<p>Is W&M a well-known school? Is it prestigous? If you graduate from there, will people be impressed? Is it an Ivy of the South? If it is Ivy League, what Ivy school would it be?</p>
<p>Well, I do believe that W&M is known as one of the nation's "public Ivies," so therefore it must yield some level of prestige. It consistently ranks among the top public schools in the nation, as well as just one of the top schools in general. As far as it being well known, it certainly is on the east coast, and it is the second oldest college in the nation (second only to Harvard), so I guess we could say it's pretty well established. So yeah, it's prestigious in my book...</p>
<p>YES. (10 characters)</p>
<p>dazed... are you going to w and m this fall?</p>
<p>Just a few names:</p>
<p>George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, John Tyler, John Marshall,George Wythe, Henry Clay, </p>
<p>I'd say that elicits a certain amount of prestige...</p>
<p>I don't know about where you live, but in Texas, W&M makes quite an impression on people. Right now I'm in the midst of deciding between W&M and GWU. When people ask me where I'm going or where I'm deciding between, I always get "oohs" when I say William & Mary [even from my friend the who is a National Merit Scholar and all around genius]. I don't know if this equates to grad school admissions or employment opportunities, but I think the school is generally respected.</p>
<p>The whole prestige thing is odd though, it depends a lot on where you live. My best friend's dad went to Penn State U.Park through one of its sattelite campuses in the 1970s as a Pennsylvania state resident. On a resume in Texas, that sounds really great. Likewise, I bet a University of Texas-Austin degree goes a lot further in the North than it does in Texas where everyone and their mother goes to UT.</p>
<p>Has anyone noticed that many people assume William and Mary is a private school?</p>
<p>WM is not one of the public ivies, it is the public ivy</p>
<p>I think it is like Princeton or Dartmouth of the South. It's a very good school- it focuses on undergraduate education like Princeton and has a small student body like Dartmouth.</p>
<p>I would agree with that to a certain extent, the disagreement being that I think that WM is given far less credit and enough prestige than it really merits</p>
<p>bjcdb...it is not the only public ivy. rutgers university is considered to be a public ivy, even if it is a really crappy school by comparison.</p>
<p>technically WM is the public ivy based on history, and the fact that it is the public school that has been offered to join the ivy league. With that in mind, I stand by my statement that it is the public ivy. I will concede that there is a list of public ivies...</p>
<p>I can't verify that W&M was ever offered admission to the ivy league. Where did you hear/read that, bjcdb? It went public in 1888, and while i'm not sure that the ivy league is or was limited to private universities, all of the institutions it represents today are private. Personally, I think it would make sense for W&M to be in the ivy league if it (a) was not public (b) was not technically in the southern united states.</p>
<p>oncearunner, although Rutgers is one of the oldest universities in the U.S. {a member of the colonial colleges}, it is not one of the original 8 public ivies. </p>
<p>See <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Ivies%5B/url%5D">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Ivies</a></p>
<p>William & Mary was not extended an offer to join the ivy league. HTH.</p>
<p>I didn't think so, thanks for the confirmation. Nonetheless, W&M is a great school. I have gotten nothing but "oohs" when I tell people that I might be going there next year.</p>
<p>if you go to california, no one has heard of that school, just being honest...</p>
<p>I know MANY people in California and they all have heard of William and Mary. No offence, mojojojo69, but how is it that no one you hang out with has ever heard of it?</p>
<p>honestly, the only schools that have the full OOH effect from ANYONE you ask would be yale and harvard. even here in the south, i can go to total hickville trailer trash homes and they'd know what those schools are. don't sweat it; people in the know really respect w&m and recognize it for the most excellent school it is. you don't need to impress everyone, just the people who count. and w&m will impress those people quite nicely.</p>
<p>i get a lot of ooh's too when i say i was accepted.</p>
<p>as the last post mentioned, the people who need to know about your degree know about William and Mary.</p>
<p>Who cares if Joe Schmo town idiot hasn't heard of W&M because we don't have a top 10 football team? Mr Grad School Admissions Officer knows about W&M, and the people hiring for job positions know about W&M. I'm personally aware of a few (less than 5) job opportunities in the DC area that have come into the W&M career center where the employer is specifically looking for a W&M student.</p>
<p>sorry guys, but i live in the ghetto of Los angeles, so schools around my area dont tell me which are the "good schools", instead we rely on word of mouth AKA mainstream colleges or colleges with football teams, if you think about it w&m is not mainstream and its popularity is similar to that of a LAC...and i have not heard of W&M until recently... just giving my opinion, but dont base your decision on my opinion, its just 1...</p>