Hate It or Love It

Introduction
If you're considering UVM, I would make sure that you are prepared for very cold and windy winters and dealing with the nightmare that is living on this campus. I personally chose UVM because I'm from Southern Vermont and it was a moderate (but still distant enough) distance from home, but I do wish I'd spent more time looking around.

Not that Burlington isn't a great city. There is so much to do downtown and everything is accessible on foot. I just personally haven't found UVM as welcoming as the city at large. People who like to ski or snowboard or smoke a lot of weed always seem to love it here.

Campus Life and Social Life
There are lots of opportunities for participation in sports on competitive and intramural levels here. If you want to get involved, it is relatively easy and fun.

Now the good stuff. Partying. It's a highlight of Burlington, because there are many people willing to open up their house to you and usually it's a good time. As a word of caution, the local police have started to crack down in the area. I personally have never gotten a drinking ticket in my two years here but many of my friends have gotten ticketed for noise violations after throwing a loud party. There are a lot of fun things to do in the area besides drinking. Lots of shopping downtown and in South Burlington, and also plenty of city events-- we had a great Mardi Gras parade and there are always events and activities going on in the area. Advertisement
Academics
The problem with academics here is the size of the school. We aren't big enough to have a lot of specialized departments, but we're too big to have a lot of one-on-one relationships with professors. Class sizes tend to be large, but thin out a bit the older/further along you are in school. The more specialized, the smaller the class. Workload is standard and so is inflation, which is to say it's hard to get below a B-. On the negative side, I haven't had one professor who has really made an impact on me thus far. There are a few professors who are just awful. But you know, I guess that's typical of any University. I'm just saying if you want a really enriching education, I wouldn't recommend UVM.

Student Body
We have a wide range of kids, but I'd say we've got two or three types that stand out:

(1) Former weekend warriors from Connecticut, Jersey, NY and Massachusetts who come here for the skiing, are usually very wealthy, and are NOT terribly friendly. It's hard to like these people when they're walking around in Seven jeans and a North Face coat with their Sugarbush ski pass hanging off the zipper. Did they use their parents' plastic to purchase these goods? Likely.

(2) Hippies, complete with dreadlocks, overalls, birkenstocks, the works. The problem is, only half of them are real hippies. The rest are trustafarians, a term probably unique to UVM, where these so-called hippies are not-so-secretly still living off of their parents' and grandparents' earnings.

(3) Easygoing Vermonters. Occasionally you get a Westerner and they are usually pretty similar to the standard Vermonter or Maineiac.

In Closing...
UVM will rip you off whenever they can. You have to pay extra for gym classes which are required, you have to pay lab fees for art classes, plus paying for the actual tools (paintbrushes, etc.) Parking passes are $245 and you aren't guaranteed a space.

Residential life is NOT accomodating. As an incoming Freshman, you may get placed with a Sophomore, Junior, or even Senior as a roommate. I have emailed complaints to ResLife and they did not respond. UVM is also in the process of a lot of expansion which can be seen as both positive and negative. More students means more people in your classes and a crowded campus. In my dorm, some freshman were forced to live in the lounge. However, more opportunities are opening up with the greater amounts of funding that the school is getting.

It does seem though, that President Fogel is overly focused upon this expansion as a way to attract new applicants as opposed to accomodating new students.