<p>For example, read the first 5 comments; they are all incredibly negative.</p>
<p>I realize this is the internet and these comments are essentially anonymous, but it certainly makes you wonder how much of what they say is true.</p>
<p>What I also find interesting and somewhat amusing is how passionate and articulate these posters are. Where is the passion from those students with a positive view? (I think the net view on that site is a negative one.)</p>
<p>Btw, I am a parent and have a D who has yet to decide, and W&M is one of the few remaining on her list.</p>
<p>Most of the W&M students who’d write positive reviews (which is to say, the overwhelming majority of them) are busy having positive experiences and have less time and energy for anonymous review sites, maybe? I’m thinking about the 95 percent retention rate and 90 percent graduation rate - second highest grad rate among public colleges in the nation (UVA is first). To say nothing of the excellent experiences had at W&M by my own two dataponts.</p>
<p>Time is growing short and your d has to make her decision based on something. If those 5 negative reviews turn her off, maybe she’ll be happier at one of the other options. Have they gotten pans on students review?</p>
<p>I don’t know much about W&M, but I have noticed that for any given college most of the reviews on Students Review are negative. I guess only unhappy students bother to write a review.</p>
<p>It’s difficult to tell what a college is like through its reviews. One reason is that the incentive to write them is often due to a bad experience. The good reviews may be assigned by those who want to “up” the college. You have to read the reviews carefully, look at other sources and sort out the truths. Then you have to decide how important the drawbacks of a given school are to you personally as well as the great reviews. I could not care less about athletic facilities, for instance, so if the raves are coming from those focused on that, they are disregarded. If the complaint is that the campus is dead on weekends, I would be concerned if I were to be a residential student there. I would not want to go to a primarily suitcase school. If there is a lot of discussion and problem about Greek life, it is a no go to me. That indicates issues with the frats and sororities. Don’t mind if a school has them, but if they figure too prominently and there is too much hub bub about them, then it’s not the school for me. Just some personal examples.</p>
<p>Just for comparison’s sake, I looked at the UVA reviews - and they were pretty similar. And the “Perceptual Ratings” had some pretty harsh terms for UVA. </p>
<p>As has been said, I think the problem here is that the reviewers are mostly self-selecting - people who are angry/upset, and actively looking for a place to complain. I’m not saying they don’t actually have legitimate complaints - that’s not for me to say.</p>
<p>The two complaints seem to center around “it’s hard (academically)”, and “they’re hard on alcohol” - I don’t think you’ll get a lot of argument there. It’s a strong academic school - if you need to graduate with a 4.0 GPA, you probably shouldn’t go there. As for alcohol and such - there’s no difficulty finding a party at W&M most nights of the week.</p>
<p>Will it ever make a Playboy list of Top 10 Party Schools? Never. Will it be provide a quality education recognized around the world, with a rich history, interesting and talented student body, with a culture of acceptance and friendliness? Absolutely. </p>
<p>I suggest reviewing some of the videos on Youtube, like the Yule Log, or Coronation Day or Homecoming or the alma mater, whatever, and get a sense for the environment.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t put any weight into the reviews on that site. Anyone can write a review anonymously, regardless of whether they’ve attended the school or not. I’ve found that any good school you look at on that website just gets absolutely dumped on in the reviews. Seriously, check out the reviews for Harvard and Columbia for example. You really think that’s accurate?</p>
<p>As a parent of a graduating senior, I remember reading negative reviews before she matriculated, but few of the dire warnings came to pass for her. Most of the reviews, even the really negative ones, acknowledge quality academics and good, approachable professors, and that has been her experience. Other than during crunch times or when she procrastinated, I’d say she didn’t have to work any harder than in high school to maintain good grades. She is not particularly social but has found good friends among people in her interest groups. Career and counseling resources have done well by her.</p>
