StingRhea - 17 March 2007 07:36 AM
Ozzy, what did you think of it, if you don’t want to post it here send me a private message. I’m seriously considering going there for my undergraduate degree. It is one of my top 4 or 5 (the others being U of Texas, Oxford - we’ll see how I like it there this summer, and possibly an ivy league) tell me about it, what was your major? Thanks.
I absolutely love it there. You can’t beat Charlottesville for a location, it’s no doubt one of the top couple of college towns in the country. It’s a relatively small town (50,000 people I believe, with the surrounding county having ~100,000). This means that you get the small town feel but have some of the resources of a larger school. For example, there is a great downtown mall where they bricked and closed off a street to just allow pedestrians. There are all local stores, restaurants, and bars along this outdoor mall, and on weekends all kinds of vendors in the middle of it. They also do a Fridays at Five series during the summer with live music there. On the other hand, there are still your large strip malls with your usual chain stores and restaurants (Circuit City, Best Buy, Lowes, Walmart, Staples, Chili’s, Ruby Tuesday, etc…) if you like that. The weather in Charlottesville is also quite good, it’s always very hot for the first month of the school year or so, but then you get a great long fall, and a mild winter (you will probably get a little snow each year, but then some days during the winter it will be 60-70 degrees). Spring starts in about mid-February, and it doesn’t get real hot until after the school year is over.
Then there’s the “corner” area which is all students and has the student bars, restaurants, shops, late night food places, etc… This area is right next to campus, and is also right near all the fraternities and sororities on Rugby Rd. As far as social life, as a first year (yes, if you go there you call people First Years, Second Years, etc. because Jefferson didn’t believe anyone was ever a “Senior” in knowledge) I pretty much went to frat parties. They are free, with free beer, and have plenty of first year girls. If you have an id, you can go to bars also, but I didn’t. Second year I was sick of frat parties, so I only went to ones that were at my friends frats, and the rest of the time did apartment parties and house parties. Third and fourth year was more bars and house parties.
I don’t know if your into sports at all, but UVa is decent (not great) at the major sports. Football games are a ton of fun (as is tailgating before and afterwards). It’s not quite the same as an SEC school, but still fairly big time. We’re in the ACC conference, which is the best conference year in and year out for basketball, and we usually sit around the middle of the conference. However, we got a new coach 2 years ago, just opened a new gorgeous arena, won the ACC regular season this year, and won our first tourney game yesterday. For the non-major sports, we are actually quite good. We are perenially in the top 4-5 teams in the country for Mens and Womens soccer and lacrosse. Our baseball team is also getting pretty good and we have one of the best stadiums in the country for both baseball and lacrosse/soccer. Finally, all sporting events are free for students to attend.
The school is somewhat southern (at least for me, coming from MA), but not nearly as much as an SEC school (Georgia, etc…). It is also fairly preppy, but I don’t know whether you care about that or not (I didn’t/don’t).
As far as the size of the school, it’s about 13,000 undergrad, and another 5,000 graduate students, so it’s not a small school, but it’s also not a huge school by any means. I liked it because it’s not small enough where you know everyone or get bored of people, but at the same time you recognize people and you feel like your part of a tight nit school and class. It’s a nice compromise in my opinion. It also allows you to get some large lecture classes with the very popular and well known professors, but most classes are smallish (< 50 students). In addition, I don’t think I ever had a class that was taught by a TA which was nice.
I was in the Engineering school, and majored in Systems Engineering. For the most part I liked my major and the classes within my major. I had some AP credits which allowed me to take some other cool, interesting classes like Intro to Business Law (fantastic), History of Espionage (also great), Micro and Macro Economics (the Micro prof. is very well known and a great prof.). Systems Engineering was good because it is somewhat technical, but not like EE or CS, and most people hiring in IT type consulting jobs love to hire Systems Engineers. I know the Comm School (business) is also very well rated. The College of Arts & Sciences (arts and crafts) is also quite good.
So, as you can tell from my epicly long post (I’m pushing against the character limit at this point), I loved UVa and would highly, highly recommend it to anyone else. The campus is absolutely gorgeous, the people are great, the weather is great, and the city/town is great. Even at out of state tuition it’s a bargain for what your getting (and compared to any private schools).
Obviously if your thinking about UVa, Oxford, or Ivy League, then you have very good grades, extra curriculars, SATs, etc. so congrats on that, and good luck with the application process. Let me know if you have any specific questions about the school.
