Personally, I don’t find the south very appealing at all and was just wondering if the school has an overwhelming southern feel due to it being situated in Virginia? Also, could anyone address what the political climate (liberal? conservative?) is like at the school.
Thanks you guys!!!
Charlottesville is definitely “the South,” but not the Bible Belt kind of South. You’ll hear the accent, and the useful word “y’all,” but there won’t be anybody whose accent sounds like the Waltons.
The students really are not very Southern at all. Take a look at the map of Virginia. A large percentage of the students come from Northern Virginia, i.e., the suburbs of Washington DC. We Northern Virginians don’t consider ourselves Southerners. We’d probably say “Mid-Atlantic,” and we are more akin to Marylanders and Pennsylvanians than to the people in the rest of the state. And many NoVA families moved here from somewhere else. Then, about 25% of the students are from out-of-state, or international. Quite a large number are from the Norfolk, Virginia, area. That region has a large transient population of military families who come from all over the place.
Politically, Virginia is a “purple state,” which basically means a red muffin with lots of blueberries in it, where the college towns and cities and DC suburbs are.
I would say that politically the U.Va. students tend quite liberal, but a conservative person would be able to find kindred spirits. Socially, the Greek organizations are popular but do not dominate. You’ll see a lot of people who look and act “preppy,” but the majority of them did not in fact attend prep schools.
Hope this helps.
Oh, I miss “y’all.” There’s just no replacement for it. “Let’s go to you guys’ house”? Ack.
“Youze”, not “you guys’”.
or ‘yins’ if you are from Pittsburgh…
OP, just as CA is not a homogenous place, “the South” is not a homogenous place. @prodesse gives a good thumbnail of UVa. It might not suit you for lots of reasons, but geography is not a reason to rule it out. I think you will find all the things you like about UMi, but with less terrible winters 
UT-Austin (some consider Texas to be the South, though Deep Southerners & Texans tend to disagree :D) is another university that has a lot of what UMi offers, but with better winters.
What do you want to study in college ?
Yes, the metro areas of Va. are certainly cultural melting pots, with large numbers of people from other parts of the US and large numbers of immigrants. There still are some rural parts of Virginia that have a strong southern feel, but Cville is not one of them.
As I mentioned in a thread a few minutes ago, I am from NJ and lived in New England for about 10 years before coming to Charlottesville in 2005. I was prepared for complete culture shock, but there are so many people from around the country here that I didn’t feel a strong southern vibe. I joke that the office sent me to Arkansas for my first recruitment trip just to show me what the south was like. 
As for the political climate, we have some variety at UVA. There are [173 student organizations tagged as “Political/Advocacy” groups](- @UVA). When it comes to the city of Charlottesville, we lean left, as many college towns do. The surrounding counties lean right. [On the map on this page](Virginia Election Results 2016: President Live Map by County, Real-Time Voting Updates - POLITICO), we are the blue county smack in the middle of the state.
If you are interested in studying politics, [check out the Miller Center](About the Miller Center | Miller Center), which strives to be nonpartisan in it’s work.
The true test for how southern a school is is what happens when one orders grits in the cafeteria or at a local restaurant. Also, is Coke offered in lieu of coffee at breakfast ?
Is the Civil Was referred to as The War of Northern Aggression is another indicator.
Hold up. The lady who ran the Dunkin I went to in Boston said there were three morning drinks: coffee, iced coffee, and cold coffee. Cold coffee was Coke.
Drinking soda in the morning isn’t a southern thing.
Just the fact that you referred to it as “soda” gives away your heritage.
It’s whether you try to put sugar on those grits, thinking they’re the same as Cream of Wheat.
Look, I love Charlottesville and the University as much as anyone can. And the surrounding areas, both the elegant and those backwoods roads and “hollers.” I took classes there, worked, have friends still there. (Lol, a couple of my jobs gave an up close view of all sorts of folks, from the intensely liberal to the very not.) And it was a hard decision whether to take then early hs aged D1 with me when I had reason to be there, because I knew seeing UVA would alter her impressions of every other college out there.
And the fact is, as we crossed the street, before even setting foot on campus, she said she loved it. As we toured, she loved it all. But Charlottesville does have southern elements. In the end, she decided she was very much “a northerner.” Slayed me.
One has to have a level of confidence and openness to choose any environment very different than the familiar. Do you have that, OP? There are so many delights in crossing out of our comfort zones, so much to learn and appreciate. Southerners can be mostly a lot friendlier than their reps and open to folks who are open to them. It does bother me to have them lumped by stereotypes.
Yes, the surrounding areas lean right. That doesn’t change who they are, as people. And plenty of them became friends.
I agree “y’all” is often the perfect word.
And no sugar on grits.
Btw, the Waltons lived only about 30 minutes south. There are still places like Waltons Mountain. Most kids will never run into that. Sure not on their way from campus out to dinner.
If I was limited to describing the main vibe at the University of Virginia in one word, I would use “preppy” rather than Southern.
Hillary carried Albemarle County (which includes the UVA campus) by 15 points. UVA students might be a bit more conservative politically than some college campuses, but it still is a college campus filled with young people and college professors. So maybe it is very liberal as compared to very very liberal.
Agree with @Publisher. The vibe is more eastern than southern. The areas around Charlottesville are horsey Virginia hunt country. Definitely more Biff than Bubba. Although it seems like there are fewer Biffs at UVA than there were back in the day.
Two UVA alums you might know are John Dickerson of CBS News and Katie Couric, who are both from NoVa. They’re probably not a bad read on the prevailing vibe.
“more Biff than Bubba” = quotable.
It’s an amazing place, one I would have infinitely enjoyed.
^ and I’m from Boston
Thank you guys for all of these responses! I’m originally from NJ and moved to CA prior to beginning high school. After hearing about what a geographic melting pot it seems to be, I am intrigued. Thank you guys for all giving me a better feel of the overall atmosphere of the university. All of these responses are much appreciated
http://digital.uvamagazine.org/articles/2020-insight/
UVA is one third out of staters. Top OOS states in order: NY, PA, NJ, MD, FL, CT, TX, MA.
The largest contingent of in-staters is from NoVa.