I’m a freshman at UCLA, and I’m looking to transfer. Long story short, I didn’t really know anything about Georgetown until after I’d applied to colleges my senior year, but from my research, it sounds like a very good fit for me, socially and academically. I’m not happy at UCLA for a couple of reasons, but one of them is that UCLA feels very suburban – it’s not particularly well integrated into Los Angeles, which has been very disappointing for me.
Do Georgetown students have full access to life in Washington D.C.? As far as academics and the social scene goes, I think Georgetown would definitely be better for me than UCLA, but I feel like it’s really important to me to have lots of access to the city, so if Georgetown is like UCLA in that regard, I think I’d rather put my effort into applying to different schools.
Georgetown is set aside a little bit from Downtown DC but not by that much. Georgetown is a subsection of DC, and the rest of DC is over a small bridge. There are other streets of access too. They are so close together that you can walk to the rest of DC from Georgetown. The university students tend to go to M Street for shopping. There are no subways in Georgetown, because the residents objected (that’s my understanding, you’d have to check out the history yourself to verify.) There is bus service.
Longer walks from Georgetown to the rest of DC will bring you to Adams Morgan and Dupont Circle, two lively areas of the City. Fridays and Saturdays Adams Morgan has a night life. U street area is harder for you to get to, but try a bus. Walking over the bridge to Downtown DC will bring you along M Street to Penn. Avenue, which leads to the White House, the National Mall and the museums. Those areas are busy with business during the week. Weekends they are more quiet, because DC itself feels more suburban than, say Philly or NYC. People tend to take the trains outof the center of the city to their homes in the outer parts of the City and in the suburbs. Georgetown itself is very posh and residential, not businessy. Downtown regardless of the day of the week there are always tourists, and plenty of therm.
You could try also getting a bike, but again if you’re a big walker, it’s possible to walk to all of these places.
There are free campus shuttles that will take you to Union Station and to the law campus downtown. There is also a circulator bus that loops around the campus and the nearby neighborhood. The immediate surrounding area has a lot of well maintained historic homes and, as mentioned above, a well developed commercial strip on M Street and on Wisconsin with upscale shops, restaurants, and bars. The campus is just a few blocks from the Potomac River.
@Dustyfeathers When you say “Longer walks from Georgetown to the rest of DC,” how long are you talking? Like I said, I go to UCLA, so I do quite a bit of walking just to get to my classes (my dorm is about 20 min away from most of my classes), and walk about 15 minutes just to get into Westwood.
All in all, though, this was very helpful, as it sounds that Georgetown students have better access to DC than we do to LA, (if you’re familiar with UCLA at all, maybe you could confirm that for me?) so thank you so much for your help!
^ I went to school in DC and lived there for 18 years total. DC is geographically small for a major city. There is no Metro in G’town but you can walk to the GW station in 15 minutes (it is 5-8 minutes on the bus traffic permitting). From there you are already basically in downtown and any internships you might get are a short walk (the White House is only a 10 min walk from GW).
What I really like about GU is that the minute you walk off of campus, you are in a really great neighbourhood with restaurants, ice cream parlours, shopping etc.
We found that some other top schools campuses particularly in the South were somewhat isolated from their cities and we like GU’s logistics much better. DC is a very walkable city unlike LA.
My experience is that in LA you pretty much need a car to get around. In DC it’s possible to walk. That’s the biggest difference. You can walk (longish) from Georgetown to Adams Morgan. Look at that on the map and then that will tell you where else you can walk to. It’s a walking/ jogging city for sure.
@alkds98 Although my knowledge of each area is limited, Georgetown is much more accessible to DC than UCLA is to LA. I have visited both and one of the things my son is looking for in a college is accessibility to a city. You need a car to get from UCLA to LA. That’s not the level of accessibility my son is looking for and doesn’t sound like you are either. We walked from Georgetown to DC. It was a nice day and we noticed many people walking and riding bikes over the bridge.
It’s a half-urban legend. The DC Metro’s builders never seriously considered putting a stop there during the planning and construction of the system because at that time, Georgetown was neither a major job center nor a major residential area full of commuters. If they had decided to try to put a stop there, it’s at least somewhat likely that some in the neighborhood would’ve mobilized to oppose it, primarily on the grounds of disruption caused by construction. See http://www.welovedc.com/2009/10/13/dc-mythbusting-georgetown-metro-stop/
Lack of Metrorail station aside, the University is readily accessible from the rest of DC and vice versa, thanks to the GUTS bus, numerous adjacent public bus routes, the fact that Rosslyn metro station is within ready walking distance, and the proliferation of Capital Bikeshare that makes getting around easier than ever before. To say nothing of Uber, Lyft, etc.
DC is really accessible from Georgetown–it’s like a 30 min walk to the White House. Adams Morgan is right across the bridge. Dupont Circle is also easy walking distance, plus the circulator busses go there. Rosslyn station is a 20 min walk or a $4 Uber away. And besides all of this, Georgetown the neighborhood is pretty cool! The waterfront is gorgeous, M St is fun, if expensive, shopping, and there’s tons of good restaurants nearby.