Hey all, we just returned home from Inside GW, an admitted students’ day! If you’d like to pick our brains about anything related, feel free to ask questions. I think D is close to committing to GW very soon. Yay!
HI, do you know how to access when the admitted student days are? my email said to check the portal and I can’t find the information anywhere.
@monkeyswag101 I’m sorry, but I don’t have access to my D’s portal. I will try and check with her later and get back to you if nobody else has answered your question by then.
Congratulations to your D (jj or kk), @mamatojjandkk! Which program was she accepted to? What is she appreciating about the school after the day?
@SkipWoosnam Hi, thank you for your congratulations to D (KK)! She was accepted to International Affairs in the Elliot School, though she plans to apply for Public Health when you are permitted as a 1st semester sophomore. How about you (or your young adult)? She is appreciating the pulse and opportunities/resources of D.C. once again, the nice & helpful people she met among both other admitted students and the staff, the breadth and uniqueness of classes offered, the diversity of the student body (in the traditional sense and in the types of people sense) and the equal opportunities in registering for classes and housing at GW vs. the “first come, first served” policy of most large public universities.
Hi, I also was accepted to the Eliott School and will be attending Inside GW in a couple of weeks! What were some of the main events happening at the Admitted Students’ Day? Thanks!
Thanks for doing this and congrats to your D! We’ll be attending in a couple weeks. Do the students get to tour the dorms and facilities on the Vern? Did they mention ways that new students cope with being on a large urban campus?
@class18 There was a question & answer panel made up of GW resource-type people, then there was a 45 min quick tour of the Foggy Bottom campus. Next, they took us out to the Vern campus for a boxed lunch ( several options including for vegetarian/vegans…although no Matzoh for Passover that I could see) with the other admitted students and their families (some students came alone, which was fine, too), but there was no tour of the Vern or Vern dorms. Then, we reported on our own to the academic college that your student was admitted to for a talk and Q&A with an adviser about course requirements & offerings, majors, registration (to take place during Colonial Inauguration (orientation), etc. Next, there were optional tours of 3 upperclass dorms (I had a feeling they were not going to show )us “Thirsty” Thurston hall!} and then, a free hour with a few choices of what to do. Finally, we walked on our own back to the Marvin Center (the student center) to grab a free tshirt & sunglasses and if you’re ready, you can make your enrollment deposit. They also had advisers ready at the financial aid office to speak to you all day, whenever you wished. HTH!
@TekSan Thanks and congrats to you (or your student), too. No, we only went for a boxed lunch in rooms outside of the dining hall in West Hall on the Vern. The bus drove us past the tennis courts and some of the Vern buildings, but that was it. In the morning Q&A panel, the subject did come up about coping at an urban school and the panelists described various resources that are in place to help. They want to hear from us if we notice a change for the worse in our child’s communication or behavior. They will discreetly talk to the RA where your child lives and then, talk to your child and offer any sort of help they may need…though they can’t force your child to speak to them. The speakers kind of glossed over the no dining hall on Foggy Bottom issue. I think getting 3 relatively healthy meals a day on what comes out to be about $17-20 a day is going to be a real challenge for students who won’t have access to a kitchen and will only have a minifridge and a microwave. They didn’t touch on safety much, though I feel Foggy Bottom can be safer than some suburban campuses, like UMCollegePark, and the Vern seemed extremely safe. HTH! Feel free to ask any more questions you might think of.
Was the Honors school something that students had to apply to? what is scholars?
Thanks for the great info. The GW website has short videos of the Vern dorm rooms but I might send my son to do some dorm scouting during the lunch break. I’d rather have him do his first year on the Vern just to get some rest from city life. $17-20 will definitely be a challenge. We’re in the suburbs and it’s hard to get a lunch for less than $8-10, so I can’t imagine what DC meals go for especially if eating out for dinner. As far as coping with the urban campus, it sounds like GW is trying. I’ll be recommending to my student to make friends in different circles by doing clubs, etc and not just rely upon the dorms for friendships.
We are heading to admitted students day in a week or so. DD is deciding between GW (initially her first choice) and Fordham (now in the lead). My questions: how large is greek life? This is something dd is NOT interested in (although I do imagine she will be looking for an active social life), that is one bonus of Fordham. Second- she will be very disappointed if she ends up in a dorm at the Vern- did you get a sense about choices? We loved GW when we visited last year- urban campus, very diverse in all ways, etc. Oh, and explain the food situation, from what I remember we liked the look of the meal plan vs traditional dining halls. Are you only alotted $20/day?
