The College of William and Mary was ranked 1,377 out of 1,394 on College Prowler’s recent study of “most manageable workloads.”
The ranking is compiled based on class difficulty and the amount of time students dedicate to their work. College students provide reviews that are used to compile data for each school’s ranking on the list.
College Prowler is an online website created in 2006 that offers student reviews, opinions, impressions, experiences and rankings for college-searching students and parents.
“My dream in creating College Prowler was to build a resource that people can use with confidence,” College Prowler CEO and Co-Founder Luke Skurman said. “My own college experience taught me the importance of gaining true insider insight. After all, shouldn’t you hear about a school from the people who know it best?”
Students at the College have differing course loads, majors, credit hours, professors, stress levels and prior experiences that serve as varying factors that can refute or support this rank.
“My first semester has been a lot harder than high school,” Albert Chang ’17 said. “I dedicate much more of my time studying, and this has been the first time in my academic career that I feel like I am not good at math.”
For other freshmen, the freedom to pick a personalized schedule and course load has made the workload more manageable than high school.
“I am taking 13 credits with one club and a minor leadership position,” Jenny Rossberg ’17 said. “While I devote about the same time to work as I did in high school, I have much more time to devote to school. The workload is what you make it. You choose your class[es] and how you manage your time.”
At the College, some argue that there is a culture of commitment to academics and studying. Students, once outside the classroom, have the freedom to allocate any amount of time to the class.
“William and Mary kids dramatize that they push themselves too hard,” Rossberg said. “There are bragging rights to studying a lot, but in reality some actually do, and some do not.”
The ranking also takes class difficulty into account.
Government professor Jaime Settle teaches both introductory level courses and senior seminars, and said she hopes to make workloads manageable.
“As a newer professor, I have [to learn] as I go,” Settle said. “The goal of professors is not to make a student miserable, but rather, make a student successful. I am impressed when students commit to getting their assignments done by being proactive and seeing when rough times may be [coming]. If a student has more foresight at the beginning of a semester … a student can make his or her workload more manageable.”
