@Senior2016M Come on. You should have an idea of angle and my values by now and can guess that I agree with it. I don’t think many people who currently attend do. Many were attracted to its current (or slightly older) culture (reminds me of how old Duke was described, but Dukies seemed much more aware of the issue and were discussing issues of intellectual angst as early as maybe the late 90s. Naturally the desire and awareness of the issue led to change at Duke) which makes it stand out from the rest. It is one of the only true work hard play hard schools left IMHO (I personally am more of a nerd/academic type) and has attracted a lot of interest because of it. To change culture is hard because you have to make changes that attract different students and unfortunately buildings will not do it. I can clarify, but I think you know what I mean. I am for any school in this tier (including the one I went to) “updating” the culture in some ways which may be positive, but can tell you that from my experience attending a school going through a huge building boom at the time (and kind of still is), there are limitations (to be successful, it seems that a school must make notable changes to the academics and then actually market them well. If you market mostly quality of life and the building program, you will attract those primarily interested in that, so you must be careful to not overplay. My school after all this building and losing sight wants to “refocus the liberal arts”. Oh dear!) . I am for it to some extent, but there is risk associated with it. A cultural change at VU may be more risky because of its current uniqueness among top 20-25 or so privates (my school, the students seem more apathetic to large changes and kind of go along with them, so while getting an enthusiastic buy-in of current students isn’t easy, most will just shrug their shoulders. Like big academic changes go by rather easily. I think Duke was like that to a large extent, but the new curriculum they are currently pushing may be a bit much even for them).
Like I remember seeing some posters already complaining that they feel stuff like Greek Life is dampened and the school’s “fun” feel that they came for seems to be waning. I was curious and read old hustler articles from the past that expressed disagreement with attempts to become more intellectual or something and the person compared it to Duke and how they did not want VU to become like the scene currently at Duke (a really interesting mixture of “old Duke” and the seemingly newer, more intense top tier Ivy like Duke). It would not be the only school that has come up against detractors of such changes. Dartmouth is currently an excellent example where their president is much less subtle about the changes being made and alum and current students do not seem particularly thrilled. Again, change is hard and sometimes will not sell immediately.