<p>It seemed a lot of the criticism talked about the administration. Some of D’s activities have required contacts with the administration, and she’s complained about lack of results, but with the perspective of a senior, just yesterday she admitted that there has at least been a willingness to listen and sometimes compromise. She has come to realize that there are limits to what a public can do, and that there are realistic constraints on funds. But I can certainly imagine some of the real activists documenting their convictions with words like those in the reviews.</p>
<p>Lots of good points. Certainly all schools have negative comments, and I have compared W&M with other schools, and that is why I commented here. It seems like the overall negative/positive balance seems to be more tilted towards the negative side in W&M’s case…</p>
<p>I think it’s important to turn the negatives into positives depending on the individual. For example, let’s take a typical UrbanDictionary definition for William and Mary: “Acronym for Typical William and Mary Person. Used to describe the awkward, bookish, ugly, Wow-playing nerds that infest the College of William and Mary.” I’m kind of awkward. I like to read. I don’t play WoW, but I do know people who do, and they are all nice people. I identify as a nerd. All of the reviews ragging on W&M for the tough academics and lack of a party scene–that is exactly what I’m looking for in a college, a chance to actually learn without the worrying about the influence of drugs or alcohol on campus. For me, the negative reviews of W&M were just another positive factor that helped convince me to join the Tribe.</p>
<p>bandgeek, I definitely hear what you’re saying, about some of the negatives comments can be viewed as positives. For example the people complaining that it is not a party school…</p>
<p>I guess the negative things things that I read in the reviews, which cause me some concern as a parent, are those that mention, “stressed”, “depressed”, “too busy to do anything but study”, “always in the library”, …</p>
<p>Helidad, I saw those specific reviews as well, and they did concern me a bit. However, three of my good friends currently attend W&M, and from their reviews, nothing could be futher from the truth. They do admit the work is challenging, but “no harder than high school” and “unless [they] procrastinate, [they] have lots of free time.” Depressed and stressed are two terms likely to be found on a multitude of competitive college campuses across the country…I am not too concerned.</p>
<p>you can see from my info that I graduated in 2008. Not that I am particularly proud of what I am going to say, but I feel it could be of value here: The only times I went to the library were in my first semester when I needed to watch movies for my Spanish class, and then in my final semester when I had 36/50 in one of my classes (after a 40 point midterm and a 10 point presentation) and the final exam was the other 50 points. I studied for that exam harder than I ever studied for anything, and I got a B in the course (which means I got at least 48/50 on the exam).</p>
<p>So… you can graduate from W&M without spending your life in the library being stressed.</p>
<p>A lot of the stress at W&M is self imposed. It is full of 3.9 and 4.0 high school students, who (mostly) are no longer getting grades in that range. You can accept that you are a 3.4 (or whatever) student at W&M and have a great time, or you can try to work and study 24/7 to try to eek out every additional hundredth on your GPA. One of these options leads to significantly more stress and less enjoyment. The choice belongs to the student.</p>
<p>There is no getting around the fact that every graduating class at W&M will have roughly 750 students “below average” on the GPA scale.</p>
<p>W&M is full of talented and smart individuals. Some of them will be “below average” in the context of W&M, but when they finish W&M, they will be once again back as the top percentage of the population, and anything but “below average.”</p>
<p>Current W&M student here who isn’t too hung up on the homer-ism that a lot of W&M grads have, hopefully I can provide some better prospective.</p>
<p>It’s true that more of those with bad experiences write reviews on that site, however one also needs to look at what they are saying.</p>
<p>So let me give my opinion on some of the ideas in this thread:</p>
<p>-W&M is “no harder than high school”. False.
Academics, especially for real majors are very challenging, probably harder than most Ivy’s.</p>
<p>-W&M student’s have LOTS of free time if they don’t procrastinate. False.
This may be semi-true if you have 12 credits, but I find that with a 15-16 credit semester, there really is very little time to do much save for a few hours on the weekends if you have no tests/papers the following Monday/Tuesday. Of course there are exceptions (extremes) to this, but this is generally how it is. This is especially bad during finals week, kids are like zombies with the library open 24/7.</p>
<p>-W&M student’s are depressed. False.
