Hi, I am a prospective student who is looking at William and Mary. I visited the school last week, but the got the feeling that students spend most of their time studying and not having fun. So I wanted to ask someone who is currently attending or recently graduated what is the social life/scene at William and Mary? Also, does the college have a lot of school spirit? I want to get the “college experience”, but attend a great school like W&M at the same time.
Hi CTkid47,
I am a current student at William and Mary and I just finished my first year there. If you’re spending all your time studying and not having fun, you’re not doing college right. There’s plenty to do at the College if you put yourself out there. Colonial Williamsburg and the Busch Gardens amusement park are right next door, but you will find plenty more to do on campus. AMP the student run activities board plans things like glow in the dark dodgeball, comedy shows, concerts, nerf gun battles, movies on the Sunken Gardens, and many other things that I can’t think of at the moment. Student organizations and cultural organizations throw events weekly so there’s always something going on. If you are interested in parties, there will be both off campus and on-campus parties, some of them by student organizations and others by greek life. They will start as early as “Thirsty Thursday” into the weekend, but this is not a school where you will expect the entire campus to “turn up” every single day of the week.
I do think the campus has a good amount of school spirit, also known as “Tribe Pride.” You will often see students walk around wearing William & Mary gear. In terms of sports, it varies. Football and basketball are the two most popular teams on campus. This past semester we had Marcus Thornton, the school’s all time leading scorer, break the school record and lead the team into becoming champions in the regular season and #1 seed in CAA basketball tournament. There was a great deal of excitement for that.
I was down in Baltimore for the CAA basketball championships and during the games we were playing the majority of people there were William & Mary fans. Now this may have to do with the fact that we are close in proximity, but I’d like to also think there was a good amount of Tribe Pride involved. It’s not comparable to larger more renowned sports programs like the University of Connecticut, which I assume is where you are from, but for a medium sized D1 school, I’d say it’s pretty solid.