<p>I got admitted to both and am having a tough time deciding. I feel like I'm leaning towards William and Mary, but UVA is ranked higher. Plus, where I live I see UVA grad all over the place but I rarely come across William and Mary grads - better networking for UVA?</p>
<p>Anyways here are some of the things that I see as pros and cons for W&M (versus UVA). I'd like to get input from alumni or current students on my list. The list goes from most significant concerns to least significant.</p>
<p>Cons:
1. Less national prestige. The two schools seem to be on even ground when it comes to prestige in Virginia but it seems like UVA would be more prestigious outside of VA.
2. Unusually difficult to maintain a 3.7+ GPA? (I'd appreciate it if a current student would address this).
3. Networking for W&M grads not as good as the one for UVA grads? (Because UVA has more grads).</p>
<p>Pros:
1. William and Mary students don't have a reputation of being pretentious kids who are constantly drunk. They have a reputation that I look much more favorably upon: the constantly studying type... also a bit dorky.
2. Seems like there's much less pressure to conform at W&M. I don't drink and don't plan on drinking. (current students or recent grads please comment)
3. Smaller school = more interaction with professors?</p>
<p>Anyways, I feel like the only things that are keeping me back from picking William and Mary outright, instead of wavering, are the facts that it seems like it'd be near impossible (or just really, really hard) to maintain a 3.7+ GPA and that UVA seems to be the more prestigious of the two on a national level. Please address these if you don't feel like going through the list.</p>
<p>:) Thanks. Also, I plan on being a History major and go on to law school afterwards.</p>
<p>-About half the kids on my hall don't drink, and nobody pressures them to drink. I am one of them.</p>
<p>-It might be difficult to maintain a 3.7 at William and Mary, but it's certainly doable. I got well above a 3.7 my first semester (I'm currently a Freshman), and barring and unforeseen collapse, my first year GPA should be around a 3.9+</p>
<p>The most useful thing for ratemyprofessors is to discern between different professors for a particular class. This happens the most, obviously, in the introductory classes where there are quite a few sections. For instance, a lot of people take an introductory psych class for a science credit, and will use ratemyprofessors to try to get the best (ie, easiest) one.</p>
<p>In my experience, it's rather rare for a student to completely ignore a class simply because of the professor.</p>
<p>Personally I consider W&M more prestigious. </p>
<p>It has much richer history and is the oldest UNIVERSITY (not college, its the second oldest college) in the nation. </p>
<p>It's actually harder to get into W&M according to the admissions percentages.</p>
<p>Sure UVA publishes more and I think that is why it has much more name recognition, also sports, but neither of those positively effects teaching so it definitely does not make it a better school. If anything, W&M professors don't have to worry about publishing so they can be more focused on teaching, to me, that is a plus.</p>
<p>The fact that you heard that its hard to get a 3.7 at W&M is going to be on your side. If you work hard and actually earn the grade its going to count for so much more. For example, I am under the impression that its a breeze at UVA (from experiences from friends). So when they tell me about how they got a 3.2 when they went to class high/drunk half the time, I'm not so much impressed.</p>
<p>Those are just a few of my opinions about the whole W&M / UVA comparison. As I am a W&M student, take it as that.</p>
<p>even though i don't have first-hand experience in this, i definitely consider W&M to be more prestigious and overall stronger than UVA. </p>
<p>i applied to both, and was absolutely thrilled to receive an acceptance letter from WM. i got waitlisted at UVA though and didn't mind one bit because i had already made up my mind before that WM is the sort of environment/college experience i wanted. another thing...there's enough experience i have with stuck up kids at the school i am in now and the fact that a majority of them are going to UVA just makes me unattracted to that sort of feel (i also got this vibe when visiting UVA). </p>
<p>also, my uncle went to the WM law school and he's very successful today. so there definitely is a certain quality in the degree you will receive from WM that i think employers will not fail to recognize. </p>
<p>that being said, this is just my opinion. =P</p>
