<p>I’m a faculty member in the UVA English Department; here’s my perspective.</p>
<p>If you’re thinking about majoring in English or a related field, you’re not going to get a dramatically different academic experience at any of these schools. UVA, Chicago, and NYU all have top-ranked English Departments; William and Mary provides an excellent undergraduate education though the department doesn’t feature in national rankings because there is no PhD program. Creative Writing is also superb at UVA (I think the MFA program is rated 4th or 5th in the nation, behind Iowa and a couple of other places); its faculty are fully integrated into the English Department, an advantage for undergraduates. The real differences here are more on the social/environmental side; NYU and Chicago are in big cities, UVA is in a little city, and William and Mary is a liberal arts college, not a research university. The schools have reputations for having different vibes, but I’d take the blanket stereotypes with a grain of salt, since all of them enroll a wide variety of students and you will tend to gravitate to your kind, whatever your kind is, wherever you go.</p>
<p>Creating your own major sounds cool but I doubt it’s really necessary. English majors at all four schools are pretty flexible and give you plenty of time to do your own thing. </p>
<p>If money is at all an issue, UVA or William and Mary seem like the obvious choice.</p>