W&L from a First-Year's Perspective

lexlee
Thu, 10 Mar 2011 16:42:50 +0000

While I agree that the academic opportunities at Davidson and W & L are similar, it is my firm opinion that on balance, the student body at W & L is a little bit better from top to bottom. This is based on sat/act range scores and spending a fair amount of time on both campuses. Our daughter chose Washington and Lee last year, class of 2014. I understand it is difficult to quantify and qualify these sorts of discussion points. Also, I think what is rarely mentioned about W & L is the emotional and social intelligence levels of the student body, again hard to put a number or value on, but this impressed our daughter and us, her parents. Visiting a LOT of very fine universities where the student bodies in general, seemed quite focused (remembering of course this is college!), W & L struck us as quite similar, as opposed to some very fine LACS where the students, albeit quite intelligent, seemed less mature (as a group). Again, impossible to prove, but I sincerely believe is , on balance, accurate. For us, Washington and Lee is a bit of a hybrid, Some of the positives of both a larger university and lac rolled into one. Not a perfect school, but in our daughters case, compelling! Not trying to be controversial.