Had no idea Richmond was in the races! Richmond is absolutely incredible for what you would want to study, if that is buisness, and aside from that it is everything W&M is and more, just without the rankings for some odd reason, I do agree and see that. If rankings matter to you, do W&M, if not Richmond is an excellent choice!
@jackwang - Believe me, downtown Richmond makes Middletown, CT look positively cosmopolitan by comparison. You will either need a car for quick trips to Washington, D.C. or satisfy yourself with living in a bubble - a comfortable bubble - but, one that pretty much has to import all of its entertainment because hardly anyone majors in the arts. Subtract the approximately 1,100 business and marketing majors from U Richmond’s student body and you have the smallest number of liberal arts students among any of the colleges on your short list.
@circuitrider Oh really? So W&M might be more like an LAC compared to Richmond in this sense. Since so few people major in the arts, does that make any programs other than business less strong and promising? Then W&M might be a better place for a more balanced undergrad education. Isn’t it always ranked among the best undergrad teaching by USNEWS?
And my friend at Wesleyan, who had visited W&M to see her friends couple times, told me that W&M is indeed more traditional than Wes in every aspect, but not conservative. I think I’m more traditional even though I might appear to be kinda liberal. I always follow the rules and don’t really try to take any unconventional route. I’m not creative or innovative either. I think I’m like a 30-40% liberal, 60-70% traditional.
And about the location, my friend said Williamsburg is better and more convenient than Middletown. It has easier access to supermarket. And it has warmer weather if you don’t like the cold. Is it convenient to get around from Williamsburg, to DC, for example?
Enter George Clinton.
“Weeee want the funk…”
Yes, Wes is more extreme, more in-your-face, and it does bring the funk, based on what so many say about it.
I hadn’t thought about it in that term, but that’s what it is: funk. Funkadelic funkiness is fashionable at Wes.
“Attitude” also comes to mind, as does “opinionated”. Or… “radical”.
W&M does evoke images of the staid, the old, the reserved, the proud, the traditional, the historic. These are all fine things, painting a very dignified picture.
If these were people:
- Wes is the messy kid who makes it to a political protest, a punk concert, writes a play and gets hammered all in the same day, and then sleeps half of the next day, doesn't shower, and eats Ramen noodles for lunch and dinner -- or just dinch.
- William and Mary are the Vineyard Vines-donning clean couple who plan well, study hard, stick to schedules, have 2.3 kids, listen to the pop station, and think it's too scandalous to let their parents think they're doing it, let alone tell them. They dare each other to cuss, just for a bit of excitement.
(no, W&M isn’t that straight-laced… it just looks that way next to Wes.)
@PurpleTitan: Reed is indeed intellectual and rigorous, but every bit as unconventional and “out there” as Wesleyan, if not more so. For example, I invite you to consider their impressive ranking on the Princeton Review’s List of “Birkenstock-Wearing, Tree-Hugging, Clove-Smoking Vegetarians”:
https://www.princetonreview.com/college-rankings?rankings=tree-hugging-vegetarians
You might also take a look at the Reed College Bookstore’s best-selling “classic” T-shirt:
Not funkier than W&L ?
No, Reed and W&L are very different, but I wouldn’t use them as proxies for Wes and W&M because I consider Reed and W&M closer to each other than either are to W&L and Wes, and those last two are polar opposites.
@prezbucky I think it might be a little hard for me to fit in Wes than W&M considering school vibe. What about Richmond? I heard almost everybody there only study or care about business. However, interestingly enough, it has the highest rated reviews on all review websites compared to Wes or W&M.
Richmond is another fine school. It might fall somewhere in between W&M and Wes on the funkmeter.
(Kidding aside, kids like to have fun everywhere, and there is diversity of personality/experience/preference/prerogative at every school. There are probably even some straight-laced kids at Wes. Don’t let our whimsy dissuade you from Wes or W&M.)
@prezbucky I will try my best. What about academics at Richmond compared to the others?
I think that’s correct. This is not a knock against the liberal arts departments at U Richmond. I just don’t think they are the main reason people go there.
