Mark a survey and Inform Staff

Peer Review:
5.45.80.218:valid:Content Nonsensical, Duplicate Survey, High Vulgarity, High Grammatical Error, Probably Admissions, Content Useless, Malicious Intent/Faked, SPAM, :1
5.45.80.218:valid:Content Nonsensical, Duplicate Survey, High Vulgarity, High Grammatical Error, Probably Admissions, Content Useless, Malicious Intent/Faked, SPAM, :1
5.45.80.218:valid:Content Nonsensical, Duplicate Survey, High Vulgarity, High Grammatical Error, Probably Admissions, Content Useless, Malicious Intent/Faked, SPAM, :1
5.45.80.218:valid:Content Nonsensical, Duplicate Survey, High Vulgarity, High Grammatical Error, Probably Admissions, Content Useless, Malicious Intent/Faked, SPAM, :1
5.45.80.218:valid:Content Nonsensical, Duplicate Survey, High Vulgarity, High Grammatical Error, Probably Admissions, Content Useless, Malicious Intent/Faked, SPAM, :1
5.45.80.218:valid:Content Nonsensical, Duplicate Survey, High Vulgarity, High Grammatical Error, Probably Admissions, Content Useless, Malicious Intent/Faked, SPAM, :1
5.45.80.218:valid:Content Nonsensical, Duplicate Survey, High Vulgarity, High Grammatical Error, Probably Admissions, Content Useless, Malicious Intent/Faked, SPAM, :1
5.45.80.218:valid:Content Nonsensical, Duplicate Survey, High Vulgarity, High Grammatical Error, Probably Admissions, Content Useless, Malicious Intent/Faked, SPAM, :1
5.45.80.218:valid:Content Nonsensical, Duplicate Survey, High Vulgarity, High Grammatical Error, Probably Admissions, Content Useless, Malicious Intent/Faked, SPAM, :1
5.45.80.218:valid:Content Nonsensical, Duplicate Survey, High Vulgarity, High Grammatical Error, Probably Admissions, Content Useless, Malicious Intent/Faked, SPAM, :1
5.45.80.218:valid:Content Nonsensical, Duplicate Survey, High Vulgarity, High Grammatical Error, Probably Admissions, Content Useless, Malicious Intent/Faked, SPAM, :1

Statistical Analyzer:

If you want real advice on your college decision, don't take a tour. Instead, ask students who aren't getting paid to tell you how great F&M is and read the StudentsReviews online (that goes for any school). This is a long review, but before you make a life-changing $55,000/year decision, you should spend a few minutes reading it. It will give you the comprehensive, honest truth coming from a current student.

Quite frankly, don't go here. The chart showing the percentage of former students who would return isn't lying. The majority of students here don't like it. I wish I never went here, and you will too if you decide to go to F&M. For every one person I know who enjoys it here, I can name five others who are applying to transfer schools. Just take a look at the "F&M Confessions" page on Facebook and you'll see what I mean. It really fails at everything it claims. It is not comparable to an ivy league school, and don't let anyone try to convince you otherwise. The claim that "a 3.2 at F&M is equivalent to a 3.6 at most other schools" is false because most employers have never heard of F&M and don't know how to interpret your grades. Although the professors here are knowledgeable, the quality of the professors is pretty poor. Just because you know a lot about something doesn't mean you will be good at explaining it to others. F&M has professor review forms at the end of each semester, but they are not taken seriously, as many professors with well-known bad reputations receive tenure. The majority of them are old, very old-fashioned in their methods, and are just here to earn money, not actually teach students. Courses are taught like high school: professor talks for 50 minutes, gives you an exam next week, and doesn't encourage actual thought. I've been here two years so far, and I wish I had a professor lead a class discussion, assign me a unique presentation, or assign me something to research. But instead, my grade is based solely on my exam performance. So much for F&M being "a liberal arts school encouraging students to think critically."

