The University of Richmond
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The University of Richmond - Comments and Student Experiences | |||||||||||||||||||
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If you are reading this review, you probably do not know a lot about the school and are trying to figure out whether to apply or attend. I am not from the East Coast and applied largely on a whim. I ultimately attended because I got an unbeatable financial aid offer and my family was unwilling to spend more money then the best offer I received. I imagine that many individuals who are reading this review are also considering this school for financial reasons.
If you are unfamiliar with the school and do not have a family tie in, I STRONGLY urge you not to attend this school. As I will explain, the college experience I had is totally divorced from the college experience of my friends. Only those individuals who seemed to have a strong knowledge of the school's atmosphere beforehand seem to get a positive experience from this school because the way this school markets its self is totally disconnected from the reality of the school.
Below are the positives of the school:
Professors: I cannot fault the professors of the school. If you are academically inclined, they will work to make your experience at the school pleasant and meaningful. You must take the extra effort to get a good academic experience as I will explain later. If nothing else, the academic departments of this school do a generally good job of hiring smart and caring people. It is worth noting, that its hard to say if these professors are superior to the average professor at a small liberal arts school of similar ranking.
Campus Aesthetic: Its a beautiful campus. If you go there, you will notice that the school takes great pride in its appearance.
The above is in my opinion the only things that are wholly positive. Below are negatives and/or things that bear mentioning to the prospective student:
Student Body (interests): A lot of the problem with this school revolves around the student body. If you are a particular kind of person, this school will work great for you, for others, it will not. This is not to say that everyone at the school is categorically terrible; I had many friends at Richmond but the overriding culture and dominant student way of life is so pervasive that total escape is impossible.
This student body has one principal interest, getting drunk until they blackout and/or can barely move. I have never visited a school, lived in a city, or been anywhere where drinking is so important to the student body. I drank in high school, I partied in high school, but the level of drinking and partying blows my mind. It is not uncommon for individuals to drink heavily during the week and then party every day of the weekend. Its not 'casual' or 'social' drinking either, its drinking to get hammered beyond belief. Students never really seemed to be interested in doing something that didn't involve drinking. Freshman year, me and others not from the area could not believe the level of drinking at this school. Its not an issue that students drink, its an issue that it seems to be the only thing that people are interested in. People have no real interest in leaving the campus, they just stay on campus and drink heavily in the dorms and on campus apartments. If you do not love to drink and party, be aware that you will immediately notice you are in the minority at Richmond.
Administration: I had almost entirely negative experiences with the administration of the school. This broadly ties into the the issue of Richmond misrepresenting its self. The administration claims that its worried about excessive drinking and underage drinking, but I never got this impression. I am not going to go into specifics because I do not want the school to know who I am, this should tell you something about the school that I would worry about this. Because the administration sells one policy, but in my opinion seemed to radically diverge from this stated belief, it seems to lead to students like myself picking this school when they would have otherwise not attended. More generally, administration seemed unresponsive to my needs and I have many friends who also had negative experiences for one reason or another.
Student Body (personality & disposition): A lot of students here are really disgusting people. This is true of any school, but I cannot help but feel like I have never been somewhere with more depraved individuals. I struggled to relate and be friendly with individuals who were so disdainful of; the working class, intellectualism, alternative political views, and more so than anything else, people who are unattractive. There is no group more heavily discriminated against here then the unattractive. I am in shape and so this discrimination was not ever (overtly) directed at me, but the comments I hear at this school about unattractive people are extremely vicious and petty. I would strongly discourage overweight individuals, especially women, from attending because of the overt hostility I have seen them face.
Academics: I have a mixed opinion about academics. You can take great classes here from great people and learn a lot. That said, it is very possible to graduate from this school taking exceedingly easy classes and doing very little work. Be aware, you need to take charge of your academic destiny here and actively pick more challenging classes if this is important to you. I have been in 300 level classes where I did none of the reading, played video games in class half the time, and still pulled off an A. This is not an uncommon experience for those who enter this school at the top of the student body. For students who find their grades/SAT scores to be below average, classes may be more appropriately rigorous, but for the average student it seemed like few students struggled to at LEAST get a B.