Can’t speak much about this topic, but I know that there is an excellent counseling center on campus. I suspect most W&M students are usually stressed out, but not to the point of depression.</p>
<p>That said, if you aren’t the type of person that can study through Spring Break, your first year will likely be a train-crash. If you are in a real major, you will NOT get a 4.0 (or 3.9) GPA, probably not 3.8 either. 3.7 is possible if you are insane about studying, and 3.5-3.6 is do-able. You WILL learn a LOT, and will learn how to actually learn, which in the long run is probably more important than grades.</p>
<p>That’s all on academics. Don’t even get me started on staff and on campus parking.</p>
<p>I feel like the difficulty of your academics is largely determined by the individual. If you max out your schedule with difficult classes and expect a 4.0, yeah you’re going to be working all the time and have little free time. But if you don’t take every single credit you possibly can, maybe throw in an easy GPA booster class every semester, manage your time wisely, and have reasonable expectations about the GPA you can achieve (remember, this is college where a 3.7 is actually impressive), you’ll have an enjoyable experience with plenty of free time. Of course, your major/study habits/ability is going to have an effect on how much you work too. This is all from talking to friends and other people currently going to W&M, so maybe I’m wrong and everyone is studying 24/7. But I doubt it. And WM2013, mind sharing what “real majors” are at W&M? What majors are generally considered to be the hardest/easiest?</p>
<p>since you don’t have any homerism, can you list the real majors? Also can you list the Ivy league schools that you have taken classes at, so we have a basis for your comparisons?</p>
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<p>in my opinion, this response is ridiculous. Tons of W&M students are active in ECs. W&M students do tons of service hours (read: hundreds of thousands of service hours). W&M has an active student government. W&M has a world class Model UN team. W&M has active greek life that participates in social events and philanthropies. Tons of W&M students participate in IM sports. This just scratches the surface, with no mention of countless music groups, students who have part time jobs, student athletes, etc</p>
<p>A few hours on the weekends? hardly. You sound like one of the kids that gives W&M the reputation of people who study all the time and live in the library. Obviously you can live in the library at W&M if you want, but there is plenty more to do.</p>
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<p>As someone who went through the IB program in high school, I will tell you straight up that I had way more free time at W&M than I did during junior and senior year of high school.</p>
<p>Whether it is harder than high school or not will greatly depend on the individual, the high school and the course selection. If you came from a rigorous high school, it will not be any harder. </p>
<p>The only free time is a few hours on weekends? Not true. My kids have been involved in greek life, intramurals, church activities, volunteer coaching and tutoring, etc - along with working- and still managed to stay on the dean’s list. They studied quite a bit for sure, but not to the exclusion of everything else. Being busy has always been good for their time management skills.</p>
<p>Negative reviews are going to be a part of a review of any college. Otherwise we’d all have 100% retention rates. No matter what school one is speaking of, there will be some students there for whom the school is not a good fit. Additionally, we do not know if those who write negative reviews brought the negativity on themselves. If you don’t make the most of what any campus has to offer you could have a negative experience.</p>
<p>Our tour guides tend to lean much more towards soccerguy’s opinions of W&M in that students lead balanced lives between academics and socializing. Yes they appreciate their academics and work hard to learn and grow as students but they are also all involved in a myriad of activities and social endeavors. And our tour guides are all volunteer so they’re not paid.</p>
<p>Students should absolutely consider negative aspects of any school and no schoo is without them. We certainly hope our presence on CC lets people know how much a part of the institution the administration is at W&M and we think the admin at W&M are generally very accessible but that’s just our humble opinion.</p>
<p>I had similar concerns about this site. Then I checked out reviews for Lafayette-my D’s other choice, and they were worse. 33 reviews, 13 negative. Look at the time period-the reviews span 6 years. Then really look at the comments for both LC and William and Mary. The school is lame because:
it is like a HS, parties are lame, girls would rather watch Disney movies than party, etc., kids are depressed (maybe they are too serious to hang with the reviewer). No school is a perfect fit for everyone. I no longer reference that site as I think it distorts the truth about some fine schools. College ******* is much better in giving interesting statistics-95% of William and Mary students are happy with the school, 75% of students would make the same choice if they could do it all over again. I think if you can get a 75% repeat ratio there is something good going on when you consider the pressures you feel in college, the disorientation of being away from home, the influences and need to learn boundaries and disciplines. When I attended college there were a group of disgruntled prep school grads who transferred after one year because kids were too immature, the school had no social life, it wasn’t Tufts where they could get to Boston, a million different excuses to not engage and make the most of the experience. </p>
<p>That being said, it is the 11th hour and D has still not made the choice yet! Back to Lafayette today for another walk around.</p>
<p>Actually Saturday noon is our deadline because LC doesn’t accept deposits online and our final mail pickup is Saturday to get the acceptance postmarked by May 1. If Wm and Mary wasn’t a 9 hour ride it would be the only choice, but the leaving home for such a distant place feeling is weighing heavy on her, even though she loves the school.</p>
I’m thinking about the 95 percent retention rate and 90 percent graduation rate - second highest grad rate among public colleges in the nation (UVA is first). To say nothing of the excellent experiences had at W&M by my own two dataponts.</p>