George Mason University Top Questions

The most frequent student complaints are directed towards parking. Commutor and residences a like are agreeing that the construction on campus is causing unnessary problems, both with the campus' appearance and parking. Some even feel the construction is damaging their school "experience." And, I completely agree with them. I honestly do not understand why we need so many new buildings, but hey, they supposely know what they are doing.

School pride, especially with the basketball team is amazing! Events that are held on campus bring more pride and get people involved in organizations. Most of the events offer giveaways, prizes, and free food. Although Mason is not a typical college town across the street is a shopping center with a grocery store, movie theater (with student discount), restaurants (most take Mason Money), and bars. Fairfax City also offers shops, restaurants, bars, and local live music venues. The campus does feel like one big construction site and is growing faster and larger than most people want. The parking is the biggest problem we have, but the school does provide free transportation around Fairfax City and to the Metro.

GMU is a good size school during the week, but when the weekend comes you wonder if anyone is actually living on campus with you. Everyone leaves on the weekends and there isn't much to do on campus. Lots of people from outside the area have never heard of GMU or only know about it because of our basketball team. Campus is centered around the JC or Johnson Center and that's where I spend most of my time if I'm not in the field house for Lacrosse or in my dorm. There isn't much school pride, most likely because we don't have a football team and because we don't know what our mascot actually is. Campus is very pretty though and everything is quite new here so those amentities are very nice. You have to make your own fun and DC is only 25 minutes away. There are a lot of good restaurants in the area. Also all parties are off campus because of strict security on campus with drinking.

Size is just right. People react respectful when I tell them i go to GMU. Spend most my time in JC or Dorms. Not nessararly a "college towm". No controversy this year. Administration can be strict at times. A lot of school pride. Nothing unusual. Always remeber getting caught with to many people in my room. Biggest compliant is the drinking policy.

The administration is helpful but plagued by bureaucratic tendencies.

The best thing about GMU is its location. One thing i would change is that there isn't much parking. The size is just right, it would be nice if more people lived on campus. When i tell people i go to GMU, they immediately talk about basketball. Most of my time on campus is spent in my dorm and the JC. There is not a lot of school pride, i think it is because we don't have a football team. The most student complaints is that there is not enough parking and not enough food places on campus.

not much school pride unless the basketbll team gets lucky and makes it to the tournament. Definately not a college town

I think Mason is getting too large. After the the basketball team making it to the final four it seems like they're just letting everybody in and doing more and more construction and taking up room that is needed for students during school. I wish Mason was in a college town. This is such a large area and Mason is located in such a place where there isn't a certain area where you'll mainly find students.

The best thing about GMU is being close to DC. One thing I'd change would the parking lots..they get really overcrowded and the parking permits are expensive. But then again..so are all colleges. Mason is a good size..it has a huge student population but a smaller population living on campus which makes it more likely for you to see people you know daily. I spend most of my time on campus in the Johnson Center..the mall like designed center of campus where there's libraries, computers, and food. Fairfax isn't really a college town. School pride is growing..everyone loves the basketball team.

Mason is in a dynamic period, with a lot of rapid change. Some of it is positive, and some of it brings growing pains. On the good end, the administration has finally begun to figure out that we're not all commuters, and to actually have food and activities available on campus on the weekends. With our final four run in 2006 and our 2008 CAA championship, GMU has started to be better-recognized. I get fewer "George Mason? Where's that?" questions when I tell people where I attend now. After those basketball victories, applications flooded in as never before. The academic standards for incoming students were raised, and our ever-increasing student body demanded more on-campus housing. Which leads to the sad changes: when I first came here, much of the campus was forest, and wildlife was common--deer, racoons, foxes, all kinds of woodland creatures. Now many of those forests I loved have been chopped down to make room for a lot of new dorms and apartment-style living. There did not used to be a lot of school pride here, and it's still not the most enthusiastic group of students, although the recent basketball victories helped to change that too. My freshman year, I thought school pride was a myth. During our Final Four run, it was amazing how much different the campus dynamic felt. The campus never quite fully returned to its apathetic state, and the atmosphere again became electric when we were the CAA champions this year as well.