Living: A huge portion of the school lives in dorms or the on campus apartments. I think this is a negative feature of the school. It leads to few people going off campus and little interest in the broader community. The dorms vary extremely in quality. Some dorms smell terrible (cough cough Marsh Hall when I attended) and are just overall disgusting. Others are quite nice and in my opinion top notch. One complaint, especially for male students, that many of my friends and me had, is that it is not a quiet environment. There was a lot of noise late at night and it never seemed like my RA gave a crap what was going on. RAs in general didn't seem to care much about what went on which for some will be a positive and some a negative.
Food: The on campus food is tolerable. Friends who were vegetarians said it was hard, but for the average person it will suffice.
The bottom line:
If you like partying hard and can deal with having little campus culture diversity, this school may work well for you.
If you are an intellectual, your time here may be hard.
If you are overweight, you will stand out.
If you got into this school, my guess is, you could probably do better and pick a school that has a better campus culture and will accommodate more diverse types of people and lifestyles.
Like at any college you will go to, I'd say 90% of what will determine whether or not you have fun is the core group of friends you make there. If you fail at meeting and becoming friends with new people freshmen year, you are going to have a MISERABLE time at college regardless of where you are. That said, UR has a reputation (backed by the negative reviews on here) as being an elitist rich-kid school full of arrogant, stuck up people. That is not true at all. While yes, you will find some your share of pricks here, that is true of anywhere. As someone who has been to a 25,000 person public university and now a 3000 person, small private one, trust me on that. You will meet people from all walks of life at UR- many people here are on large financial aid packages and are just simply your average middle class. There are many people who have a lot of money as well, but they are not the majority by any means.
The ranting about the social life being controlled by frats and sororities is also complete garbage. Many people don't even go to frat parties with any regularity after freshman year because they are 80% freshmen (so unless you are just trying to find an easy freshmen hookup, there isn't much else to do at them unless you are in the frat and know a bunch of people there). About half the people here are involved in Greek life, and the other half aren't. I have many friends who are in Greek organizations and many who aren't, and both enjoy it here. I am not in Greek life and I still party and have a good time as much anyone else. Whoever was making comparisons to high school is also way offbase. This is college like anywhere else; the only similarity to high school is that the school is small enough that by the time you are a junior you will probably at least know who a large number of people in your class are.
I'd say that most people here fall into 2 categories, and you can have a good time here doing either:
1. Greeks
2. Non-Greeks who have a close group of friends that they hang out with and drink with most of the time
The bottom line is that you will see what you want to see when you come here. If you go out looking for preppy-dressed guys in khaki's and pink polos or girls in sundresses and heels going to class, you will find them. If you come here looking for Lexuses, Audi's, BMWs, etc. in the parking lots, you will find them. But if you also look for "normally" dressed people and not-luxury brand cars, you will see that there are many of them here, too.
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However, my main complaint about this place is the lack of community and school spirit. Despite their recent success, most still don't REALLY care about the football and basketball teams like people would elsewhere. The overall feeling of this place is that of a large group of people who just happen to be taking classes and living together; there is no larger sense of unity like you would find at bigger schools who live and die with their sports teams. If the college sports experience is REALLY important to you, don't come here.
Also, while the food is pretty decent, there are only 2-3 dining options on campus which have pretty limiting hours (especially on weekends), and they get VERY repetitive after a while. I eat off campus food a few times a week to get around that because you WILL get tired of the main dining hall.
One more thing that is annoying is the "Campus bubble." Since almost everyone lives on campus, there is no pressing need to leave other than to eat out. Richmond is a great city with all kinds of things to do (especially once you are 21 and can hit up the bars/clubs downtown), but a lot of people here rarely ever venture off campus. Make sure you get out some, otherwise you will be missing out on many great things this city has to offer. Housing quality varies from dorm to dorm. The apartments offered to upperclassmen are starting to show their age and are honestly too small (a small room in the front, a small kitchen, and a small living room downstairs with 2 2-person bedrooms upstairs). Also, note that you will never have a bedroom to yourself here unless you manage to get a single room, of which there are not many.
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