That can work too, although it is nice to be able to skip that step.
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It is not so complicated. William and Mary is not work 120K more than U of Richmond. Not by any measurement. We’re not talking the difference between a local commuter state college and Yale. They’re both perfectly good colleges, with similar rankings.
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Not everyone would agree that makes them substitutes, but again it is fine if you see them that way yourself.
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I think that you should only choose W&M if you feel that its fit advantage (over URichmond) is so advanced that it causes W&M to overcome the cost disadvantage.
- If the fit is better at Richmond, choose Richmond
- If the fit is equal, choose Richmond
- If the fit is better at W&M, analyze whether it is better to the point that the advantage justifies the cost difference.
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If it were me, I would take a break from thinking about it for awhile. You don’t have to commit anywhere until May 1. Let all of your acceptances and financial aid packages come in, and then think about it. In the meantime, enjoy senior year.
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That is a good reminder. Thank you.
Thank you all. I know that there may not be a clear or easy decision here, but this is all very helpful.
It was decades ago but my best friend majored in poly sci at U of R and got a job working for a state delegate in Richmond. If you’re going to major in Poly Sci - Richmond being the state capitol may give you more opportunities than Williamsburg.
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I note William & Mary is very plugged into DC, and in fact has a DC campus:
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Thanks for including these data points @NiceUnparticularMan Is this the link that you used to find it? College Navigator - National Center for Education Statistics
That’s it! Very handy.
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For another tack: what about St Olaf if you get admitted to the Enduring Questions program?
The college has the more academic, not preppy atmosphere you like but at UR’s price point, and Enduring Questions sounds like it’d be right up your alley.
https://wp.stolaf.edu/enduring-questions/
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Yes, I can understand a preference for William & Mary over St Olaf, but maybe there are ways to make St Olaf into the better compromise than Richmond if William & Mary is out for cost reasons.
Of course it depends on why the OP was less excited about St Olaf, but I agree the Enduring Questions program seems like one promising approach. I note St Olaf is also very supportive of designing your own interdisciplinary major:
Obviously this is not unique to St Olaf, but they are among the SLACs which are really good for supporting Study Abroad:
https://wp.stolaf.edu/smithcenter/welcome-to-saa/
But again, none of this may matter depending on the OP’s reasoning to this point. Still, definitely worth noting St Olaf is very much a college where you can actively take control of your experience in a variety of interesting ways.
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It’s simple…go to the school you can afford. If you have to take out a mountain of debt to pay for tuition, you can’t afford it.
I will add that Richmond does have a reputation of being more pre-professional than W&M. That said, to a previous posters point, there are avenues to find what you are looking for at Richmond. For example, the Bonners Scholars Program Bonner Scholars Program - Bonner Center for Civic Engagement - University of Richmond , or maybe a freshman living learning community The Richmond Endeavor - Living-Learning Programs - University of Richmond that aligns with your interest, or research/opportunities that you find out about as part of the PPEL major https://ppel.richmond.edu/.
While W&M has an edge wrt prestige and being less pre-professional, IMO it’s not that big of a difference that can’t be overcome by really taking advantage of the opportunities available at Richmond that align with your interests.
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As one aspect to consider, Richmond students rated their classroom experience very highly in this Princeton Review survey-based information:
In this respect — and perhaps many others — Richmond would not seem to represent a compromise, even if costs were comparable.
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It’s also worth noting that at the time this data was compiled, W&M was on a downward trajectory for lower-income students and an upward trajectory for wealthier students, while UR was on an opposite track for both.
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It’s VERY outdated though and efforts at socio economic diversity have only been recent (past 10-15years).
I think OPs concerns wrt UR’s vibe are valid, so either there’s a way to make UR closer to what they’re looking for through specific programs, majors, dorms/LLCs etc*. Or there will be another TE alternative. And as mentioned upthread, there’s StOlaf which matches what OP wants in terms of fit& has a program of interest though may not be an ideal location.
(*for instance, PPH, not PPE…)
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Approximately 10-year-old data for the final datapoints in the graph. From the NYT: “Measures of access are for students born in 1991, roughly the class of 2013”
It’s outdated, but shows some strong divergent trends as of a decade ago. And my educated guess is that UR has made more strides than most since then in terms of economic diversity given their large endowment and financial aid programs.
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This is a bit of a tangent, but when that sort of data first came out, it was a somewhat significant scandal, and various colleges that did poorly started more actively trying to diversify their classes. But it is also true their competitors did the same, so while many improved in absolute terms, often less so in relative terms. And it is also true that relatively wealthy private colleges are in some ways more nimble.
All this is captured a bit in another NYT article. It was a mix of data from different eras, but one thing it did was track changes in Freshman Pell share since 2011:
Richmond was up 3 to 17%. Still not very high in absolute terms but some improvement.
William & Mary was up 1 to 11%. So even lower in absolute terms and some but less improvement.
I note, though, if you look not just at the trend but just the absolute numbers, Richmond is (well, was, as of last we knew) quite a bit higher in the top brackets than William & Mary, despite the trend:
Top 0.1% 2.6% (Richmond) to <1% (William & Mary)
Top 1%-0.1% 12.4% to <6.3%
It starts turning toward William & Mary in the upper-middle range:
Top 5%-1% 23% to 28.5%
Top 10%-5% 11% to 21%
Top 20%-10% 14% to 17%
This is a somewhat common difference in patterns. Some of the wealthier privates like Richmond had a bit more of a barbell distribution–relatively larger percentages from both the wealthiest families and least wealthy–in comparison to colleges like William & Mary which are more consistently just upper-middle-class.
Personally, I am not sure there is any real predictability about how this will shake out in terms of the feel of college. I suspect, though, a lot of it depends just on who you hang out with.
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