I can count on one hand the professors who are actively involved in research aside from the chemistry and biology departments. If you don't like chemistry or biology, then you are out of luck with research. Sure, you'll hear stories of students getting published with a professor, but those are few and far between and it does not happen on a yearly basis. When is the last time you read an article citing F&M research? My experience in several departments, especially math and chemistry, has been that professors are haughty and just don't care about students. I've had chemistry professors give me the useless advice to "study harder next time," and one who even said to our class "the book problems will not be enough, but I will not give you any additional problems." There are definitely some professors here who I loved and who really cared about their students, but it seems that most professors are just looking for a way to pass the time during the day.

Before you decide to go here, you should take a look at the F&M course catalog online and compare it with the course catalogs of your other school choices (something which I didn't think to do). Because F&M is so small, it has very few classes compared to larger schools. Of the classes F&M does have, even fewer are unique professor-designed courses. Almost all the courses are general topics that you can find at any university. Again, I can count on one hand the unique courses that F&M offers.

The student body is predominantly wealthy, stuck-up caucasians who have never stepped foot out of suburbia. If you want diversity, F&M is definitely not the place for you. F&M recently got rid of merit scholarships, so good luck getting financial aid if you're not a POSSE scholar. The financial aid office pretty much assumes everyone else is a rich suburban kid as I described above and very few people besides POSSE scholars get any aid at all. Students from middle-class backgrounds (like me) get forced into paying full tuition because it's too late to transfer at that point and F&M knows it. The financial aid office is stingy and poorly run just like the rest of the administration. You can ask any student on campus to tell you a story of how he or she was screwed over at least once by the registrar, the housing office, the dean, house prefect, or really any other administrative department. The course selection process at F&M is probably the most convoluted system out there. First of all, they finally switched to an electronic system for Fall 2013. Before, it was still the archaic paper system where you had to spend the day waiting in a line of 300 students. Basically, now it's first come first serve online, but only for half of each class because each class is randomly split up into two days for no reason, and if you don't get a class then better luck next semester.

The rest of the administration is just bad decision after bad decision. Need to mail something? Better get to the mailroom before they close at 3:00, even though you'll probably still be in class then. Need to cash a check from work at the business office? Well you'll have to go between 12:00-1:00 Monday to Friday. That's right, they're open for one hour every day. The residence halls, or dorms, are open to the public from 8:00 am - 4:30 pm Monday to Friday (no key needed to get in), and there are no security guards or even student workers who man the entrances. I'm very surprised that there haven't been any major thefts yet. Recently, there has been a movement from students to install security cameras at the main entrances to the dorms (just like every other school did ten years ago), but the administration has decided not to move forward with the cameras over concerns for student privacy, even though the students themselves brought up the issue.

Social life, as many others have said, revolves around the greeks and the athletes. If you are not either one, then you will find yourself sitting in your room on the weekend. F&M provides zero activities for anyone else. One weekend per semester, they will sponsor a movie, and that is about it. They play up Lancaster as a thriving, up-and-coming city, but it surely is not. The residents are poor, and F&M students have a bad relationship with the residents and the police.

When it comes to food, it's another swing and a miss for F&M. There are four dining options run by Sodexo: the main dining hall, and three small cafes called Pandini's, ZeBi, and Flavors Cafe. Sodexo is a poorly run food service that overcharges you for everything and doesn't properly train workers. Employees will argue right in front of you, keep their phones on the cutting board, shake hands with a student and then use the same gloves to make your sandwich. Oh, and you want a cup of water? That'll be 79 cents. I bet you thought water was free - nope not here. Want to eat healthy? Then go to Flavors Cafe located in the biology building. Oh wait they close at 4 even though all labs go until 4:30. You could try ZeBi, but they're likely out of whatever you want until next week's food arrives. So instead you go to Pandini's and eat a burrito or slice of pizza because the dining hall isn't open continuously throughout the day.

Extracurriculars are ok here. There's plenty of clubs to go around. I think that's the only positive thing I have to say about F&M. But then again, any school you go to will have the same clubs available, if not more.

I think that pretty much covers it. Professors: knowledgeable but could care less about students; Administration: confused and poorly run; Social Life: athlete/greek or go home; Student Body: 85% rich caucasians, 15% other. Going to F&M was the worst decision of my life. If you still decide to go to F&M after everything that I've covered, may the force be with you.