The College of William and Mary

Date: Mar 22 2016
Major: Neuroscience/Cognitive Science (This Major's Salary over time)
I remember reading these reviews religiously when I was trying to make my decision about where to attend, so I will try to make this as helpful as possible. First off, I LOVE William and Mary. I have learned so much in each of my classes and have met so many amazing people here that I would not dream to go anywhere else.I think the average person here is a bit of an overachiever but also has such a big heart and values social time and clubs as much as academics.

Academics—The academics here are top notch and, most importantly, are recognized by employers and graduate programs as such. I have taken a range of classes from science to the humanities and expected to find the humanities to be a waste of my time. Rather, in my intro to linguistics course, we actually learned how to make our own websites and various other applicable skills in addition to linguistics. I have been really pleased overall to find that no class is ever so easy that it is not worth my money. The academics are definitely challenging here, and the people that come to W&M want that focus on academics over partying. The professors are so accessible that I really don't feel like it should be too challenging for people that get in as long as they are willing to put in the work to take advantage of the resources available (free calc tutoring, office hours, review sessions etc).

Social—My favorite part about William and Mary has been the social dynamic. Being placed in all freshmen dorms allows nearly every freshman to find a group of friends within their dorm immediately. I did random housing selection and my roommate is my best friend. As someone that does not drink, I was definitely worried that I would feel excluded in college. However, at William and Mary, I have only encountered people that are incredibly accepting and never pressure me into anything I don't want to do. I still get to go out to parties on the weekends, however I also have so many other options. AMP (an organization on campus) puts on activities every weekend from making your own soap to laser tag on the sunken gardens to comedy shows to concerts. I have never felt left out being non Greek and being a non drinker, and I think that is something very special about our campus. I love that I can go out to a frat party one night and stay in and watch a Disney movie with friends the next.

I feel like those are the most important factors of a college to consider. Apart from that, I love the campus, student body size, and sense of community here. My only big complaint is the food. Sodexo sucks at providing vegetarian options, but that's a problem common to almost every school our size. To finish up, my favorite part about campus is that everyone is proud to be here. It makes the William and Mary name mean that much more in the real world and makes the sense of community on campus even stronger. If you want more information, contact anyone you can find that goes here—anyone would be happy to rave about W&M