The University of Mary Washington

Date: Mar 14 2010
Major: Unknown (This Major's Salary over time)
UMW has good things, and of course bad things.

Good things:

1) From a purely academic standpoint, UMW is considered the third best school in Virginia, behind UVa and W&M (sorry JMU and W&L, it's a fact according to ANY ranking profile).

2) Has an excellent reputation in the Washington D.C. area - MANY students go on to work in the State dept. CIA, etc.. This leads me to 3-

3) Employers and recruiters understand that UMW is a legit institution with an excellent presence in the Federal govt (it also helps that A LOT of government officials send their kids to UMW). For this reason alone, your application WILL be reviewed, and not immediately thrown in the trash. As a graduate from UMW with legitimate marks, you WILL be given a certain degree of respect and competitiveness when searching for jobs. DO NOT OVERLOOK THIS FACT!!!!

5) Although not as important, UMW has a truly beautiful campus, rivaled only by UVa (and maybe U of R).

6) UMW is hard. Some may find it frustrating that UMW does not get the national recognition it deserves - UMW is EASILY as academically demanding as UVa or Washington & Lee, yet W&L has more national recognition. However, the bottom line is that to anyone that matters, they understand UMW is absolutely legit.

and the BAD-

1) Parking is horrible here. I mean REALLY horrible.

2) UMW has a bone-head President. THANK GOD she resigned (aka told by BoV to get the hell out!). It is a blessing in disguise.

3) The people are not too diverse. Its a small university so its not an accurate description of the "real-world" I guess, but still you will be surrounded by, for the most part, highly intelligent and competitive students. This alone serves as a good buffer to the corporate real world.