<p>I have to say, not getting Echols was definitely a huge turn-off for me. I would be considering UVA much more if I had gotten it. I think what swish daid is very important. Many of these schools are very similar, but you have to find the one that's right for you. UVA might've been a good fit for my parents, but that doesn't mean it will be for me. On the other hand, I might fall in love with it at Days on the Lawn this Friday and might completely change my mind. It's also just so goshdarn cheap in comparison to the other schools I'm considering!</p>
<p>wmalum,</p>
<p>thank god jefferson went to w&m (as if there were many other choices anyway). if he didn't have such a poor opinion of the school, he may have never created UVa. ;-)</p>
<p>Inhouse, you brought up a very important point, IMO. The student should go to the college that really values what he/she has to offer. That might be W&M, or UVA - or, surprisingly, some other college. When it comes right down to the decision-making, go to the school that really wants you...</p>
<p>LBP and Inhouse, I don't r think "going to the school that really wants you" makes any sense. The admissions decisions are made by the admissions office. You've gotten into school already. No matter what school you end you're never going to interact with the undergraduate admissions office at either school ever again. So which school's admissions office "values you more" is really irrelevant at this point. You're not going to show up for class on the first day and get special attention from your professor because some admissions officer really liked you. </p>
<p>Its flattering to get something like echols. I could see where a student might feel slighted if the didn't get echols when they felt they deserved it. Certainly getting/not getting echols should influence the decision about where to go to school. </p>
<p>But if you decide to go to one school over the other because they "value you more" you're really just letting your ego get in the way of finding the school that is the best fit.</p>
<p>In my opinion, the importance of echols has been overstated on this board. I don't think the program offers that much of a benefit to students, unless theres an area requirement the student would really like to get out of (I'm particularly thinking of the language requirement). This is especially with the changes that are going to be to the registration system for next year (echols students will no longer register for classes before all students, just before the other student in their class).</p>
<p>Just my two cents. I don't think theres really a wrong choice when choosing between W&M and UVA.</p>
<p>"wmalum,</p>
<p>thank god jefferson went to w&m (as if there were many other choices anyway). if he didn't have such a poor opinion of the school, he may have never created UVa. ;-)"</p>
<p>P.S. W&M is no longer religiously affiliated, problem solved.</p>
<p>^ clever.</p>
<p>not</p>
<p>Thank you for your post, Holla. We're getting more questions about Echols/Rodman this year than ever before. Some people don't even know what it is, just that's a special designation and they want it. </p>
<p>I'm especially surprised when students with no major or academic passion question our Echols/Rodman decisions. I don't think freedom from area requirements is good for those kinds of students.</p>
<p>If a student wasn't "wanted", they wouldn't have been admited. If not getting Echols makes some lean towards other schools, I'm not going to try to change their minds. Goodness knows there are scores of wonderful kids on the waitlist who'd be thrilled to take those spaces in the class.</p>
<p>Size matters. Is UVa too large? I graduated from UVa years ago, and went to summer school at W&M. I recently visited UVa and was disappointed that the expansion of UVa has greatly reduced the charm of the school. I really did feel like a number when going there for a possible graduate education, something that was not true years ago. W&M is smaller and you can still know people and walk from one side of the main campus to the other in 10 minutes. Its a small good town.</p>
<p>The other impression I got is that unless you are the son or daughter of a millionaire, you won’t get the time of day at U.Va from the faculty I met. This was not true years ago as a good student on federal assistance. U.Va caters to the snobby rich too much, like Harvard or Yale. I did not get this attitude from the faculty I met at W&M. Size does matter.</p>
<p>Wow, you brought back a thread that’s 4 years old?</p>
<p>Are you sure you really went to UVa? Your characterization of UVa professors only catering to a “son or daughter of a millionaire” is so off, I’m literally laughing out loud.</p>
<p>I’m a UVA faculty member, I interact with students a lot, and I have absolutely no idea what their family incomes might be.</p>
<p>Jim15936 joined in august 2011 and post one message to bash uva. I highly doubt if he went to uva as claimed. I think he might have rejected by uva?!!</p>
<p>First off, I’m a 2-time graduate of W&M (BA & MBA). I absolutely loved W&M (mostly undergrad, graduate school wasn’t nearly as much fun).</p>
<p>I had intended to go to UVA since an early age. During my junior year of high school, I started doing the whole campus tour. I figured I’d start with colleges that are on par with UVA, but I’d save UVA (where I thought I wanted to go) for last. Ultimately, I visited 1 campus and fell in love with the people, the place, and the entire university environment. I don’t know how else to describe it other than I felt I really, really fit at W&M. I never visited UVA or any other college campus before I submitted my only application to colleges - W&M had become not only my first choice, but my only choice.</p>
<p>So granted, I have a biased experience between the 2 schools, but I have since visited UVA numerous times (I was dating a girl in high school who got rejected at W&M and got into UVA - so I made numerous visits to UVA over the following 4 years all throughout college).</p>
<p>In my opinion, here are the basic differences between the 2 schools (and they are both great schools):</p>
<p>W&M:
*A larger variety of different types of people - not necessarily by race or religion, but rather mindsets (supposedly W&M has become much more diverse in terms of race and ethnicity since I left though). As a liberal arts school, we get everything from business majors to kinesiology majors, and all varieties of people and thinking. We sort of have “groups” like is stereotyped in high school, but I think there’s a lot more cross-over in the Venn diagram for each of these groups relative to most other schools (and especially high school).
*A very academically rigorous set of classes and students who are almost masochistic in their choice of courses.
*A study hard, party light mentaility of the students.
*Little pressure to drink or party on the weekends (I recall multiple times that people would say they had to study for an exam on a Saturday night and they received little or no friction for it - we understood!)
