<p>the majority of top students at VA high schools look strongly at UVA and WM. Georgetown is a great school, but would you really justify the huge cost difference? A lot of top Virginia students stay in state, and there is obviously very good reason.</p>
<p>Personally, I would rank them as:
UVA/WM
UR/WL
VT/JMU/Mary Wash (I guess it's called UMW now)
CNU/VCU/ODU/GMU
Radford/Longwood</p>
<p>regardless, grouping in tiers is the way to go. In the groups, consider what matters to you in a college.</p>
<p>VCU has quite good medical facilities but a disaster of a faculty for undergrad, or so I hear.</p>
<p>no one is disputing georgetown is a great institution. however, i think you'll be hard pressed to find people who think its a superior institution to UVa and W&M. Therefore, OOS at least, you might as well just choose whichever one you like better. Remember, OOS UVa and W&M arn't that cheap - although they are cheaper than Gtown.</p>
<p>However, if you live in Virginia, its very very very hard to justify the choice of Gtown over UVa or W&M when Gtown costs about $48,000 a year, and instate UVa/W&M costs about $16,000 a year.</p>
<p>I live in Virginia. I would know. Location is a must for me; Virginia doesn't have anything in particular...and I'm having a great time at NYU :)</p>
<p>Georgetown is in an awesome neigborhood, and the networking opportunities there are almost limitless...</p>
<p>not everyone wants to go to school in a city</p>
<p>and UVA and WM have their own fair share of strong networking... and in the DC area I'd say their networking is probably about as strong as any school.</p>
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Georgetown is a great institution. Faced with Gtown/W&M/UVA/Tech/JMU...I'd easily go with Georgetown. Networking opportunities+DC=gg
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</p>
<p>Eh, you're an exception to the rule then. I went to the best high school in the state and we hardly ever send people to Georgetown, while UVA manages to steal people from HYPSM.</p>
<p>I highly doubt a student at UVA or W&M can intern on Capitol Hill or work at a firm during the school year (which is what I meant by "networking")...</p>
<p>Banana:</p>
<p>TJ? My sister goes to TJ; I know what the numbers are :)</p>
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I highly doubt a student at UVA or W&M can intern on Capitol Hill or work at a firm during the school year (which is what I meant by "networking")...
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<p>Apparently you don't know what networking is. Being able to work on Capitol Hill during the school year is a matter of location. Networking has to do with actual contacts and your alumni base. UVA does fine in that regard.</p>
<p>I was not comparing UVA directly to Harvard. Just that the cost differential can make UVA (or W&M) more attractive to in-state students. Forget just cross-admits, some top students apply early to UVA and leave it at that. Yeah it's because of cost, but $100k isn't exactly trivial, especially when your in-state options are unusually good. </p>
<p>And by your own (unreliable) link, only one TJ student is going to Georgetown, which is very much in line with my own experience. My own class sent two or three. Compared to its peer institutions, Georgetown usually lags behind in snagging Jefferson kids, which probably has to do more with cost and location than anything else.</p>
<p>i dont know what the point of the "lets compare min gpa and sats of uva students vs harvard students" has to do with anything. everyone knows hypsm are more selective than uva, no one is debating that. everyone also knows that its a lot easier to get into UVa from instate than from out of state. and everyone also knows that if you go to TJ, its very easy to get into UVa. Theres a reason why 1/3 of the class goes there and many more get in.</p>
<p>Obviously a HYPSM-UVA cross-admit going to UVA is a rare exception rather than the rule. My point is just that it does happen with some regularity at Jefferson. Once you start dropping down from the HYPSM level and the quality differential between UVA and the elite privates begins to decrease, people choosing UVA (or W&M, Tech, etc) over a private school becomes much more common. Granted, things may have changed in the past two years, but when I was there Georgetown was not seen as "better" than UVA (which is debatable - I'm not getting into that), let alone worth four times the cost.</p>
<p>Once you start dropping down from the HYPSM level and the quality differential between UVA and the elite privates begins to decrease, people choosing UVA (or W&M, Tech, etc) over a private school becomes much more common.</p>
<br>
