University of Mary Washington Top Questions

Mary Washington offers a wide variety of social offerings from $1 movies to concerts (Lupe Fiasco and Plain White T's were some of the more recent offerings) to Comedians (Nick Thune and Kevin Cease among others) to campaign rallies (former President Clinton came during the Spring 2008 semester). The environment is generally one of safety however there have been a couple thefts of laptops in recent years. I personally never bothered locking my dorm while I lived on campus and never had a problem.

There is none!

Very boring, except for about one good event per year.

I found that I was at fault because most of my friends from freshman year transferred, and thus I was left with finding almost an entirely new group of friends come sophomore year. Most people make friends through their freshman hall and that is great-except the dorms are organized with same-sex floors, and halls so it is harder to make friends with the oposite sex. By joining clubs and organizations you make friends as well, but unfortunately I worked a lot on school projects through my departments, taught in elementary schools and worked outside of school and thus lost interest/time come junior and senior year for all the clubs I was involved in during my first two years on campus. I also stayed close friends with people who also moved off campus, like myself. I feel there is a big difference in the people who live on and who live off campus-with how we spend time outside of class, and also the amount we party. Because there are strict one-strike policies on drugs and alcohol on campus, most of the highly social/party-goers move off campus as soon as they can. I was a RA for my second year to help pay for school, and then moved off campus junior and senior year so that I would be able to work more, and also to party! The party scene is lacking, the bars around town are catered to the locals (named Frednecks) more than the students, and I found that we were such a small party-going group that it became a bit too clostrophobic come senior year. I did have fun once I turned 21 and could travel to Richmond and DC for the club/bar scene, but it was unfortunate that I had to leave Fredericksburg to have the most fun! There is no greek scene-which I liked.

Intramural sports / club sports at mary wash are really fun! It's a great way to meet people and the students who work for campus recreation are really great. There's no football team at mary wash but we do have a mens and womens rugby team. The womens team is really good and has gone to nationals 7 or 8 times and has won states pretty much every year. Rugby games are fun to watch, and the people who play rugby are fun to drink with!

In the list of suggested topics, the question How important are frats/sororities? struck out to me. Mainly because there is no Greek life at Mary Washington (some may argue there is a fake frat, but that's an entirely different story). UMW does not recognize any fraternities or sororities on or off campus. To me, this was actually a good thing. Students don't have to worry about the hazing and craziness associated with the Greek life. Many incoming freshmen looking to party are deterred by this, because Mary Washington isn't your typical party school. If someone wants, they can find what they're looking for, but there is a relieved pressure without the Greek scene.

I had a great time at Mary Wash, even though it is not know as a party school. The teams really joined together in terms of parties and special events, and that is what I enjoyed most. The atheltic teams became a sort of Greek life on campus, where each team had several houses. Also, the bar scene in Fredericksburg is pretty good, I only wish there were more closer to campus.

We have hundreds of clubs here at UMW, ranging from the Asian Student Association to the Trek Club, the Ultimate Frisbee club to the Gun club, and the Performing Arts Club to the SALSA club. As for our athletics, we are a competitive NCAA Division III institution that competes in the Capital Athletic Conference. The past two years, our women's bball team made it to the NCAA tournament. We finished in third place nationally in 2006 and in 2007 we hosted the first two rounds. In addition, our swim team and tennis team consistently sends people to nationals. Two years ago, our baseball team had one player go to a AAA team for the Giants (just to name a few things). Even if you are not coming here to be an athlete, there is still much sporting opportunity. We have a ton of student run sport clubs that compete at different schools almost every month, and our Campus Recreation and Intramural program is growing each year. We are currently building a new multi-purpose, artificial turf field for things like flag-football, soccer, softball, etc. One of the best things at UMW is our homecoming. Although we do not have a football team, we do have a homecoming soccer game. It sounds lame at first, but it is one of the few times where literally every student comes together to show school spirit, support our athletes, and just party all day long. We don't have any recognized fraternities and sororities, but this does not phase our social life and weekend plans. Fredericksburg is big enough where there is much to do and explore. We are not a huge party school, but if you hang out with the right people you won't be bored every weekend. A great thing about our school too is our campus. It is small enough where you can't get lost, but big enough where you can easily find a spot by one of our fountains or Ball Circle and just sit down and relax during those nice Spring days.

I am heavily involved in the Catholic Campus Ministry and I think that it is a wonderful group affiliated with UMW. I like activities on campus especially "Cheep Seats." I think that events on campus like guest speakers are not as popular and maybe need to be publized more. There is a lot of things to do during the weekend if you want to find things to do. I think students meet their friends through their dorms and through their classes or clubs. I think the city of Fredericksburg plays an important part in giving students things to do on the weekend. There are plenty of wonderful things to do downtown and they offer a lot of great things for students.

UMW is not too big on sports or frats so we find other ways of entertaining ourselves. A lot of what we do is sponsored by the clubs on campus. Some activities are doughnut sales, historic attire balls/dances/banquets, ultimate frisby, one dollar movies every weekend etc. Also, especially freshman year, most of the friends you make live in your dorm so you'll have hall parties, go out to the mall, walk downtown, do whatever. There's not too much drinking at UMW but it does happen, there are usually parties going on every Thursday or on the weekends.