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UMW is a small school, with a very pretty campus, and some other good qualities. Central Park is located only a few miles from school and houses every store or restaurant you could ever want. It's not a "college town" and the college is actually pretty cut off from the surrounding community (not by walls, but just through lack of interaction). Academically it is very tough, though its name does not carry much weight outside of Virginia. There is not much school pride to speak of and no football team, or other big sport team to rally around (though basketball is pretty popular). Its biggest fault is the administration who are incompetent to say the least.

Academically, UMW is a very good school. The classes are challenging by anyone's standards, and this is reinforced by the fact that we are ranked #2 in academics in Virginia, above UVA and behind only William & Mary. The one problem is that the name "University of Mary Washington" doesn't carry nearly as much weight as the course load would suggest. Even in Virginia where it is a relatively well know college, it doesn't carry nearly the same weight as UVA or even V-Tech.

Registration for classes is a pain and poorly run, as are many things run by the administration. There are a lot of good teachers who are willing to work with you outside of class and are very understanding, though of course there are some who just plain suck. Most everything is 3 credits except for labs which are 4 (though there is a lot more work than one more measly credit), and transferring credits from other colleges even in Virginia is anything but easy.

The students are as i said before, are generally quite liberal. If you're more conservative or religious you may feel out of place, especially since this liberal sediment is readily present in the administration as well. However, there are strong Catholic, Baptist, and other Christian Centers located right next to campus. Just be ready to feel like the administration is completely out of touch with you, especially if you're coming from a Catholic/Christian school. Most students are fairly well off, and wear jeans, polos, t-shirts, sweats, ect. to class. Do be prepared for one or two students in every class who have bright pink hair or their hair in dreadlocks. And don't think that you're going to have some gourmet, or even decent food, because you're not. The two food services on campus close very early (one stops making new food at about 6:00 the other around 8:00) and are just barely edible. Many people move off campus and buy their own food as early as sophomore year.

There are a lot of clubs on campus, and there is a day every year where they all line Campus Walk so students can come by and sign-up. They could be anything from club soccer to the Women of Color, are all student run, and can apply for some money from the school (say $500 a year if you're lucky and a larger club). Sport wise we have some very good sports teams (Men's and Women's Tennis, Rowing, ect.) that are nationally ranked every year. Many people attend the basketball games of both sexes, as well as the soccer and to a lesser extent lacrosse. There is a wonderful, new tennis complex with 6 indoor courts and 12 outdoor courts. And though our tennis teams, specifically the women's, have been ranked in the top 20 for the last 2 years (this year we were 6 and made it to the Elite 8), they have very few fans outside family. This is the case with many of our teams outside the big three.

In addition, the administration got rid of our Rowing Teams at the beginning of this year, though we finished the previous season ranked #7 in the nation. The problem was legitimate (loss of their training waters), but the bigger issue was that the administration made almost no attempt to reconcile the problem until a wealthy relative of one of the players stepped in. They were completely content to simply get rid of a program that was not as "popular" as say basketball, regardless of how hard the players worked and how much better they were on a national level (our Men's Basketball Team struggles to make the tournament each year). And as i mentioned before, though basketball is pretty popular, there are only two sets of bleachers in the gym (on one side), and no football or other team to rally around.

The biggest activity among the students is drinking. Not to say that this isn't the case all around the country, but on Friday/Saturday nights a good portion of the student body regardless of class, is at one of the sporting houses or other upperclass houses drinking. And of course the cops come around about an hour and a half into the party to break it up anyway. And drinking is not simply reserved to the weekends, as the sports players in my hall were obserdly intoxicated on at least 2 weekdays every week as well. Though i was a Junior living with an RA, they were all freshmen. This may not bother you, which is fine, but the housing situation will.

This year there are over 150 students who don't have housing yet for next fall (4,000 students go to Mary Wash, though a great deal of them live off campus), and will probably have the same fate as the students in their situation this past year, who were placed in a hotel until Residents Life 'forced triples' (putting three people in a room designed for two, which by the way are already "cozy" to begin with"). Registration of housing is much worse than for classes, and the dorms themselves are old and many have 'roach' problems.