<p>I agree with you, and I agree with the students making that choice. Unless I were so rich that $100k meant nothing to me, I would not choose a school like Cornell or Northwestern over UVA/W&M instate (I'd have been more of a W&M type, myself). The bargain is just too good.</p>
<p>William and Mary would definitely rank ahead of UVa and VPI when referring to undergrad education. At the graduate level UVA is the best in the state.</p>
<p>school size/class size/teaching faculty versus reasearch/on campus living versus aprtment living/dominance of sports and greek life/all leads to a better academic experience at W&M. </p>
<p>Dont get me wrong, UVa is a fine school. Maybe the best undergrad experience for a research university in the country. But its peer group is UNC/Michigan/Cal. W&M is completely focused on the Undergrad and its peer group is Georgetown/Duke/Dartmouth/Brown.</p>
<p>Just making a distinction between grad school and undergrad.</p>
<p>i still don't see your point. UVa has about 13,000 undergrads. and William and Mary has about 5,500 undergrads. how does that affect academic quality?</p>
<p>69% of UVa's classes are below 30 students (and the larger ones have section break downs). 70% of W&M's classes are below 30 students, and at least according to its CDS, w&m doesn't offer section break downs with larger classes.</p>
<p>I don't see any evidence anywhere that makes william and mary's faculty a "teaching faculty" vs. uva's "research faculty." Last time I checked, both UVa and W&M are universities and therefore they have research. Regardless, UVa's faculty is more distinguished, and even in usnews, and while by no means is it the end all and be all of colleges, UVa does receive a much higher peer assessment score than w&m.</p>
<p>All first year students must live on grounds. Students can live on grounds all 4 years if they like, it just happens that students would prefer to live in apartments. how does this affect academic quality?</p>
<p>Both UVa and W&M have frats, and while I agree UVa's frat scene is much better than w&m's, i don't see how that affects academic quality. Nor do I see how UVa having a larger sports program affects its academic quality.</p>
<p>in short, i don't see how you have any basis for most of your comments, and (to steal a line from cav302) seem to be a the unsubstantiated rumors which are blown out of proportions by PTA moms.</p>
<p>"Apparently you don't know what networking is. Being able to work on Capitol Hill during the school year is a matter of location. Networking has to do with actual contacts and your alumni base. UVA does fine in that regard."</p>
<p>I retract my earlier definition of "networking" in favor of my modified, latter one.</p>
<p>"I was not comparing UVA directly to Harvard. Just that the cost differential can make UVA (or W&M) more attractive to in-state students. Forget just cross-admits, some top students apply early to UVA and leave it at that. Yeah it's because of cost, but $100k isn't exactly trivial, especially when your in-state options are unusually good."</p>
<p>We came up with the same conclusions..."I'd say cost has alot to do with such decisions...but for those who chose UVA over Harvard...more power to them."</p>
<p>"And by your own (unreliable) link, only one TJ student is going to Georgetown, which is very much in line with my own experience. My own class sent two or three. Compared to its peer institutions, Georgetown usually lags behind in snagging Jefferson kids, which probably has to do more with cost and location than anything else."</p>
<p>I wouldn't call it unreliable...I have several friends who are in the class of 2006 who can vouch for the validity of that link...And I agree, it probably does have to do with cost...</p>
<p>"i dont know what the point of the "lets compare min gpa and sats of uva students vs harvard students" has to do with anything."</p>
<p>Just food for thought. Notice how I didn't come up with ANY conclusions...it's up to the reader to make their own conclusions from the data...</p>
<p>"everyone knows hypsm are more selective than uva, no one is debating that. everyone also knows that its a lot easier to get into UVa from instate than from out of state. and everyone also knows that if you go to TJ, its very easy to get into UVa. Theres a reason why 1/3 of the class goes there and many more get in."</p>
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I wouldn't call it unreliable...I have several friends who are in the class of 2006 who can vouch for the validity of that link
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<p>Unreliable as in people often don't finish updating their own results, especially where they will attend. Or at least I know many people in my class didn't.</p>