<p>So, basically you like W&M a lot more, but you are worried that... US News ranks it a little bit lower? Think about that for a minute.</p>
<p>
[quote]
1. Less national prestige. The two schools seem to be on even ground when it comes to prestige in Virginia but it seems like UVA would be more prestigious outside of VA.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>UVA is bigger on the sports scene. I promise you that the people looking for employees know what's up.</p>
<p>
[quote]
2. Unusually difficult to maintain a 3.7+ GPA? (I'd appreciate it if a current student would address this).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>difficult? yes. It will also not be the end of your life if your GPA is a little lower than that. As a history major you would also have opportunities unmatched by any school in the country to work in the field.</p>
<p>
[quote]
3. Networking for W&M grads not as good as the one for UVA grads? (Because UVA has more grads)
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Obviously, there are more UVA grads. That is simple math. The W&M alumni network is strong, and there are employers that look specifically for W&M grads. They appear in the career center from time to time, and possibly more, but I don't really do anything with the career center, so I don't usually see stuff.</p>
<p>If you leave college with a 3.7+ GPA, it won't matter which school you attended. And when it comes to law school, your GPA and LSAT score are far more important than where you went to undergrad. "Prestige," which is really in the eye of the beholder, comes into play if you want to go into i-banking, where the name of your school starts to matter as much as your transcript. And you can always go to UVA for law school, as W&M alums are like the third or fourth largest population there.</p>
<p>As for the grades, when I was at W&M (I graduated a few years ago), there was a pretty widespread rumor/myth that graduate schools were aware of the college's resistance to grade inflation and gave W&M applicants some slack. This rumor seems to have persisted, though I haven't seen or heard it confirmed by anyone other than students.</p>
<p>But it's not impossible to get a 3.7 GPA at W&M at all. In fact, five guys (out of 20) on my freshman hall graduated with 3.7s or above, thus earning Phi Beta Kappa, and we didn't even live in Monroe.</p>
<p>And... the 5/20 just means that you happened to live with 5 people who got PBK. You cannot expand that statistic to say that 25% of the school gets PBK, so I'm not sure what it proves...</p>
<p>You seem to like W&M more, so go there. It is harder to get that 3.7 at W&M than at most schools, but grad school admissions committees are aware of that and take that to consideration. </p>
<p>As with a lower ranking, we have a lower ranking because we have a pitiful endowment at 400 million, second to UVA and Richmond, whose endowments are well over a billion bucks.. We also lack a wide variety of graduate programs, like masters in poli sci, most languages, music, etc. A lack of an engineering or med school doesn't help us there either. In general, our student body is just as good if not a little better than UVA.</p>
<p>OK, Soccerguy, I'll bite. Where else would people talk about the slack grad schools supposedly give W&M students? I don't know, but I wish it wasn't only talked about on campus. I, for one, would like to hear it talked about in the graduate admissions offices of other universities and law schools and medical schools and the Chronicle of Higher Education. That would give credence to what remains a baseless rumor that W&M students and alums disguise as advice. </p>
<p>And of course you can't extrapolate one hall's academic success across the campus. W&M still uses some discretion when selecting PBK members, which I appreciate (about 80 per year). The question was whether or not it was impossible to get a 3.7 GPA. The anecdote was meant to show that it is certainly not impossible. In any case, the information is sourced far better than the "fact" (mentioned again by wmalum2006) that grad schools regard, say, a 3.5 at W&M as equivalent to a 3.8 at Harvard.</p>
<p>You like W&M so go there. The "Rankings" is a mkting ploy to sell magazines and everyone knows it. I've travelled the world and when I tell people I am a W&M alum I get instant respect. The further you get out of VA the less known UVA is in the general population. It becomes the state U of Virgina like the State U of Georgia or Iowa.</p>
<p>There is a reason you run into so many UVA grads. The student body is almost 300% larger. There are more Penn State grads than Penn.</p>