<p>UMW is one of the many colleges I track here as D is a HS senior. We visited UMW and came away impressed. Yet it seems UMW parents experience many frustrations with this school, or are at least vocal about it here. So, honestly, if D decides to go here, am I looking at four years of similar frustrations?</p>
<p>As far as I can tell (S is a freshman), the students and faculty are great; the administration, not so much. Nothing nasty, just a lot of careless errors like holding up S’s scholarship because he didn’t do the training for the Stafford loan that we didn’t accept in the first place and telling him he was in a triple instead of a double because they forgot to change the coding from last year. I also thought it was really odd that the kids had to figure out what classes to take and register online without ever talking to an advisor. Hitting me up for a donation before classes even started didn’t go over well, either.</p>
<p>But S loves it there, so all the little hassles are worth it.</p>
<p>We went down to visit from D.C. last January 19 (MLK day), because we had the day off of work/school. To our frustration, the administrative offices were closed. Maybe we were naive, or should have called ahead of time, but there was no clue on the web site that the University would be closed that day. As a result, we crossed it off the list. A careless error on the part of the administration? Maybe, but that’s what loses sales.</p>
<p>I agree with the theme of this thread. Administration seems to be the weak spot. As a parent I feel like they ignore me completely except when they want money. I’ve had some very frustrating conversations with people in various departments there, often having to argue my way past a student working the telephone. The web site is not helpful most of the time.</p>
<p>Some of the dorms are not great. The lack of AC should be addressed and the current sophomore class got a really bad deal when it comes to housing last year (so many temp. triples) and then this year, with no freshman triples, crowding them again.</p>
<p>On the other hand, D has loved most of her classes (she just started her second year) and with the exception of one the teachers have been great. That particular one taught beginning Spanish w/o a good command of English. She has been able to pick up classes that showed there were no openings by contacting the professors every semester. The teaching seems to be a plus at UMW. They have had struggles with administration for the past few years so I hope they can get it all worked out with the new president.</p>