I’ve been researching GW as a possible college for biological sciences and I’ve loved just about everything about it. I’m okay with the political environment because I like politics and I feel like it’s probably a good place to learn to speak your mind. I’ve been to DC once and I enjoyed the surrounding area
Only concern is the campus. I’d like a college that had a campus feel. I toured Case Western a couple months ago and the campus wasn’t really a campus, and it blended in with Cleveland. Although I’m good with an urban environment, I’m not sure how I feel about going to an university that doesn’t feel like a campus, but just part of DC.
From your experience, or from people you know, what’s your general opinion of the campus vibes? is there really a campus that sticks out as a campus, or is it integrated with the DC surroundings
We toured recently. Freshmen are housed on a remote campus that is out a bit, and has athletic fields and some classes and a cafeteria. They run buses out there regularly. Once you’re on campus you’re on campus, and there’s a green grass area, but yeah, you just kind of walk down the street and are off campus. It kind of blends in with DC, and as we walked around we saw lots of kids walking off campus with backpacks. There’s not really a cafeteria on campus, and people eat lunch at food trucks or walk off campus to restaurants.
As noted above, GWU blends with the city without having the traditional campus feel. If you like DC, then other options that have a more traditional campus are Georgetown, George Mason, or American.
Maybe this will give you a feel for the place. My S attended GW as a freshman and ended up living in the building that the Watergate burglars kept watch in, which had been re-purposed as a dorm, but still was basically a motel in set-up with no cafeteria and no common areas on the floors. And it was quite a hike from the rest of the school buildings. A really bad situation for a freshman. (I don’t think it’s used as a dorm at all anymore, btw.) I think my D, more independent and more of a city mouse, would have been fine with GW’s lack of campus, but S felt isolated and was deeply unhappy. He transferred to a school with a traditional campus. GW is similar to BU and NYU in atmosphere–great for some kids, awful for others. You have to know who you are.
As others have pointed out, GW doesn’t have a “traditional campus feel.” Does it feel like a campus in its own way? Sure! When you’re on campus you know, because just about every building in the 20 or so blocks of campus are marked with a GW banner; there are students walking everywhere with backpacks and wearing GW apparel. Sure, there are cars driving though on their commute, business professionals walking between work and the Metro stop on campus, and even tourists exploring D.C… that’s just part of being an urban campus.
Quite frankly, if what you’re looking for in a campus is one that has lots of trees, a large and grassy quad, a well-defined border with few non-students on campus, then GW isn’t for you. Like @magtf1 said, you can find that in Georgetown and American and still be “in D.C.”
Or, perhaps you want a little bit of both… the Mount Vernon campus is everything you’d consider “typical” for a college campus. You could live on that campus as a freshmen (and like @geniusa1a said, about 25% of freshmen will) while you warm-up to the hustle-and-bustle of the Foggy Bottom campus. That’s what I did, and I thought it was a great transition.