<p>Just returned from U of Richmond with D2. My second visit, her first. She loved it. I loved it both times, more for D2 than D1. Beautiful campus, incredibly safe, friendly kids, good academics, nice surrounding shopping/restaurants, student governments for both males/females. What I don't love is that you pledge Freshman year, or that the Internationals are housed together and not integrated on campus. I also worry that it may be too conservative, and perhaps not as liberal an environment as I would like D to experience for the next four years. Our Jewish tour guide said he was happy and comfortable at the school and that there is 7-8% Jewish population on campus, which is important to us. I also know of a few kids who haven't loved it there, and I'm not sure why. So, can anyone share any positive or negative information they may have on the school? I am information hungry! Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>One of my son's best friends goes there and loves it. I spoke to the parents of the friend who also liked the school with ONE EXCEPTION: PRICE, PRICE, PRICE. This is the one thing that they keep harping about.</p>
<p>They just had a $10,000 per year tuition increase effective for entering students of 2005. Yes, you read this right. It was a $10,000 yearly increase. This makes Richmond a very expensive school.</p>
<p>The school raised their tuition ostensibly in order to provide more scholarships especially for those in need. However, if you are one of the parents who are paying full bore tuition, it probably won't make you warm and furry.</p>
<p>Thanks taxguy. I know about the tuition increase. It made me insane when I first learned about it. At one point it was considered a "best buy" school, and now it is far from a bargain, but there's not much a girl (or mother) can do about it!</p>
<p>OH, This school was one of the strong contenders in my D's final decision. It has student groups for both political parties. This makes it a very well-balanced school, not leaning too far to either side of the aisle. It has good internships available during the school year due to the city's size and the fact it is the Commonwealth's capital.</p>
<p>Sorority and fraternity selection is structured as Deferred Recruitment and not held until January. This gives the freshmen time to bond as a class and explore the Greek system. It also provides the opportunity to have a semester of grades on your IFC/Panhel resume. Richmond is only 50% Greek. It's there if you want it. If Greek Life isn't for your kid there are many other clubs and activities with which to get involved.
Fraternities have meeting lodges, sororities meet elsewhere. There is no Greek Housing. </p>
<p>I think 92% of all students live on campus. Very few live off. I loved the fact that the dorms are ALL single-sex! A new athletic center is due to be completed in Jan/Feb, 07 and a new dining hall opens this fall.</p>
<p>The price is comparable to most other LACs. We got no EFC and would have still been okay with paying everything if it had been D's 1st choice.</p>
<p>There are a lot of NY, NJ kids at Richmond. You can ask admissions to see the galley sheets referenced by hs or by zip code to see exactly what are students' homes of record.</p>
<p>My daughter also seriously considered UR. Gorgeous place, great facilities, attentive faculty and staff. I would have been quite happy if she had chosen to attend. The FA package offered was far better than those offered by Cornell and Tufts.</p>
<p>My daughter is interested in U of Richmond. I am also concerned about the number of Jewish students and a possible conservative atmosphere. She is looking for a school in the South, with a liberal, accepting environment. Not easy. Emory wold fit the bill, but she would consider it a reach I think. College of Charleston looks good.</p>
<p>My d liked Richmond (I just posted on another thread, too - sorry!) but was concerned about Greek life - she doesn't like the concept of it. The one thing that saved it for her is the lack of housing, and even the lack of sorority gathering places - fraternities apparently have dorm "floors". She thinks that this will balance out the "exclusionary" aspect of Greek life.</p>
<p>BTW, we are also Jewish, and my d wants the similar liberal, accepting environment. For her, Emory is too big for her - she wants a limited graduate student population. She'll be applying to Richmond.</p>
<p>Motherdear notes that for Richmond "The price is comparable to most other LACs."</p>
<p>I actually looked up the tuition for comparable LACs that was listed in the Chronicle of Higher Education web site. Although, they may be off by a year for some schools, here is what I found for yearly tuition rates:</p>
<p>University of Richmond: $34,850</p>
<p>Bowdoin: $32,970
Carlton College $32,649
Claremont MCKenna $30,800
Dickenson College $32,120
Williams College $31,760
Swarthmore College $31,516
Haverford College $31,760
Lafayette College $29,982
Oberlin $32,724
Brandeis $37,500, this, however, includes all required fees.</p>
