<p>What is the academic atmosphere at this college?
How is the workload and the quality of the teachers?
Are they good at International Relations?</p>
<p>Is the student body diverse, open-minded, preppy?
Are there a lot of partying and drinking on campus?</p>
<p>How do they compare with St. Mary's College of Maryland
and Mary Washington? Is it worth paying the extra $$$?</p>
<p>tennisDad -- unfortunately I can't answer any of your questions, but I can at least put in a good word for Chestertown. I've had business there several times and it is a lovely historic town on the water. Clean, and seemed very safe and secure. The campus itself is a bit away from the town center, which probably has some good and bad points. </p>
<p>My son gave a pretty cursory look to St. Mary's, and visited Mary Washington. I'd say that all else being equal, Washington is probably not worth the extra $$$ -- but honestly, that's such a hard question for somebody else to answer. Besides, WC is pretty generous with its scholarships so the costs might actually end up in the same range. </p>
<p>Sorry I couldn't be more help.</p>
<p>Theres some partying and drinking, just like all colleges. And I think Washington would be better for someone interested in Environmental Science than Int'l Relations.</p>
<p>When I went there back in the dark ages (30 years ago) it was very preppy, very fratty/drinking oriented, and academically committed students were few and far between. (I transfered). </p>
<p>It may be totally different now, but that was my experience.</p>
<p>I went to a small maryland prep school, and the kids that went to Washington were the ones that couldn't get into Mary Washington, much less St. Marys. SMCM is definitely academically superior to Washington College, if only in terms of the students who go there, but I suspect that there are significant other differences too.
Oh, I'm a college student btw</p>
<p>I know a professor there. The college has been making a serious attempt to advance up the ranks of liberal arts colleges in the last several years...getting new faculty from excellent grad programs and getting a more intellectual type of student than in years past. It's a very old school with a beautiful campus in a historic town, so it has a lot of things going for it.</p>
<p>We stopped in on the way back from a vacation a couple of years ago. We missed the last tour of the day but a very nice student talked to us and pointed out the buildings. It looked nice enough but we were all unimpressed with the upkeep of the campus. It just didn't look as tidy as we thought it should and the one classroom building that we went into had some peeling paint and the classrooms were very reminicent of HS, only not as nice.</p>
<p>I have to agree with kathiep. We visited and were unimpressed with the upkeep of the campus. We had a private tour and an interview. We also felt the area was quite rural. However, they are quite generous with merit money.</p>