College of William & Mary - Williamsburg, Virginia

One of the best things about W&M is its manageable size: with about 5,000 undergraduates and 2,000 graduate students, it’s big enough so that students don’t feel claustrophobic but small enough so that students don’t feel overwhelmed. The College prides itself on the close contact between students and professors – rare for any university, but exceptionally rare for a public school. The campus is beautiful and has a distinct “ivy” feel to it, with buildings dating from the late seventeenth century. The town of Williamsburg, however, is not really a college town. It caters primarily to tourists rather than college students, but it does have excellent restaurants and a thriving cultural scene – and W&M students are probably unique in having an amusement park (Busch Gardens) down the street from their school. For a medium-sized university with a focus on undergraduate education, W&M has an extraordinary number of student clubs and organizations: more than 400 at last count. It’s no wonder that W&M students are so happy with their school.

Although W&M program’s are strong across the board, many students tend pursue pre-professional and professional majors such as business, and many students go to law and medical school. The school offers a wide range of programs, however, both in the liberal arts and in more specialized majors. Students can choose from programs in the Schools of Arts and Sciences, Business, and Education; interdisciplinary majors, many of which were originally created by students, also exist. Seniors may elect to write an honors thesis or pursue an extended research project related to their major. W&M actively supports undergraduate research and sponsors a number of fellowships for summer research, including a recently introduced $5,000 grant for students pursuing research related to their honors thesis. W&M also makes sure that its students are well-supervised: All entering students are automatically assigned a faculty advisor; when students declare their major, they are then assigned a major advisor.

The College of William and Mary occupies a unique place among American institutions of higher education: founded in 1698, it is the second-oldest university in the country (after Harvard, of course), and although its name conjures up images of an elite, private university, in reality William and Mary is a top-flight public school that competes heavily with the University of Virginia for the best in-state students. Although the university does admit graduate students, the real focus is on undergraduate education. Out of nearly seven thousand, students, about fifty-five hundred are undergrads, and the school boasts an 11:1 student to faculty ratio – almost unheard of for a public university. Admission, though, is highly selective: only about 30% of freshman applicants are accepted, and average SAT scores are around 2000, ACT 30. The school is consistently ranked among the best public universities in the country, and it is immensely proud of its age and status.