@NJmom8 Greek life is “present” but not invasive at all. You’ll always see students walking around with their letters but never will a non-Greek student feel left-out. I don’t know what percentage of students participate, but I’d guess only 10-15%. Further, a fair number of the frats are academic-based.
Yes, ending-up on the dorm is a real possibility as a freshman. I think somewhere around 20-30% of freshmen live there. If she were to end-up on that dorm, it’s important to have a positive attitude: it’s only one year, and there are definitely good things about living there (ease of making friends, quieter, easy access to food, etc).
As far as paying for food, a student has an allotment for the year- so it’s not “daily.” However, if you were to average semester allotments for the number of days a student would be on campus, freshmen get about $25/day. It’s difficult at first- learning how much different things cost and how much food you actually need. Doing cereal or other basic foods for breakfast helps a lot. Carrying a water bottle around instead of buying juice/soda also results in noticeable savings.
@NJmom8 I have the same concern about the Vern. Not one student I’ve talked to likes/liked living there. Mostly because in DC traffic it can take 30-45 minutes to actually get to Foggy Bottom. I want to join a lot of organizations and getting to those meetings will be a real pain if I have to live on the Vern. It is one of the biggest things keeping me from enrolling at GW at the moment.
@mamatojjandkk GW has an extremely safe campus! Not do we have GW Police on campus, we also have the Secret Service a ten minute walk away, along with the Metropolitan Police Department. I am not sure if they touched on the “blue light” system around campus, but that is an extra safety measure on campus, which is also available on an app.
@Kd6410 The shuttle takes 30-45 minutes only during peak times of the day, which is basically only at 8-9am and 5-6pm. Other than that, it usually takes 10-15 minutes to get to Foggy. If you do get stuck on the Vern, room swap is open almost all year long, so it is very possible to move to Foggy even if you are originally placed on the Vern.
I lived on the Vern my freshmen year and I will honestly say people complain a bit too much about the Vern. The shuttle situation is really annoying, especially when you forget something in your room or have to travel during peak times, but other than that, it was a fine experience for one year. There are even perks to living on the Vern, such as free movie rentals all year long from the Vern library and Vern students get priority registration for Vern classes during their second semester. The library is much less crowded than the library on Foggy Bottom. The Vern library even has two hammocks and a “porch” type of thing, which I did not even know until the end of my freshmen year. Rooms are much nicer in general than any room on Foggy, except for Potomac. Potomac and Vern rooms are equivalent to each other, I would say. There are way more study spaces within the dorm itself compared to dorms on Foggy, in general. They are adding an all-you-can-eat dining hall on the Vern, which is a change from how it is now in that you pay per specific item.
@NJmom8 Those without kitchens have $2,300 per semester for food. How that calculates out per day really depends on the individual person and how much they eat during the day, their eating habits, etc.
As for Greek life, most people say one can tell it is present on-campus, but it is definitely not overwhelming. I have plenty of friends on-campus that are involved in social Greek life and plenty of friends who are not. There are also alternative Greek life options, like multicultural and professional ones i.e. pre-law co-ed fraternity. I would honestly say it should not be a factor at all because one can easily be involved with it, but they can also easily not be involved with it.
@liveyourlife26 I agree there definitely are benefits but just for me personally it would not be a good fit. I chose a urban campus so I could be in an urban setting. My first class will probably start at 8 or 9 and club meetings (I’m assuming this I don’t know for sure) would probably meeting around 4-6(?)
Would anyone on room swap actually be willing to switch to the Vern?
A big part of it is that I want to do the Global Bachelor’s Program which means I’d be living off campus in another location for three semesters. So if I got the Vern freshman year and then I’m.gone for those seemsters I’d only get to live in Foggy Bottom for 3 semesters instead of 5. I’ve also heard that it can be lonely on the Vern if you’re not in any of the special programs like WLP or UH.
I do like that the dorms are generally nicer and I do think the Vern is definitely good for some people (just not for me)
@Kd6410 That is completely fair, but I just do not want you to not go to GW because you fear being placed on the Vern for one year. I was not in any special program. The hard aspect about social life in general is you never know who you are going to be roommates/suitemates/hallmates with. While some buildings end up being super close, others do not. It just depends on the year and the people.
People actually do switch to the Vern, but it is usually after the first couple of months of school when a lot of people start hating their roommates and are desperate to get out.
Do the students get the chance to attend a class? Logistically, I imagine that it would be difficult but the quality of professors is my biggest concern about GW.