are the dorms nice and clean?
I don’t want to join Greek Life. Will I still be able to find friends easily?
That depends entirely on you; how efficient you are, what kind of classes you take (major-specific), and how many you go for will all affect this. Professors are encouraged to provide 10-14 hours of total commitment per week per class, but I find most of them do not take too much time. It’s not uncommon for some to pile up work by accident, which can lead to a class feeling 20+ hours on some weeks, though. Overall, I’d say it’s not too terrible. For most people, Fridays are pretty laid-back, Saturdays are an actual day off, and Sundays are work days. Most people seem to get into meal routines in which they can hang out with friends on a regular basis anyways.
Again, subjective. I've had pretty good experiences, but I'm sure it depends on you and your roommate. Your experience will be largely based on the state of your room, which is all on you. The halls themselves are varying; most freshmen dorms are generally considered a bit of a joke (more so in hindsight) and upperclassmen dorms are generally considered quite nice. It'll all depend on your expectations (and the year as well, I guess). If you're curious about insects or the likes, we don't really seem to have many issues like that. I'm not a very opinionated person on this kind of stuff, so maybe I'm not a good person to ask, but I find it just fine.
Sure. I myself have had good experiences, and I'd say almost all of my friends are not involved in Greek Life. If you're remotely social, you'll be able to start making friends with classmates and will have time to spend with them. There are various social activities you can go to that are sometimes actually pretty good (some of the Spider Nights are great) and there's always a set of special interest clubs you can try to go to. I'm personally a fan of UR Anime and UR Games clubs for social reasons.
You are encouraged to declare in second semester sophomore year. Some people end up declaring later (discouraged) and some sooner (because of promise of major-specific advisor). Some don’t know this, but there’s a chance you can switch to an advisor in your department before declaring (I.e. freshman year) if you ask. Besides the advisor thing, the major declaration has almost no noticeable impact on you.
Yes and no. Outside of the B-School prereqs (fin/man accounting, Intro marketing, b-stats, etc.), you are supposed to be a declared B-school major to take the upper level classes. However, something I have found at UR is that you can do a lot of things if you just ask nicely, so if you asked the professor and can convince them that you are competent enough to take it, he will redirect you to the dean/assistant dean who can give you an override if they choose to. If they do this, they will prioritize declared majors first, so you will have to get an override into the class after regular registration contingent on the class not filling up with people who need to take the course. I’m speaking from experience, though they can always change their practices. Of note, economics courses do not fall under this umbrella.
Davidson and Richmond are in the final group of colleges being considered by my son. I have searched threads from prior years regarding a compare-and-contrast analysis of these two schools. I’d like to hear more up-to-date input to highlight the pluses and minuses of Davidson and Richmond. I’m looking for more of the softer, nonspecific factors to consider, as we’ve been through all of the available statistics for each school. Any useful input would be much appreciated.
@aj4567
That depends on your major. For business people (especially accounting and consulting), UR is probably honestly one of the best places you can possibly go. The job fairs are really catered to those students.
If you’re not a B-School kid, it starts getting into “what you make of it” territory. You can go incredibly far with the connections you make in honestly whatever discipline you want, specifically if you start doing 1-on-1 work i.e. research with professors. With only 20 or so kids per class, it’s pretty easy. If you happen to be into research (which you should try if you can) you can really get far. Just don’t expect the UR career expo to help much; it’s all business, consulting, and accounting (which is cool if you’re into that). Personally, I’d rather not be a data/computer scientist at Capital One (which is a bit of a magnet company there), but if I did, I’d probably get it.
Also of note, it’s almost common for students to do paid Summer research in their first and/or second year, and then try to go for internships in their junior year with some experience. This is more common for some majors than others, but just throwing that out there.
What are you thinking about studying?
EDIT: Oh yeah, it’s not like the career services isn’t great, because it is! It’s just kinda a joke how great they are with business specifically. A lot of the jobs they have listed on SpiderConnect are really business-y (though most are technically open to all majors).
@JamesWest
Yeah, at UR you just gotta take most of the prereqs (you can find them online) and pass an excel competency test, and you should be good. You’re recommended (required?) to finish prereqs in your first two years, but there aren’t that many. I low-key started out as a double major w/ CS and business admin, and ended up not enjoying the business side that much. Didn’t have to do anything; just sorta stopped signing up for business courses and started signing up for math etc. Good stuff.