*A relatively passive sports following (although the past few years in football and basketball have attracted some of the students since our teams are finally posting winning records… My only undergraduate attendance to a football game lasted 10 minutes just before halftime - we were down 53-6).
*W&M has arguably the best modern debate forum (Model United Nations) in the world - They’ve posted world wins in about 35% of annual World Model United Nations conferences (a conference featuring most prestigious universities from around the world); only West Point has a close record (and they get graded - our students do it for kicks - again with the masochism).
*W&M has the largest Alpha Phi Omega fraternity (volunteer service co-ed fraternity) in the US, at least in per-capita terms, but possibly even in outright numbers (4-5% of the campus population). W&M students log some of the highest amount of volunteer hours in the nation at any university.
*W&M students tend to be caring, but for the most part are relatively introverted. We have a tendency to get socially awkward, but intelligent students. I can’t tell you the number of times I met someone on campus and thought, “Wow, how did they get here?”… But then when we got past the early awkward moments, they would seriously plow me over with their sheer intellect and talents.
*Related to the socially awkward streak of W&M students, we also tend to get some students who suffer from psychological illnesses and / or depression. Although I think our suicide rate has been overblown, it is without a doubt that a relatively large portion of the campus population suffers from anxiety, depression, and related mental illnesses; add to that students who are used to overachieving relative to their peers (and likely not doing it as much in college), and it’s a recipe for tragedy.
*W&M is a pretty gay friendly college. It has been estimated that the gay population at W&M is at least twice over-represented relative to the rest of US society.</p>
<p>Notable (recent) W&M alums: Robert Gates (recently retired as Sec. of Defense), Christina Romer (former head of Obama’s economic advisors), Jon Stewart (the Daily Show), John Jarvis (head of the National Park Service), David Brown (astronaut that died in Columbia), and Steeler’s head coach Mike Tomlin.</p>
<p>UVA:
*A very rigorous set of courses with similar academically-oriented students.
*A work hard, party hard mentality is more prevalent.
*There doesn’t seem to be as much cross-over between the different sub-groups as at W&M.
*UVA is great for the sports enthusiast - their sports teams are pretty successful and garner pretty broad and deep fans.
*UVA is better suited for someone who has an interest in engineering or a niche science field (W&M doesn’t have an engineering program).
*UVA tends to get more students visiting from other schools over the weekends for parties (JMU and VTECH primarily). At W&M, we hardly ever met people visiting for our parties - no surprise because we aren’t really known for our parties.
*UVA does have more of a reputation for having stylish students (popped collars, button up shirts, etc.). W&M is more for a free for all; we get everything from the stylish to the students attending class in PJs.
*I think UVA has more of a reputation as a pedigree school - it’s a good school and better known than W&M, so it tends to get more students who want a school name that will have a higher chance of impressing others. I think W&M has a higher population of students who are more interested in getting a good education just for the sake of a good education.
*UVA’s campus is much more spread-out than W&M’s, but it also has a much larger community population around it. It’s easier at UVA to get away from the university in Charlottesville - getting away in Williamsburg is pretty difficult.
*I think there are parts of UVA’s campus that are absolutely gorgeous, but on the whole I like W&M’s better.
*UVA’s endowment is significantly larger than W&M’s.</p>
<p>Notable (recent) UVA alumns: 5 Astronauts, Ronde and Tiki Barber, Ryan Zimmerman, heads of NIH, head of NASA, US congressmen, and numerous prize-winning authors.</p>
<p>Whichever one you choose, make sure it feels right before you accept. They are both great schools and I would’ve been happy to go to either one, but I know that I made the right decision - I visit W&M multiple times every year as a testament to my deep and sincere love for it. So choose the one that speaks to you and you won’t go wrong.</p>
<p>I was admitted to UVa and am currently a Freshman at WM, so maybe I can answer a few questions.
The two schools first of all are as similar as they are the same. They are both public, so you might have some larger classes as an underclassmen (I imagine this might be more of an issue at UVa) and you will of course have phenomenal professors though that will teach you better than anyone, even though they might not ALL be famous, rich researchers in there own right like at the Harvard, Yale, etc. The academics are the same though. You have to visit, talk to students, and decide fore yourself which one you prefer.
The question I ask is why we constantly need to be comparing schools to the Ivies and others (they have enormous endowments and razor-thin admit rates, so what?!)
Having an older brother (really a 1st cousin) that was accepted by Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Nwestern, Williams, and who ended up going to Williams (as a young kid I didn’t understand why he would do this, though now I agree 100% with him) I can tell you that WM and UVa are both just as hard as any school. What matters is what you do with it. Many of my friends were accepted to Columbia, Yale, UVa, UPenn, etc. and easily chose WM for what it offers (including more scholarship $ and in-state tuition).
I was accepted to other prestigious private schools as well but chose WM for what it offered me. The in-state tuition was also a plus.
WM is definitely difficult though. I admit that when exams roll around I can’t believe UVa students are studying as much as me but I really couldn’t say and I’ve taken some pretty challenging classes.
There are probably around 50 schools (including the Ivies) in the country that are all at the same level of academic quality as any. Though, they each have different things to offer. Tiny Oberlin College may not have the name as Harvard, but students in it’s music, environmental science, and Pre-Med programs are better prepared.
It really doesn’t matter that much where you go to school. What really matters is what YOU get out of it, and how you DO. That’s what you go there. Grad schools don’t care where you went to school. Although I do wish WM were more like my private High school where I often had classes with less than 10 people and became personal with many of my teachers without even trying. It also wasn’t quite as difficult!!! But hey, that’s just me.</p>
<p>One comment in response to the above: grad schools do care where you went undergrad. I believe what you meant to say is that grad schools don’t care among undergrad schools of similar quality (such as UVa vs. W&M).</p>