I just wanted to offer assistance to parents of students considering JMU. If you have any questions feel free to ask and I’ll do my best to answer them.
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Big win for JMU men’s basketball over UVA last night!
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I have a question on housing. My son doesn’t know anyone going so how do they assign roommates? I know other schools have them fill out a questionnaire to try and find people who are better suited to live together. For JMU it looks to be a bit more random. Do you know anything about that?
@SkiMom2022 I believe they still fill out the lifestyle survey mentioned in this link. I do have some interaction with JMU admissions, and the administration. I can tell you that they have a better roommate pairing success rate with the random option than students do finding roommates on social media.
https://www.jmu.edu/stories/orl/2014/05-22-random-roommates.shtml
Thank you so much!
This doesn’t deserve its own thread, but may be helpful to anyone considering JMU. I’m a parent of an in-state junior. In general, we all have been very happy with his time spent at school. But the nicest surprise for me? The affordability of off campus housing. He is paying roughly half of what his friends pay at VT/UVA. And when he moved into the 4BR/4BA place, the kitchen was brand new and his bedroom furniture and mattress only a year old. The group is moving to a slightly more expensive place next year, $100/month more, but he tells me the place is one of the nicest and hardest to get.
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Is it a complex? Sounds good, with 4 beds and baths!
Yes, the current one is a fairly large apartment complex of student housing. The one next year is a smaller complex.
I agree with @ClassicMom98, my son moved off campus his sophomore year. It has saved our family money as well because he cooks a lot of his own food. Students can use their JMU I.D. (JACard) to pay for groceries, like a debit card.
Also, there’s a group on Facebook called JMU Parents Off-Campus Housing Forum that provides great information about the various apartment complexes.
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My daughter was just accepted EA. We are from California. We visited JMU last summer and she loved the campus. Is it easy to get rides via a ride share to and from No Va in order to get to/from the airport?
A student can always look for a ride from students online, but the Virginia Breeze bus goes to Dulles airport from JMU every day. You could also fly your daughter directly into Shenandoah Airport, which is 15 minutes from campus.
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@Kbeth This is from the parent FB page today. Even when travel plans go awry, Dukes take care of other Dukes.
@GKUnion - thank you for taking and answering our questions. Have all the classes this academic year have been in person and if not, your sharing how remote learning has been managed would be appreciated - Thank you
@commonwealth111 This is a somewhat difficult question to answer. Because my son is a senior, and all of his courses at this point are major specific, his classes are smaller in size than the larger general education offerings. His courses have been completely in person since the start of the spring semester in 2021. When the school first pivoted in weeks, at the outset of the pandemic, things were understandably rocky. Things got better, though, and in some cases my son enjoyed online classes, specifically the asynchronous ones. The freedom to attack the material when it best fit his busy life was a plus.
To the best of my knowledge the vast majority of classes are meeting in person this year. I just checked on one of the traditionally larger classes(Psyc 101) and it is meeting in person, across all sections. Hopefully the university won’t need to transition back to online classes anytime soon.
I will say that the Vice Presidet of Student Affairs, Tim Miller, is such an awesome resource. He is everywhere on campus, out and about informally with students, or meeting with student organizations. You should follow him on instagram. He always updates parents with valuable information and he’s very good with responding to questions and issues.
If you have any other questions just let me know. I’ll be around because I have an incoming Class of 2026 student as well.
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@GKUnion Thank you for your thoughtful and thorough reply. We will add Tim Miller to our Instagram feeds.
Try Facebook as well.
Just a quick story since you mentioned Tim Miller. My son and I drove down to campus on Monday from NJ since he’d never toured the school. Our admissions tour for Tuesday got canceled but after we’d already arrived. My son and I were trying to do a self tour when we ran into Tim. He offered to give us a tour and we got to see everything! Dorms, rec center, dining halls! It was great because everything was locked since schools was closed. He totally saved us and made our trip worthwhile!
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This doesn’t surprise me one bit. Dr. Miller will do anything for the students, or potential students for that matter. I’ve reached out to him before to help someone with a tour when they weren’t being offered. He is one of the very best things about JMU.
BTW, that rec center (UREC) is awesome, isn’t it? I told my graduating son to enjoy it while he can because he’ll NEVER have access to a better gym.
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