Uni in the USA: A British Guide to American Universities and Colleges > All New: Colleges and Universities Added in 2009 > University of Washington (new review!)
Seattle, Washington
www.washington.edu
Undergraduates: 28,000
Graduates: 11,000
How many UW students does it take to change a light bulb?
3 - One to use Amazon to purchase the new bulb, one to make the coffee and one to put the grunge records on the turntable.
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The 39,000 students at The University of Washington (UW - "U-Dub" to the locals) have life pretty good. Indeed, with a massive, leafy campus in the midst one of the coolest and most culturally interesting hubs of US society, life would be rewarding and stimulating here even if it weren't one of the best public schools in the country. It's hard not to see the city of Seattle as the overwhelmingly best reason to choose UW as your American college experience - it is after all the home and birthplace of an improbably long list of pillars of the modern America which includes everything from Starbucks to Nirvana.
The university is the icing on the cake. With world renowned programmes in the sciences (if you want to be a high-flying dentist or psychologist, this is the place for you), UW gives excellent bang for its buck with great teaching in many subjects. Although the recession has meant devastating budget cuts from the Washington State legislature, UW remains a formidable educational institution and an unforgettable US experience, consistently ranked in the top 20 universities in the world and widely acclaimed as a prestigious "Public Ivy".
The Campus
UW sprawls across a whopping 700 acres of prime real estate in Northern Seattle, resplendent on the shores of glittering Lake Washington, across which the virgin forests and craggy Cascades mountain range can be seen to stretch into the distance. And if that's not poetic enough for you, most of the buildings are attractive - almost European in their bricky grandeur. Not far from the Canadian border, UW has a leafy and well-spaced campus in a beautiful and pioneering corner of the country. Trees are plentiful - an especially pleasant feature in spring and autumn.
The university sits comfortably just north of the main hubs of the city, Capitol Hill and downtown, and enjoys a sizzling coffee-and-laptop student environment in the surrounding mish-mash of bookstores, healthy food restaurants and alternative culture outlets, based around the famous University Way (known simply as "The Ave"), on the east side of campus. To the north lies University Village, with a reassuring abundance of chain stores for your every need.
About 60% of first year undergrads live on campus, in excellently located and reasonably nice dormitories, with themed housing options available. The university will also help find accommodation in other fun parts of the city for those who apply too late to get places on-site, and this is usually the preferable option for students after the first year.
The UW Student
Young blood from across the country and beyond is attracted in droves to this northwestern epicentre of fine city-living, in an almost Dick Whittington-esque way. And with such a massive student body, UW wouldn't even need this diverse intake to enjoy a huge variety of personalities. One of the less mentioned, but striking, features of students in Seattle, and indeed Seattleites in general, is how friendly they are, and this creates a very welcoming atmosphere for these newly-arrived fortune-seekers. It is not unusual for long-lasting friendships to be formed on short bus rides, and pleasant conversations with strangers are common enough for comparatively introverted Brits to feel initially overwhelmed.
Nevertheless, there is certainly more than a kernel of truth to the stereotypes of caffeine-addicted computer-and-tree-hugging vegetarian vinyl-collecting art-obsessives, going to underground music venues every night and attending marijuana legalisation rallies by day. Still, the nature of the city thrives on variety, and this produces an infectious energy on which the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Bruce Lee thrived, and which continues to inspire people of all ages and backgrounds.
UW has its fair share of yuppies, Greek life and jocks, as well as significant levels of political, environmental, and gay activism (with summer pride parades to rival San Francisco) and large numbers of student-run organisations. With one of the most exciting and well-known music scenes in the country, it is unsurprising that a remarkable percentage of students play in bands. There are also a reasonable number of international students, and indeed the university is very easy to come abroad to. This is perhaps reflected in the fact that UW organises the most study-abroad courses of any American university.
In general, UW students have the high levels of school pride that are common in American universities, and it is not uncommon to see people wearing the all-purple uniform of the university football team, the Huskies. There is some rivalry with Washington's "other" state university, the non-Seattle-based Washington State, but less with the two other principal schools in Seattle, the Jesuit Seattle University and Seattle Pacific University.
Hitting the Books
The sciences are what make UW most famous, with cutting-edge departments in medicine, biochemistry and psychology which attract world-class professors and students. Politics and international relations are also big, and there are good programs in various areas of ecology and environmental studies, which benefit from their proximity to fascinating natural landscapes and excellent examples of geological phenomena. The college receives over a billion dollars of research funding per year, giving it one of the top five largest research budgets in the US, though new budget cuts may affect this.
