The University of Virginia

Date: Jun 29 2004
Major: Economics (This Major's Salary over time)
Depite being out of state, this school was still 10,000 less than the nearest private school. It also had a pretty decent reputation, and was only about 3 hrs away from Baltimore where I live. Hence I went.

The first lasting impression I have from UVa comes from orientation, the July before my first year. People would ask,

What did you think?,

and all I could say was that the people were absolutely beautiful. This stems from the most memorable portion of orientation, the pool party at the AFC. Of course, you would expect that the same people who would attend the pool party would also be above average in appearance just by the very nature of the activity, a bunch of strangers gathering around in bathing suits. But trust me, UVa has definitely got its share of attractive people.

The point of this review is to characterize UVa the best I can for someone who has never gone here. It's an extremely social school where the crowd mentality does not place the most weight on deep thinking, analysis, or art. The counter culture is extremely limited here; and this isn't to say that you can't find just about any type of culture, but you won't be part of the majority.
Do not underestimate the importance of the overall characterization of UVa. If you are indie, artistic, and like non-mainstream music, you'll be right back where you were in high school as far as population percentage (even worse depending on high schools). Most indie people don't like being mainstream so this won't bother them, but considering that the rest of your life will be spent in a minority, you might want to consider trying out a college where that isn't true.

The same goes for intelligence. It's frustrating to be a highly competitive school and still have to fight to find people who really seem to care about being smart. I can't tell you how many times I'll have a pseudo deep conversation with someone and they'll tell me how refreshing it is to find that in this school. That's not how college should be. Sure you can find people to talk to on a serious level, but the key is different people to get different perspectives. The girls especially really have a knack for playing dumb. The problem is, the guys love it, and definitely play into it only to further encourage it. It keeps me up at night to wonder if any of the girls at a place like Harvard could act as ditzy and mindless as so many of the ones around here. My guess is probably yes, just because it's no fun being smart all the time, especially with flirting or things of a sexual nature. I'd still like to see it with my own eyes though.

UVa definitely breeds fast, independent, successful people. There's no denying the reputation, size, and faculty of the economics dept. and Comm. school. People here are self assured, perhaps explaining why it's not always important to talk about beliefs or argue. I mean, if you have things figured out for yourself, you don't need to hunt around as much. Pre-med and Pyschology are extremely big here as well. The Pysc. dept. is absolutely top notch.

Being a large school has major advantages too. The sports are extremely entertaining for one. Even better, so many opportunities exist that it's a spontaneous and/or indecisive person's dream. Freshman year I went to China for some unknown reason (UVa has got so many random international connections), only finding out, deciding, and leaving all within 1.5 months. Finally, the size makes leadership a necessity. There's no guiding light that will pull you anywhere at UVa. The kids are completely expected to take full initiative and make with their time what they will.

UVa has great classes (if you really read and think about the material, you can get past the boredom of big lecture halls, the small classes and good w/o any extra work), a nice campus, and great opportunities. If you are the right person, this is probably the greatest place on earth. For me, it is a really above average place. Imagine a student body whose overwhelming characteristic resembles SGA in high school, or a popular person who is smart but really places little emphasize on intellectual pursuit. These people are easy to get along with, drink with, or have wild nights partying with, but they don't provide any great inspiration.