<p>UVA is not more prestigious than William and Mary..................so that statement would be incorrect.</p>
<p>Depends on how you define "prestige." If you think it is based on history or academics, then W&M is the benchmark. If it is based on sports, graduate schools and research, then Virginia is your school.</p>
<p>How are graduate programs and research not part of academics...?</p>
<p>let's have an argument about which school is better, UVA or W&M, yay!</p>
<p>ready.... GO!</p>
<p>soccerguy is right! time well spent!</p>
<p>Academics = teaching students. Grad schools/research = indulging professors in pointless scholarship.</p>
<p>I always heard UVA was like an Ivy-league school: hard to get in, even harder to flunk out!</p>
<p>Just kidding! My son goes to UVA, and I am a W&M grad.</p>
<p>People who know schools will think UVa and William and Mary are pretty much academic equals - although w&m less "prestigious" in the true sense of the word. People who don't know schools will consider UVa to be more prestigious.</p>
<p>saying things like "william and mary is the 2nd oldest school in the country" doesn't make w&m prestigious. Making up statements like "william and mary is a 10 top academic school in the country" doesn't make it prestigious. Neither does saying (falsly i might add) that its the "most selective public university."</p>
<p>even if u just look at w&m and uva, w&m, is arguable equal if not less selective. according to 2005 data (the most current both schools give), w&m's average SAT scores were 24 points higher...but its top 10% was 7% lower. Pretty even if you ask me.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.wm.edu/ir/freshman_sat_averages_history.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.wm.edu/ir/freshman_sat_averages_history.htm</a>
<a href="http://www.virginia.edu/Facts/Glance_Admission.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.virginia.edu/Facts/Glance_Admission.htm</a></p>
<p>Having a lower % acceptance rate means nothing considering that UVa is a little more than 2x the size, yet receives just 50% more applications - thats just a numbers game. Ask the university of chicago about that.</p>
<p>So what to conclude from this? Is w&m a tier 1 school? Yes. Is w&m quite the school mascuile would like you to believe? not quite.</p>
<p>My only real contribution to this debate is: W&M and UVA are both fine schools, and no one could go wrong attending either one. But W&M is unique among the top publics in that it is much smaller than any other public school in the top 20 in rankings. It has much more of a LAC feel to it. Does that make it better? I guess it depends on what you are looking for in a school.</p>
<p>WM receives a very small % of state funding compared to UVA and therfore is consistenly ranked lower (US News considers this heavilly in rankings.) And when considering academic quality think of the fact that class sizes once they are non-freshman intros are all smaller at WM compared to UVA because it really is a LAC.</p>
<p>^ both false.</p>
<p>In 2004, W&M received 18.7% of its operating budget from the state.
<a href="http://www.wm.edu/news/?id=3255%5B/url%5D">http://www.wm.edu/news/?id=3255</a></p>
<p>In 2004 UVa received "below 8 percent" of its budget. (in 2002-2003 UVa received 9.4% of its budget from the state).
<a href="http://www.virginia.edu/topnews/releases2003/bond-april-3-2003.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.virginia.edu/topnews/releases2003/bond-april-3-2003.html</a></p>
<p>Also, class sizes are comparable between both schools.</p>
<p>70% of classes at UVa have below 30 students.<br>
<a href="http://www.web.virginia.edu/IAAS/data_catalog/institutional/cds/current/instr_faculty.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.web.virginia.edu/IAAS/data_catalog/institutional/cds/current/instr_faculty.htm</a></p>
<p>At William and Mary the "average class size: 25 to 35 students."
<a href="http://www.wm.edu/admission/?id=3154%5B/url%5D">http://www.wm.edu/admission/?id=3154</a></p>
<p>W&M is no more of a LAC than UVa is. It's not THAT small. Everyone makes it out to be this tiny school - it has 5500 undergrads, which is the same as Yale. No one considers Yale a LAC. While I have no personal experience (and neither does anyone else here) with comparing w&m and uva academically, I find it highly doubtful that w&m offers a more stimulating undergrad experience than UVa.</p>
<p>Jags, 5500 is the freshman class at UVA. It's tiny comapred to other nationally ranked public universities (UVA is also small for a flagship U).You are missing the point. UVA is a large, sprawling campus where most people get booted off campus after their first year. W&M is more compact, and most people can stay on campus all four years, making it a lot more intimate. But like I said before, both are great schools. It's like comparing making love with Jennifer Love Hewitt vs. making love with Jessica Simpson. You can't say one is a lot better than the other(in my opinion).</p>
<p>namtrag,</p>
<p>you should atleast check your facts when you respond. UVa's total undergrad population is about 13000 - so 3200 is about the freshman class. Yes that is significantly larger than w&m. </p>
<p>and yes, students choose to live off campus at UVa. I am sure if w&m offered decent off campus housing in an at least interesting town (not that c-ville is great, but williamsburg isn't exactly hoppin) maybe more students would live off campus. If you've never been to UVa, you'd realize that most people who live off campus live within a few blocks of the school - no further away than some of the on grounds housing.</p>
<p>Again, I am not arguing that w&m is worse than uva, nor am I arguing that uva is better than w&m. Obviously they are different places and people will prefer one over the other. I'm just dispelling this notion that some people on the w&m forum have that it is some magical place that is better than uva because it is a relatively small public university that has private roots from 200 years ago.</p>
<p>Lol @ namtrag. UVA accepts 5500 applicants each year, but only around 3000 enroll. Big difference. And there is no shortage of on campus housing - just a lot of good off campus housing. I don't even think it's possible to not get on grounds housing, either. There's always room left over. You're making terrible arguments.</p>
<p>W&M is a very good school. My brother just started this year (last week actually, and his first classes were today). The campus is gorgeous, the academics are excellent and the price is right. It's a wonderful school. Good Luck to all applying!</p>
<p>And if it matters we visited UVa as well. It just did not compare!</p>
<p>" UVA is a large, sprawling campus where most people get booted off campus after their first year. W&M is more compact, and most people can stay on campus all four years, making it a lot more intimate."</p>
<p>Prior to attending UVA, I also felt the campus was too big and too spread out. However, once you are there, it really does not feel spread out at all. Also, regarding housing at W & M -- I was told by several sources who graduated from there that after your second year, on-campus housing was almost impossible to obtain. Most students have to get apts. or rent houses (which are very expensive in Williamsburg) that are NOT within walking distance of the campus and have to drive-in to school. It seems with UVA, that most of the off-grounds housing is still within walking distance and/or on the bus line.</p>
<p>I was told the class was 5500 by my son, who is a freshman. I was also told by my cousin who is a senior, that you don't have much of a chance to stay on campus all 4 years. All of this is anectdotal of course, so I apologize for not checking my facts. It's really not worth arguing about anyway. It's not like we're comparing UVA with ODU, or W&M with VCU.</p>
<p>worldshopper, for the record, ALL seniors who want to live on campus are guaranteed housing, and for all of recent history, everyone who has wanted to live on campus has been able to live on campus.</p>
<p>Can we all just get along? I think the UVa-ers and W&M-ers (not to mention Georgetown and UNC) need to focus their angst on the "upstarts," schools like Duke, Emory, Rice, Vanderbilt.</p>
<p>BTW, how do we edit the name of this misspelled thread?</p>