George Mason University

I defnitely feel that I made a great choice deciding to attend GMU for my undergrad. The school's reputation keeps getting better every year. The School of Management is awesome and it definitely gave me skills that made me very marketable. I currently work with many people that went to institutions that are regarded as better than Mason and I don't feel like my education was any worse that theirs. One of the biggest complains that I hear about GMU is that it is a commuter school which supposedly makes having a good social life impossible. I was a commuter during my whole undergraduate career and I have to say it's up to you and what you decide to make of it. I joined a greek organization and I can honestly say that I knew of a social event almost every night of the week. I made plenty of friends that I plan to keep in touch with for the rest of my life. The chicks were pretty hot and liked to party. The Fairfax bars were not bad at all if you knew which nights were good. I have been to parties at almost every major school in VA and the craziest parties I ever saw were definitely the GMU ones. If you get bored of the Mason scene you can always go to the city and even if you are under 21 they have clubs that will let you in downtown. Another benefit of being so close to a major city is that you have the opportunity to get an intership or a decent paying part time job pretty easily. That's not possible to do if you are going to school out in the middle of nowhere. I never lived in President's Park but from what I saw when I visited there I would definitely recommend living there your freshman year and if you want to have a decent social life definitely join a greek organization or a sports team.

Alumnus Male -- Class 2000

I just finished my freshman year at Mason, and I definately had a wonderful overall first year experience. I made a ton of good and interesting friends, and most of my professors (with the exception of 1) were friendly, helpful, and completely approachable. I also experinced some cool events like watching the boys choir of harlem, clubbin' in downtown d.c.,exploring the national gallery of art, smithsonian, and holocaust museum all in one day, and being made fun of by Christian Finnegan (the white guy from the "Mad Real World" on the Chapelle Show) at one of his comedy skits on campus. But I did have some complaints. Mason's large commuter population makes it really hard to make friends. You really have to be outgoing and make a real hard effort to meet people. Also, Mason is trying to increase it's overall population, which I think is completely stupid because mason's facilties, such as the laundry rooms and computer labs are full enough without even more people trying to squeeze in. We don't need more people, we need less. But overall, Mason was a good experience because I put a lot into making it a good experience. You get out of this school what you put into it. P.s. definately live in Presidents Park if you're a freshman, there's really no experience quite like it.

1st Year Male -- Class 2008

Collaboration/Competitive: A, Social Life: C-