Jack, you’re seventeen. Your prefrontal lobe cortex is still growing.
Needing a supermarket presupposes that you are cooking for yourself. And, I just don’t see W&M competing with Wesleyan in terms of food culture. It’s a real thing at Wesleyan. There are a lot more grad students at W&M and, obviously, they shop somewhere, but, it’s not quite the same thing as having an entire subgroup of undergraduates who can have friends over for dinner and the constant foot traffic that generates over the course of a weekend. FWIW, there’s a convenience store on campus and a natural food store downtown.
Can’t argue about the milder winters. Not sure about the rest of your question.
@circuitrider I’m 18 btw. And I was asking is it easy to travel to DC from Williamsburg?
I don’t know enough to give you a detailed response about Richmond’s academics.
I know that Richmond has a business school, which is fairly rare among LACs – most have Econ but lack business schools and business-related majors. Econ is just one part of a Business degree – other main topics include areas like Marketing, Finance, Accounting, and Operations.
I’d say Richmond is strong academically, but i couldn’t tell you exactly how they stack up against W&M and Wes.
I believe it is fairly safe to say that if you work hard and show up to classes, you will get an excellent education at any of them.
You should read everything you can find about the schools you like best and visit them if you can. Decide based on fit and cost.
I don’t honestly know the answer to that. I’d be very surprised if there wasn’t an Amtrak station in Williamsburg, but, I’ve never taken it to D.C…
If you can possibly manage it, please visit the schools. The exact same atmosphere and culture that one person hates will be the one another person loves. I have no real knowledge of W&M, so I won’t speak about it. I graduated from Wesleyan a long time ago, but its reputation was similar to what it is now. My politics are liberal for the US, but very middle of the road at Wes. I’m not artsy. My clothing style ran much more preppy than hippie. I LOVED Wesleyan. I loved the huge range of people and their interests, the independence the school granted to its students, the sheer number and variety of things to do on campus and, of course, the education I received. I met plenty of people more or less like me in background and level of artsy/political radical attitude, which was great, because there’s a comfort level to that for me. I met plenty of people who were very different from me, which was great because it was interesting. I made friends with people in both categories.
Wesleyan has very little in the way of distribution requirements. If W&M has significantly more requirements, think about whether or not that matters to you.
I don’t know whether or not you’d like Wesleyan, but nothing you’ve said about yourself makes me want to steer you away.
Oh, here’s probably a decent litmus test. Based on how you’ve described yourself, I’m assuming you’re not a gender fluid, vegan film major with multiple piercings. Does going to school with people whose level of, umm, ok, let’s go with funkiness, ranges from you to the gender fluid vegan (and includes everything in between) sound fun and interesting or just too weird and discomfiting? If you said fun and interesting, keep looking into Wesleyan. If you went with too weird, you might be happier someplace more conventional.
@jackwang0703 - I thought you visited Wes like a year ago?
Also, this might be a good time to visit the W&M board. From a current student:
There’s an Amtrak station at the Williamsburg Transportation Center, which would be about a 10 minute walk from the W&M campus.
Here’s an Amtrak system map:
https://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/631/638/SystemMapMar2015.pdf
Here’s the location of the train station in Williamsburg:
https://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=am/am2Station/Station_Page&code=WBG
According to Amtrak schedules, from Williamsburg to Washington (Union Station) takes between 3 hours 39 minutes and 4 hours 3 minutes depending on departure day and time. Apparently there are only 2 train departures daily from Williamsburg (one in the morning and one in the late afternoon) and 2 or 3 daily in the other direction. So if you wanted to spend a Saturday visiting DC museums, you’d spend much of the morning on the train, a few hours sight-seeing, then much of the evening getting back on the train.
By car via I-95 usually would be faster (maybe as little as 2.5 hours, depending on traffic).
I got accepted to Brandeis’s International Business School Scholars Program yesterday…
Okay. Time out. Let’s take a deep breath. @jackwang0703 - you’re a full-paying international which makes you a highly desirable candidate for many public as well as private colleges. What other schools are you waiting to hear from?
Oh there’s nothing left. That was just an update on my portal.