Washington College

Date: May 02 2014
Major: History/Histories (art history/etc.) (This Major's Salary over time)
Check any news reports published recently, and you'll see all sorts of articles stating that small private colleges are struggling. Washington College is more than definitely one of them.

About 10 years ago, I would have encouraged people to go here. My sister was class of 2007 and she had a great experience. But since around 2010 or 2011, the school has gone into MAJOR decline and I would warn anyone going in that their good reputation does not come from its very recent history.
Basically, when the recession happened, fewer students were choosing expensive colleges like Washington, and they were getting fewer incoming students and less money. This is when the really horrible transition happened. When Michael Reiss came in around 2010, he completely ruined everything that had made the college great and turned it into a giant moneymaking machine. They no longer care about the individual value of students, and accept them based on their parents income than their intelligence. The thousands of dollars of tuition you pay does not go into ANYTHING academic, its piled into propaganda for the school and keeping everything spotless and perfect for the parents, while the dorms are falling apart.

Another important issue: do not go here if you have any issues with drug or alcohol use, because the school rules regarding them essentially do not exist. If you are uncomfortable with this, I highly recommend paying the extra money to live in Queen Anne's, which is the healthy living building. My experience in this dorm has been much better. I was in both Minta Martin and Kent last year, and in both dorms there's constant partying and people passing out in the halls and you can hardly walk across the hall to the bathroom on a weekend night without being approached by loony drunk people.

The school does not enforce rules on alcohol because they know that the kids or parents will be upset if a punishment occurs and they could possibly lose the student and their money. If a kid does something REALLY obviously bad, it goes to a student honor board made up of popular kids who are too scared to damage their reputation with their peers so everyone gets away with everything. It's a Hobbesian state of nature.

This school genuinely used to be a place of learning. It's a shame President Reiss has let it crumble into a scheme to rob people of their money. These last two years have had the lowest retention rate yet. They're tricking people, and its wrong.