Brown/Princeton or UVA full ride?

Sikorsky
Fri, 28 Oct 2011 08:54:21 +0000

Those who actually go to UVA, what are your thoughts? What is it about the school that you love? Being from Cali, UVA does not have the same reputation it may have in the East. I have visited all the schools and I did like it.



I’m not exactly who you’re looking for. I was a grad student at U.Va. a generation ago; that’s hardly the same as a current undergraduate. But since nobody else has replied yet…

I liked Charlottesville. Life there is reasonably easy and uncomplicated; parking and housing are cheap and plentiful. In the late '80s and early '90s, there was enough retail in town that you could get almost anything, but there was just one of most things (one mall, one upscale grocery store, one sushi restaurant…), so if they didn’t have what you wanted in Charlottesville, you probably had to go to Richmond (about a 75-minute drive). For a town its size, though, it was very sophisticated, not only because of the University, but also because of the smattering of movie stars and other uber-rich folks who owned horse farms outside town. The town has grown a lot since I left; it’s probably more expensive, and it probably has better shopping and dining. But it’s still going to have nothing like the traffic, the cost of living, or the cultrual and commercial resources of Washington, DC, or Boston or New York.

Undergraduates tended to live on the grounds (i.e., on campus) as underclassmen and to move off-grounds as upperclassmen. There was a lot of drinking–the Honor Code, which prohibited lying, cheating and stealing, had an exemption that permitted lying in order to buy alcohol–and a lot of value placed on having a nice car. It was, as I said, the Reagan/Bush years, but I doubt that has changed. On the other hand, there were serious academics for those who really chose to take their academics seriously.

U.Va. is steeped in history and tradition. I used to say that the only thing I could find in or near Charlottesville that wasn’t named for Thomas Jefferson was…the Martha Jefferson Hospital. Social life for undergraduates (at least, for the undergraduates you might consider the social leaders) is heavily Greek and guided by Southern traditions such as wearing a jacket and tie (or a dress and pearls) to home football games.

U.Va. back then did not strike me as an easy place to be a minority. I did not think it was a very easy place to be Jewish, and I knew Jews in my department who were more religious than I, and more frustrated. I am sure it was not an easy place to be a social misfit.

When I was a student at U.Va., I did have occasion to go to Southern California, and I did find that U.Va.'s reputation didn’t travel all that well to the west coast. Here in the east, it is very well regarded; you’d never feel the need to say, “I went to Virginia, but I could have gone to…”

I hope you’ll find somebody who can give you more current information that’s more directly relevant to an undergraduate experience there.