That’s a very fair statement. I’m fairly certain the Lee image is no longer on diplomas. However, the name of the university remains and may be a consideration for some.
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Three of these 4 schools are research universities. Washington & Lee, a small liberal arts college, is the exception. And it shows. Almost 80% of their classes have less than 20 students and ther student:faculty ratio is 8:1. None of the other 3 are close to these numbers of small classes and access to professors. All of W&L’s resources go to undergrads, yet they are unusual among SLACs in that they have a law school on campus. They also have an undergraduate business school, T Williams School of Commerce, Economics, and Politics with its own unique approach.
For my money, W&L, which is a top 10 LAC, offers the most opportunities.
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Washington & Lee is a notable laggard in terms of racial and socioeconomic diversity: only 20 matriculating Black students in the class of 2025, 64th out of 65 elite colleges in enrolling low-income students in the New York Times Chetty study, and fifth from the bottom of the USNWR liberal arts list for Pell enrollment (10%).
There are other issues apart from the name, but clearly it isn’t helping.
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I too know many W&L grads who are now judges and/or successful lawyers who went onto Vanderbilt, Yale, Harvard for law school.
And their alumni support and networking in many cities is cult like - in a good way. They have each other’s back!
The grads who are now judges are mostly from the equivalent of Before Times in W&L history. I knew them as wealthy, entitled, white, (mostly) frat guys. What you see as ‘cult-like’ alum networking some of us experienced as the ‘good ol’ boys network’ -which is only a ‘good’ way if you are one of them.
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Nope Iit’s about half and half men and women!
And not all white.
The alumni women are extremely supportive of one another after graduation- to the point of helping you find jobs/housing when moving to a new city.
I agree that W&L is a notable laggard in racial and social economic diversity. That said, I believe the school is working hard to change that. It will take time but they are making some progress. Reputations, good and bad, are hard to change. Change at W&L will be evolutionary, not revolutionary.
I’m not sure when the Chetty study was last updated, and the common data set info can lack some granularity (though true for all schools). Here’s the view that W&L would like you to see:
Which includes these bullet points:
- 56 percent of incoming students will receive financial aid in the form of grants — up from 51 percent last year.
- 12 percent of enrolling students are eligible for Pell Grants, up from 10 percent five years ago.
- Domestic students of color account for 23 percent of the class, up from 20 percent last year and 11 percent five years ago. The number of Black students (including those who identify with at least one additional race or ethnicity) in the class increased from 25 last year to 37, or 7.5 percent of the class.
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The past history of wealthy students has at least led to one of the strongest (per student) endowments which is being used to facilitate the change.
The Johnson Scholarship means roughly 10% of incoming classes receive a full ride.
W&L would like to become a true “need blind” school.
However, I’m not sure the less privileged students feel as comfortable on campus among the wealthy. The prevalent Greek system also adds a barrier with additional expenses for those participating. Though I believe this can be factored into financial aid too, I imagine it’s still intimidating.
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Tl;dr - W&L is lagging on diversity, is trying hard to remedy, but will take time.
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Thank you for the link to the W & M rankings-- very impressive!
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I agree that W&L has much room for improvement in the diversity department. It is a clearly stated objective of the university to increase both racial and SE diversity. There has been positive movement, but there is a long way to go. This is an area that SLACs in general could improve (e.g. Middlebury 4.8% black undergrads), but W&L has the additional challenge of overcoming its history. Hopefully its efforts will produce positive results but it will take time.
If this is of importance to the OP it would warrant a look at each school’s CDS or posted class profile.
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D22 absolutely could believe the happiest students ranking at W&M. All the kids she met with there just glowed talking about the school and their overall life there. This was a school she mainly applied to because I told her I thought it was a good fit. After the visit, she was sold.
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I think that is important to consider that if you attend a college that is viewed to be at the extremes, whether it is Oberlin or W&L, that it may cause red flags at some employers. However, you may not care because you wouldn’t want to work there anyway. Some may have issues with both sides.
Yep.
And…for example…I know a student who graduated with a degree in Biology from UC Davis a couple of years ago and now he’s in law school.
I think that any of the universities which the OP is considering would be just fine.
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DD was always intrigued by what she heard about it, but once she set foot on the actual campus she fell in love hard. It has been her #1 since, though she would be fine with her #2 to which she has been admitted to already.
Still, we are on pins and needles for her.
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Good luck to both our Ds 
. Mine has 2 acceptances she’s excited about but she’ll be thrilled if she gets good news from W&M next week. One big drawback for us is that it is a long trek (West Coast) with no direct flights to a nearby airport.
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Yours has been the best and most thoughtful advice I’ve read on CC thoughout my DD’s college search. I may well seek out your counsel once we have her final acceptances in hand (still waiting on W&M, Smith, Vassar and Bryn Mawr). Thank you for approaching all of this with informed reason.
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If you are going to resort to “whatabouting,” you should probably pick a college that doesn’t further highlight W&L’s shortcomings. 4.8% Black enrollment is terrible, but it is 26.3% more than W&L.
The polite rationale for keeping the name of a traitorous, dyed-in-the-wool white supremacist on the institution seems to be that it will affect giving, and then W&L won’t have the resources to address the problem. The hole in this logic is that the problem can’t really get any worse than it is now, so why not just do the right thing?
I was intentionally acknowledging W&L’s shortcomings. I brought up SLACs in general because I do think diversity is lacking at multiple schools and wanted to highlight that for OP and other readers in case it is an area to research when making their decision. (I grabbed Middlebury’s data simply because it was ranked next to W&L on USNews.) There was no intention to “whatabout” or deflect. If that is how you interpreted it then perhaps I should have worded it better.
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I think back to OPs question - one can rightly argue for each of the four schools.
I don’t think W&Ls name impacts the student’s education nor law school prospects nor has it hindered UVA grads, nor W&Ms or Georgetown and all four have a slave history. Heck, UVA was founded by a slave owner.
Guess what - all four have a “history”.
W&L specifically addressed the name and is taking many positive steps to “enhance” the overall university history and is removing the name “lee” in other places.
@Yonkers6thBoro while i disagree with your assertion about W&L - I mean, I’m a Jewish guy working for a German company - they didn’t change the name but I’ve come to accept what the company (and country) stands for even today - but you are certainly entitled to your opinion but I don’t see any relevance to the topic OP asked for. W&L alumns are excelling through all facets of society.
Washington and Lee to maintain name in face of opposition (insidehighered.com)
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Please tell me for which employers would a degree from either Oberlin or W&L be a red flag?
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You likely will not see it written anywhere. I have way too diverse of an organization to take a chance on a new W&L graduate. Voluntarily deciding to attend somewhere like that is a reg flag. I can just go somewhere else to find candidates. Just too hard and costly to make that mistake. I would rather take my chance on someone from a more neutral school.
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