The University of Mary Washington

Ok. I've been planning on writing this for a while but now I finally have the time and will to go through with this. I transferred out last summer and I have to say that was by a huge margin the best thing I have done in my entire life. A life which includes travelling to over ten countries on four continents, winning academic and athletic honors, and watching the Miami Heat lose to the Dallas Mavericks. Transferring was hard in and of itself since academics are ridiculously hard at UMW and the coursework is unbelievably well ridiculous so maintaining a good enough GPA to transfer is a challenge. You'd think you were actually going to UVA or W&M with the type ofcoursework they give out. But noooo, this is UMW. And just being perfectly honest, the majority students here aren't really on that level of smart. This creates a discrepancy(between performance level required for success in this University(which should be to get a high enough GPA to transfer) and actual performance.

Another thing is the diversity which is severely lacking. Pretty much all white people (Btw i'm a minority just throwing that out there). Even for the white students, I'm pretty sure it gets boring hanging around white people everyday everywhere in the library, in class- your professor, your RA,etc. Nothing against anyone. Its just that going from UMW to a school which is top ten nationally in the United States in terms of diversity really opened my eyes up to what a college really should look like. People from all over the globe - from Singapore to Sweden to Sudan to Seychelles- this is really what I expected from college

Another thing I really hated was the size. Incredibly small for a college- just 4000 undergrads
And I know some guy reading this might be tempted to come here because of the female:male ratio. No bro juust no! Not to sound like a douchebag but the girls are for the most part nothing to write home about and that's putting it mildly. A lot of lesbians too which is two girls cancelled out. And besides wherever you go, if you have sufficient confidence and attractiveness, then it really doesnt matter what that ratio is. And for the girls reading this, even though I might be breaking guy code by saying this, the truth is you're probably going to be outnumbered if you're interested in any guy you might be interested in who happens to be single. I remember an incident my freshman year: one of my friends was a junior and his girlfriend, a freshman, actually got into multiple physical altercations with another girl and her roomate who lived in the guys building over him. That's lame

What else? Food - Food is not terrible contrary to what you might read here. It really just depends on what you were expecting. Cafeteria food wherever you go is never going to be like dining at the Ritz Carlton so this is one place I wouldnt particularly "fault" UMW. That being said, their food is average.

In terms of social life, this has been said before but it really is true. You really do want to be on a team or some sort of "group" to really make it work at UMW to the degree it should be at college. There's also a pretty silly fake frat here. Dont get involved.

Oh and Fredericksburg is a miserable little city whose residents really dont appreciate the fact that there are college students in their town so there you go

Now this isnt to say that no one should go here. If you're from VA, MD, NY, NJ,etc looking to save money and really have no real problem with the aforementioned, then have a go.I really cant blame UMW though for accepting me into their school. I was more than qualified and I was the one who should have done more homework into what exactly I was getting into. I hope you do the same.

1st Year Male -- Class 2018

Check the # of sex offenders who live with in a 1 mile radius of the school. That should be enough to make you not want to go here. Also check the schools food safety inspection lol

I never realized how dumb people are until I came here. It is very rare to find someone intelligent at this school. The fact that the school has a +80% acceptance rate says everything...they accept anyone (cuz no one wants to go here) and every one transfers out. After your first semester, the next semester it will seem half the population disappeared cuz everyone transferred from here.

This school is extremely cliquey and very high school like. You have all of these clubs, quidditch (sp?), yarn club, running club, rugby etc. People here only hang out with their clubs. It is very HS like because you goto class, you go back to your dorm and generally surf the internet with the crappy browser speed because everyone here is very antisocial, odd, and or ususally their is nothing to do here.

People will say there is "no greek life" but that is a lie or the person has no idea what they are talking about...which verifies the fact people here do not get out enough if they go here and don't even know they exist. There are 2 frats here and a sorority. 1 frat has been here for about 20 years...psi upsilon. They have a bad rep for drugging girls, drug usage poor grades, etc. They are very small because no one really likes them. Then there is Kappa Sigma which is the largest frat and seem to be a good groupd of guys. Greek life is stupid, but its stupider to say it doesn't exist here.

The food here sucks. bathrooms and dorms are gross.
Career services is unhelpful and just tells you to check usa jobs.
Heres my best advice to you:

1) do not go here.
2) do not listen to a word a tour guide says to you. Some of them are paid and they have a way of spinning things to trick students to go here (cuz the school is losing so many students) but students end up coming here and leaving pissed cuz they were lied to.Hope I saved a few students from coming to this horrible school. Literally, cannot think of a redeeming feature...campus is beautiful..minus the construction that wakes you up at 6 am every morning. that's about it.

4th Year Female -- Class 2015

Perceived Campus Safety: D+, Education Quality: F