<p>We also liked Richmond very much - it is a great city (lived there 4 years), especially the area where UR is. I know a UR grad who loved the place. The problem is again, price.</p>
<p>Taxguy's list is well and good, but Richmond's true peer group are other Southern LACs, not Williams and Swarthmore, and UR looks very expensive compared to them, so the dichotomy is even greater than it looks on the list.</p>
<p>It has a lot to offer - the separate male and female governance structure allows twice as many opportunities for student leadership, for example, but to their traditional population of Southern students they seem overpriced.</p>
<p>This subject has come up a few times before, and it usually boils down to what you choose as "peers" for UR as to whether you think they are overpriced (keeping in mind that full tuition price can be very misleading). My own personal opinion is that UR is pricing itself more on where it aspires to be rather than where it is right now. Their administrators have stated, when discussing the tuition hike, that their tuition makes them more in line with their "peer group" of Duke, Vanderbilt, Wake Forest, etc. I don't believe that's their peer group, but it's clear that they want to be considered as such. US News, on the other hand, has their peer group more along the lines of Sewanee, Holy Cross, Kenyon, Conn. College, Union, Bard and Fuman. The Education Trust lists other peers such as Bates, Furman, Davidson, Hamilton and Trinity. And I think that UR is on the high side of all those schools (though clearly not the highest, particularly for the northeast schools). Also, in the area of Southern LACs, UR is a good $5K more expensive than either Davidson, Furman or W&L -- and I think that's a mistake on the part of Richmond's administration. It will be interesting to watch UR's admission numbers (particularly yield) over the next few years.</p>
<p>PS Cangel, look like we posted at the same time! I was expecting you to contribute to this thread, and I think we share the same opinion. very good school, but their tuition increase was not a good decision.</p>
<p>I grew up in Richmond (left long ago) and remember when the campus lake separated the males on campus from the females on campus (called Westhampton College then - is it still?). Boy, that really ages me:) I also think, for instate students at least, that it competes with the Virginia colleges and to some degree, the North Carolina college system. I always assumed there are many out of state students. Older D had one high school acquaintance (Jewish) who went there and absolutely loved it. Great campus, and as I remember, always a lively place on the weekends.</p>
<p>One our son's hs friend transferred out of UR after freshman year. The reasons which she gave was the preppy and cliquish atmosphere she encountered there. She transferred to one of our state colleges and is much happier now.</p>
<p>For reference, she is quite liberal in her politics and prefers consignment bought cloths to A&F. </p>
<p>UR was her first choice be she probably did not accurately consider the campus culture.</p>
<p>I like Richmond. I really do. When we first started the search it was a distinct possibility. When we learned it was not actually in Richmond we were excited but we were not pleased to find out about the tuition massacre. </p>
<p>Richmond is a fine southern LAC on par with Centre, Furman, Rhodes and Sewanee. IMO, it's greater size and proximity to Eastern population centers gives it greater name recognition which translates to more apps. When you remove selectivity as a determinant I think you'd find that its smaller competitors would stack up right nicely. </p>
<p>To suggest that it reaches into Davidson, W+L, or Vandy, Emory, Wake and Duke territory is incorrect (the numbers just aren't there), and for the administration to use that to justify such a price increase is just silly (especially when so out of line with comparable schools in the region).</p>
<p>My daughter wants to know about the dorms. Do the all female dorms have a strict visitation rule? She says she prefers coed dorms, so wouldn't want a strict policy. For an extreme example, We went on a tour of Flager College, small Florida school, and no males are ever allowed in the all female dorm, not even the tour guides father on move in day! My daughter will not be applying there. It is a beautiful school, too bad. As far as dress goes, my daughter wears lots of Hollister, mixed in with ecclectic stuff. So that sounds fine. There are girls at her schol that have gucci purses, which she considers way over the top. This is public school ,with both ends of the spectrum represented, not a private school.</p>
<p>My brother goes to Richmond. He'll be a sophomore this year and, he is JEWISH!! He really does like Richmond. He is extremely conservative, so it was perfect for him there. I, on the other hand, am much more liberal so he he agrees that i do not belong there. </p>
