Questions for students about W&M's social life!

Colleges and Universities A-Z College of William and Mary
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<p>Hello everyone, congrats to those who were accepted for the class of 2013! W&M is my first choice so far, and I'm very honored to have been admitted. Anyway, these are my question for current students/alumnis. I would love to hear some of your perspectives, since most colleges dont talk about this kind of stuff on their admissions websites! And please be brutally honest, because frankly it'd take a lot for any comments here to convince me not to go to W&M, so no worries on feeling like you have to sell the school.</p>

<p>-How happy are students there? It seemed like when I visited that everyone was very friendly, which is what I want. As much as academics are important, I want to surround myself with people who aren't cut-throat competitive and are fun to be around. Obviously not everyone is going to be friendly, but in general, what vibe do the students give off?</p>

<p>-What do people do for fun? This sounds like such a dumb question, but what I mean is, does everyone spend their time in the library or stressed out by homework? I've heard this steryotype of William and Mary, but of course every school has over-generalized steryotypes. Obviously library time is important, but I do enjoy goofing off and non-academic activities. Just wondering if I'd be the oddball</p>

<p>-What are parties like? I'm not going to W&M because I want to drink an entire keg every night, but I would like to go somewhere that isn't totally dry or at least where it's not shunned upon. How prevalent are parties, what are they like? How strict is the campus about drinking?</p>

<p>-Greek vs. not-greek? Advantages and disadvantages?</p>

<p>-Also, Monroe Hall vs. everywhere else? I have the opportunity to dorm in Monroe but I don't know if I will. Is there anything specific about being in Monroe Hall that is a big plus?</p>

<p>Thanks in advance to anything people want to answer, and congrats again to the rest of 2013 :)</p>

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<ul>
<li><p>Everyone I’ve met here is really friendly and helpful. People are always willing to lend you notes or form study groups. </p></li>
<li><p>Although people don’t spend all their time in the library, we do study more than other schools. We end up learning more too. Plenty of time is left to goof off or drink or be involved in extracurricular activities, and its rare to find someone who’s not involved with at least one.</p></li>
<li><p>We’ve got the full spectrum of parties, from typical frat dance parties to sophisticated wine and cheese parties. It’s definitely not a dry campus, and freshman have no trouble getting alcohol. Unfortunately, the campus is pretty strict about it. Don’t try and host a party in your freshman dorm, don’t walk home along major roads if you can’t walk straight, and don’t vomit in your hall. If you can manage that, you’re unlikely to get written up or arrested. </p></li>
<li><p>Greek or non-greek depends on what you want. I’m non-greek, but it gives you more opportunities to get drunk or laid and meet new people.</p></li>
<li><p>Definitely go for Monroe. I lived there last year and loved it. The halls tend to be a lot closer than in other dorms, and having Wawa across the street is convenient.
On the other hand, Monroe has no AC, whereas Dupont and Yates do. They’re sort of large and impersonal though.</p></li>
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<p>Hi, I graduated Spring 2008 and will try to answer some of your questions.</p>

<ul>
<li><p>Students are definitely not cut-throat at WM. I’m in law school now and the students I am around presently are much more competitive/intense/cut-throat than anything I ever experienced at WM. I have great respect for students of WM, because I always found them to be humble and selfless. I was involved in several experiences during my time there were it was evident that fellow students showed concern for others before thinking about themselves. It’s not uncommon for students to give up their winter and spring breaks to provide aid at home or abroad. </p></li>
<li><p>Now for the part you really want to hear: “To party or not to party, does WM = a social life or anything close to it?”. Do not fear or be in dismay. There are several avenues for you to grab a frosty grog and take the edge off a long week! In fact, I had many a memorable night in our beloved williamsburg. As Malvenuto insinuated, going greek is one way to get on the fast track to enhancing your opportunities. However, this is not the only way. There are lots of groups/athletic clubs/ athletic teams etc. on campus who like to host parties. As long as you make an effort to meet people, I have no doubt you will find the kind of group you would want to hang out with. People party the hardest on friday, saturday, and sunday night. You may wonder how people could party on sunday night but as you will find out, sunday night = mug night!! at the Leafe. You will need a valid or valid looking i.d. to get in (wink, wink), but once you get it you can buy your own mug to keep and use it thereafter to drink cold beer at a discounted price! During the week you won’t usually find much in the line of drinking unless you find a way to get into one of the bars in the area. Thursdays can be fun sometimes, but people generally only drink enough to complete portions of the infamous william and mary triathlon on friday nights and saturday nights. Take my advice and who knows, you may find yourself at the end of a crazy night debating the meaning/origin of life with friends (i’m not admitting to anything here) on the backsteps of the wren building (best place to look at the stars on a clear night) or gravitating to wawa at 2-4am because you have the munchies like the other 200 people who are there. Oh, almost forgot they have Hookah night at Paul’s i believe on thursday nights so if you are 18 and like to smoke Hookah (it’s just tobacco in case you haven’t heard of it).</p></li>
<li><p>as far as living arrangments, I did not live in Monroe but if you want A/C and the dorm you live in doesn’t have it there is a way to beat the system. All you have to do is get your doctor to sign a form (i think the form is provided by WM if i’m not mistaken) saying that you have allergies and have to have the A/C. Once WM verifies the doctors note you can just stick an A/C unit in your window and make all your friends jealous. If you have any kind of allergies I would recommend doing that!</p></li>
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<p>correction - hookah night is at the college deli.</p>

