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I've been to the George Mason campus many times. GMU is called a "commuter campus" but the label is misleading because it doesn't feel like one. Walk around, it still very much feels like a typical American university with dorms, restaurants, pedestrian walk-ways, etc...
The biggest advantage of GMU is the proximity to DC. The social/political/professional scene at GMU definitely revolves around DC. You will be in class with students who intern for the State Department, CIA, and every other government agency you can think of, in addition to the thousands of non-profit agencies who are based in DC. And if anything "big" happens in the news, you will feel as if you are the center of the universe. There are free shuttles that will take you to the Vienna metro stop and back. Even at 3am in the morning on Fridays and Saturdays, to take your drunk @ss back home after a night of pub-crawling in the District. DC nightlife is great.
In addition, Fairfax itself is not a sleepy little suburb. It's a beehive of activity as a conduit of the Northern Virginia/DC metroplex. Plenty of malls, restaurants, movie theaters, condos, development, in Fairfax alone.
I've been to the George Mason campus many times. GMU is called a "commuter campus" but the label is misleading because it doesn't feel like one. Walk around, it still very much feels like a typical American university with dorms, restaurants, pedestrian walk-ways, etc...
The biggest advantage of GMU is the proximity to DC. The social/political/professional scene at GMU definitely revolves around DC. You will be in class with students who intern for the State Department, CIA, and every other government agency you can think of, in addition to the thousands of non-profit agencies who are based in DC. And if anything "big" happens in the news, you will feel as if you are the center of the universe. There are free shuttles that will take you to the Vienna metro stop and back. Even at 3am in the morning on Fridays and Saturdays, to take your drunk @ss back home after a night of pub-crawling in the District. DC nightlife is great.
In addition, Fairfax itself is not a sleepy little suburb. It's a beehive of activity as a conduit of the Northern Virginia/DC metroplex. Plenty of malls, restaurants, movie theaters, condos, development, in Fairfax alone.
Thanks for all the info!
Still can't decide between the 3.
Roanoke has such a beautiful campus and a community feel, however, it is far away from DC and has a sub-par reputation.
Goucher is close to both Baltimore and DC (and some civil war sites) and has a community, however, it is not very well known and not that close to DC.
GMU is close to DC and has good history department, however, it does have a lot of commuters and less of a community feel...
GMU may have more students, but Goucher and Roanoke have more of a community feel. Still like Goucher more than the others.
No, I meant 6,000 students living on campus. It's got 21,000 undergrads plus another 12,500 graduate students. It's a massive school. However, even if only 20% of students live on campus, that's still four times as many students as Goucher has. I see that Goucher has just under 1500 students and 85% live on campus, so that's 1275 students on the Goucher campus vs 6000 at GMU. So it would depend on how the GMU campus is configured (that is, how spaced out are dorms, where are common areas located, etc.), but it sounds like even if there are many, many commuter students, GMU is capable of having even MORE vibrant campus life.
Why don't you visit each one for yourself, and search for student reviews to determine which one is a better fit. I'm sure there are content and happy students on each campus.
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