<p>Richmond is definitely small. My brother at first didnt mind the 2800 or something students. But when he came back this summer, he admitted that it got too small. We come from a small town in Rhode Island and our high school only had 750 kids. So going to another small school wasn't too great for him. He said after a while, there was no one knew to meet. And by that, he meant he already met all the girls and had no one new to hook up with. (Just being honest haha)</p>
<p>I've visited him a few times and have stayed over night. it was awesome. Parking is pretty good- they have parking lots for students. I guess the cops suck though. My brother has been pulled over a few times and he'll try to joke with them, and they either are annoyed, or laugh AT him, not with him. He gets pulled over though, because he drives like a maniac and has subs that are always blasting. He also gets annoyed though because if one cop stops him on campus, then another will come and box him in.. and this is in front of all the studetns who are just getting out of class. </p>
<p>I went to a few of the apartment parties- really crazy. I went during the middle of the week so it wasn't a huge party. It was just all the boys chilling, watching tv, drinking, playing beer pong, smoking, etc. I noticed, and was sadddd to see, that everyone seems to be a social smoker (cigs). In the apartments, you walk in, and there is a huge table to the right that literally will never be used as a kitchen table, only a beer pong table. </p>
<p>DORMS... pretty small. My brother's room was a suite so he had his bathroom connected to another room. For guys, having a futon is real important so his beds were bunkbeds. room was a complete MESS. it was nasty. fridge was empty except for some old beer. DVDs were everywhere. closets were a mess. bathroom was DISGUTSING. that was one problem with a suite- no maids clean it i think? and for a girl, it was horrible. NO toilet paper. nothing was put away. it was nasty.</p>
<p>my brother has had some problems at the school... he took the whole, i have complete freedom thing, a little too far. but instead of getting kicked out or anything, he ended up becoming best friends with the dean. the dean didn't have to help him at all, but he did. SO, dean was great, but my brother hated most of his teachers. he claims thats what hurt him- teachers didnt like him, he didnt like teachers, he gets bad grade. supposedly, sucking up is incredibly helpful at richmond. OH, and GO TO CLASS. they notice- trust me. you will get kicked out of a class and lose all credits if you miss more than half the classes.</p>
<p>what else... richmond is an expensive school. so if you're gonna waste your education there- go somewhere else. OH, im actually friends with 2 of my brothers best friends from school who are going to be seniors this year. neither are planning on going to grad school... they loved richmond... they said the size was kind of a hassle when you met everyone already... one had a girlfriend for a while... they said a lot of kids will experiment with drugs of all kinds... not just weed... </p>
<p>GREEK LIFE.. my brother was going to join a frat but didnt because he had friends from most of the frats on campus. he wasnt going to pick and choose only one- NONE of them cared though. hes friends with all.</p>
<p>Reputation plays a HUGE role at this small school. my brotehr showed up and tried to be the coolest freshman. lets just say all his friends are juniors and seniors.. he probably has 5 friends in his own grade. which i personally dont think is that smart. </p>
<p>richmond the city is AWESOME. right outside campus, is EVERYTHING. all stores of all kinds. so your definitly not in the middle of nowhere.</p>
<p>all in all, richmond is pretty great... and gorgeous
if you have any questions, feel free to PM me!</p>
<p>As I recall, there was no restriction on males in the female dorms. There may have been some sort of "curfew" when guys were kicked out, but nothing stricter than that. And it's no longer guys on one side of the lake, girls on the other. Guys and girls are on both sides of the lake, and male dorms are next door to female dorms.</p>
<p>I slept in my brother's dorm room and no "authority figure" noticed that a girl was in an all guy's dorm.</p>
<p>My friend's daughter transferred out because she didn't like the southern culture. Her main complaint - they were too dressed up! Sounds rather trivial I know, but I guess she didn't feel like she fit in. She ended up at American Univ and is happy. That's all I know.</p>
<p>it is very southern there. no fast drivers or anything... stop lights are red for a minute and 40 seconds i hear. at school- some get dressed, some dont. i saw a few girls at partys in sweat pants and uggs (this was mid-april).</p>
<p>S4C -</p>
<p>Interesting observations. Because of the layout of the campus, with the lake in the middle, it seemed more expansive than say Mary Washington, which had just one main brick path. But yeah, seeing the same 2,800 could get old...</p>