UW has generally very high quality teaching staff, good academic resources (a huge library network, for example), and a great range of subjects to choose from. Despite a very respectable student:faculty ratio of 12:1, it suffers from occasionally enormous class sizes in low-level courses (500+ is not unusual), a drag to some students and alienating to others. The class size problem has only deteriorated with budget cuts necessitating a nasty 1000-job lay-off.
Work load varies. In the most competitive and high-flying courses, especially the sciences, it can be intolerable. Yet in other areas students complain of not feeling academically challenged, even if the classes are mostly enjoyable and stimulating and much is learned.
One popular option is to use the excellent evening programme, allowing students to earn money during the day and continue their studies after work. Sensible UWers can make significant inroads into their debts this way, if they are prepared to accept the extra time pressure it entails.
Social Life
Some describe UW as a party school, others extoll the students’ ability to achieve a sensible balance of work and fun, but again no generalisations can be made of such a massive university. There is definitely something for everyone here; Seattle is blessed with a constant stream of activities and events - there is always a barbecue to go to, a concert to attend, an arts show to ogle. Hard-core party goers will be overjoyed at the abundance of house-hosted events on campus as well as off.
Even without the hundreds of university-run organisations and healthy Greek life there is something always going on, and it is a disciplined soul indeed who does not get carried away in an enthusiastic urge to try everything. New friends are made as easily as purchasing a delicious chai tea from one of the ludicrously large number of laptop-filled coffee shops that swarm every block. The blood of the city flows via these coffee shops - they are the centre of most students' academic, gastronomical and social lives; they are where you work and play.
Another key extra curricular activity is sport and exercise. The university has a successful football team, The Huskies, as well as great rowing opportunities on the lake. It also provides exercise and yoga classes and excellent gym facilities (all free), and students like to stay fit by using these as well as the jogging paths both on campus and around the city.
Outside Those Ivory Walls
There are no metaphorical walls around the University of Washington, ivory or otherwise. The city is an inseparable part of the UW experience. Seattle has been on a non-stop upward spiral since its beginnings as a logging community, and its most recent incarnation has seen it pulling away from the grunge-fuelled hot-spot of the 90s and into a gleaming new haven for billionaires, dot-com boomers and Boeing employees.
But despite the corporate veneer that this has brought to the city (along with a sharp rise in house prices as people get glimpses of Bill Gates' mansions across the lake), Seattle has never lost its quirky, collegiate and arty culture that makes it so special. The fine folk of Seattle are the most educated, computer literate and well read of any city in the Union. They also drink the most coffee. They gave the world Starbucks and amazon.com.
Lovers of popular music would die for Seattle's scintillating music scene; the city was the centre of the world's attention during the Cobain-led explosion of garage rock and grunge in the early 90s, and since then has continued to produce some of the most innovative and exciting bands on the world stage (see Fleet Foxes, Modest Mouse or Death Cab For Cutie), in almost any genre you can name.
Brits will feel right at home in Seattle's unique climate. The mountains to the east and ocean to the west create an environment that is much more English than it is American; the seasons are temperate, with more rain and cloud cover than is typical in the US, creating less of an ice box in the winter and oven in the summer. There is nothing English about the surrounding countryside, however. Seattle is not far from incredible mountain ranges and at least two beautiful national parks that are well worth exploring.
Public transport in the city is fair, with extensive bus coverage that is affordable but can be quite slow, and development of a long awaited urban transit system in the works. Cars have a less good time of it, and some parts of the city are over-congested.
Getting in
Like most state universities, UW has seen a steep increase in applications in recent years, though this has always been a competitive school. There are a large number of places available though, and the percentage of successful applications is encouragingly over 60%. Moreover, with an admissions emphasis placed on academic rigour at one’s senior school, British students should be at an advantage. While interviews are not necessary and references count for comparatively little, the application essay(s) are very important here, so take your time on it and make sure to impress.
UW has always had a reputation for very low tuition fees, though cash shortages in the current economy have provoked a dramatic rise in costs. As ever, the financial aid available to international students is woefully harder to come by than that for locals, but there are scholarships to be earned.
Famous grads
Bruce Lee - iconic actor and martial arts master
Minoru Yamasaki - architect and designer of the World Trade Centre
Waldo Semon - inventor of vinyl and presumably winner of world's greatest name