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W&M consistently has better incoming SAT scores, higher acceptance rates to law and med schools, higher rates of undergraduate research participation, better rankings for “undergraduate teaching,” highly rated professors, higher rates of study abroad participation, highly rated library, higher ‘student happiness’ rankings, and I’m sure the list goes on. I wouldn’t say its a huge difference, and I don’t care to argue it beyond this nor do I think these are perfect metrics. Anyway, I do want to go to UVA’s law school. And yes I agree, both UVA and W&M are excellent schools and top the lists for ‘Best Value’ for undergraduate education.</p>
<p>I’m kind of surprised by all of the UVA bashing on this thread. I guess as a W&M student it is obvious that I favor more personal contact with faculty and an engaged and active community, and from what I’ve seen UVA does this very well. I couldn’t imagine a school of 40,000 inspiring and training diverse leaders better than a school less than half that size, holding everything else constant. What are the metrics that we should use for deciding on an optimal university?</p>