prinefan

My S likes large schools located in or nearby cities. He is interested in a Business and/or Marketing major. I was wondering if GMU would be a worthwhile road trip from the New England area. I know that there is a fairly large percentage of commuter students. Is there enough activity on the campus on weekends to keep students occupied? Are the students generally satisfied with the academics and social life?

It seems like GMU is trying to appeal to a wider selection of students lately, and have spent a lot of money recently upgrading the campus by adding more residence halls, academic buildings, etc..

According to the College Board, his GPA and SAT scores will put him at the high end or above the middle 50% of incoming freshman. Just would like to get some thoughts to see if Mason might be worth checking out. This site on CC doesn't seem very active, but that in itself doesn't concern me. Thanks in advance for your opinions.

michone

I just got back from Mason. S is OOS. He loved the school. Mason used to be a commuter school, but they are building lots of dorm rooms and will have the capacity to house 10,000 students by 2011. Many of the dorms are already finished. Most of the buildings are new and the classrooms have modern technology. Contact me if you want more info.

HulkHogan

My brother transferred to GMU last year after attending NYU for a year due to mostly financial reasons. He absolutely loves it. There is alot of construction going on by the administration to foster student learning and improve and combat the commuter stigma. I believe as of currently, there are roughly 4,800 living on-campus and another 800 that are being built as we speak which should be finished by spring of 2010. Another 1,200 beds are planned for completion in spring/fall of 2011. So roughly 6,800 beds! He told me they are about to approve construction of another 2,500 beds to be built asap. To sum up, alot of growth is happening at GMU.

prinefan

Thanks HH. That's good to hear. We plan to visit in the Fall, and are looking forward to seeing the campus.

IamWandering

my d and I visited from New England and liked it. We too have concerns about the commuter campus image but there seems to be stuff going on. Especially for freshman. I heard that rents in the Fairfax area are very high - if there's no oncampus housing, is the off campus housing really un-affordable?

HulkHogan

^ On campus is guaranteed for freshman students. Off campus housing is cheap if you rent a townhouse or house with other students. Otherwise, you're looking at spending 850+ a month on an apt.