Being a UMW student myself, I'm not sure exactly how we are perceived by the surrounding community. I do know that there are jokes about how UMW stands for 'University of Mostly Whites', but other than that I'm not sure.

I mean yes in the sense that there are very few non-white people on campus, but the administration does tend to make a big deal about diversity. One thing that is true about our students, is that for the most part they are very liberal. There is a decent size 'gay' community on campus (though they would make you believe it's bigger than it actually is), and the students, faculty, and administration seem to try and prove just how "progressive" they are on a regular basis.

The reason I spent over an hour filling out this survey was not to get back at Mary Washington; that would be completely pointless and a waste of my time. The reason I did this was to warn you about a school that I would not attend again for anything in the world. Everything about Mary Washington sucks, especially when compared to all the other schools in Virginia, not one of which has the vast amount of issues Mary Wash does.

Though academically we are a tough school, if your diploma doesn't carry any more weight than other schools that are many times easier, what is the point? Most of the courses are more theoretical than applied anyway so you're not even getting better prepared for the job market.

Housing is a pain in the ass to register for, the dorms themselves are old and worn down, and the new ones aren't much better. Either you're going to have hall bathrooms, no AC (most dorms don't), be on the opposite side of campus from the other dorms, or be far away from the academic buildings. And the food that goes along with living on campus is just gross. The "all-you-can-eat" building (Seacobeck), has horridly low quality of most of their food, and is only making food about 6 hours a day, not to mention the fact that if you arrive even at 6:30 most of the food is gone, and what's left is old and worse than before. The other food service (Eagle's Nest) is better, but it's expensive and they only allot you $4 a meal, which gets you a small sandwich, or two slices of pizza and a watered down soda. And if you mention late-night, I will stab you in the jaw (a Dane Cook reference if you don't know).

In addition, there is little school pride on campus, few sporting events that have decent attendance, and the administration couldn't find their ass with two hand and a map. If you have to deal with any administrator at all, prepare for a long battle. They are supremely incompetent, condescending, and no help to any student. Ever. I kid you not, at every turn they do their best to make their students lives harder than they already are.

Now you may think I have over exaggerated about some things and there's nothing I can do about that besides tell you what a waste of almost two hours now, that would have been for me. But at the very least, believe me about this: if you are a student who is sick, disabled, or requires accommodations in any way...DO NOT GO TO THIS SCHOOL!!! If you're healthy, fine; dig your own grave. But if you're sick, not only should you not expect any help in the least from the school and certainly not from disability services, you should expect college to be many times harder for you than high school was. I do not have enough time to mention all the ways they have fought to keep from helping me in the least, even with my parents coming down to speak to multiple Deans and letters from all of my specialists (don't think I'm some paraplegic either, I guarantee I would whoop you in a 1-1 game of basketball), but I will give you a simple example. After all the paper work it takes to get classroom accommodations, the accommodations say that they are in the end up to the teacher to decide if they want to allow them, and the administration will not interfere in the classroom in any way, not even to tell the teacher "Hey this kid really was sick this semester, could you try and help him out?" What's even more ironic is the fact that if you have some lesser handicap like you need help note taking, or you need extra time on exams, they have no problem doing their job and telling the teachers that they need to do this. But God have mercy on you if you get Cancer, or MS, or even Ulcerative Colitis, because they couldn't give help you any fucking less if they tried.

I tried to give you some of the up sides of Mary Wash in the first few areas, but I really don't see that many, which is why it seems so one-sided. I can't keep you from going to Mary Wash, and I wouldn't think less of you if you did, but just keep this one thing in mind: Last year a national survey was taken of almost all colleges and universities in the US. The administration began porrading around the fact it was considered one of the prettiest campus in the country. They put it on their website, brochures and in the alumni maganize. What they didn't mention was the headline of the student run newspaper (the Bullet) regarding another result from the same nation-wide survey: "Mary Washington has the third most depressed students in the county."

Not a sermon, just a thought ;).