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<p>Thanks guys, those are actually very helpful responses! I mean I figure W&M is big enough to find any kind of enviroment you want…buuuuut I thought I’d ask just to make sure!</p>

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<ul>
<li><p>The W&M student body is very friendly and willing to help. Many people get together at study, and try to work together to do well, rather than doing well at the expense of others. As 1693 said… W&M students are pretty humble. I mentioned on here in another thread that I was just looking at a list of Monroe scholars when someone asked about them on here, and I found people who I am quite good friends with, who I didn’t know were in the program.</p></li>
<li><p>There is no denying that some W&M students spend a lot of time in the library. W&M is a top school with challenging academics. As someone who only went to the library for group project meetings or checking out something specific for class (like a movie… I watched a lot of movies for HISP 206), I will say that going there often is not required. But obviously, there is good stuff in Swem. There are also other, fairly small, libraries around campus specific to some departments.</p></li>
</ul>

<p>As for what individual people do for fun… they do what they think is fun. People at WM… play video games, go to sports events, explore CW, go to New Town, watch movies with friends, play IM sports, go sledding on trays from the dining halls when it snows (unless they all go trayless, then you are SOL), etc.</p>

<ul>
<li>Parties… freshmen social scene seems to revolve around the frats. They are the most obvious and easily accessible place. There are usually frat parties every weekend if that is your thing. Personally I prefer a party with 30 people that I know instead of hundreds that I don’t know. Parties of that type are generally found at the Lodges and in Ludwell (apartment style dorms). There are also houses off campus that are traditionally party houses. The more you meet people that are like you, the more you will know when things that you like are happening (this goes for non party related things also). Lots of my friends have had good times at the frat parties.</li>
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<p>As long as you are smart, the campus is pretty chill on drinking. If you throw up in your dorm hallway/stairwell/common area, obviously you are asking for trouble, and IMO you deserve what you get. I’m not familiar with police presence around the frats, b/c I never really went there. They can sometimes be found in the stadium parking lot across from the delis, and in CW… but I never heard about anyone getting caught in the Governor’s Palace, and as I found out a couple weeks ago (2nd hand…), apparently you can get away with riding the sheep in CW, though I personally wouldn’t recommend that.</p>

<p>-Green/nonGreek. I am not greek. Being greek opens up some opportunities, such as the party scene and formal functions. However, the greek scene at W&M is not self secluding. I knew people in almost all the fraternities and sororities. They do their thing when it’s time, but I never felt any bad feelings from the non greeks toward the greeks, or the other way around.</p>

<ul>
<li>Monroe Hall is on old campus. It is the closest freshman dorm to Wawa. It does not have air conditioning. But if you have allergies / a cool doctor, you can get a window unit. You will probably get woken up by the homecoming parade. It has a pingpong table in the attic… or, it did 04-05 (I am WM '08, as my info says). I don’t remember if it has hall or suite baths, but that info can be found on the reslife website.</li>
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<p>Unless they bought a new one this year, there is no longer a ping pong table in Monroe. Apparently it wasn’t designed to be sat upon.</p>