UVA Law Students Taking Questions Forum

[5ky]

Of course, with professors now having the option to make the mean grade of a class = to the mean GPA of all of the students, I think that risk is somewhat lessened now.

They can also curve between a 3.2 and a 3.4 mean now (used to be 3.25-3.35)

If anyone is wondering about that and stuff.

Also not sure if that applies to adjusted GPAs but I'm assuming so.

Where did they say that?

[paulinaporizkova]

Of course, with professors now having the option to make the mean grade of a class = to the mean GPA of all of the students, I think that risk is somewhat lessened now.

They can also curve between a 3.2 and a 3.4 mean now (used to be 3.25-3.35)

If anyone is wondering about that and stuff.

Also not sure if that applies to adjusted GPAs but I'm assuming so.

Where did they say that?

Prof told us in a seminar class a couple weeks ago

[firstimer]

Quick question - to keep costs down, plus I don't want go through the hassle of buying a car right now, I plan to not have a car my 1L year. I've read through these forums and seen some others not owning a car as well.

Is this a major mistake? I plan to live in Ivy, have a serviceable bike and I like biking, and don't mind walking up to 30 minutes or so. I figure I can get groceries / other stuff at that nearby shopping center, and rely on the buses when I want to go to the main grounds / corner / downtown Charlottesville.

Thanks.

[005618502]

Quick question - to keep costs down, plus I don't want go through the hassle of buying a car right now, I plan to not have a car my 1L year. I've read through these forums and seen some others not owning a car as well.

Is this a major mistake? I plan to live in Ivy, have a serviceable bike and I like biking, and don't mind walking up to 30 minutes or so. I figure I can get groceries / other stuff at that nearby shopping center, and rely on the buses when I want to go to the main grounds / corner / downtown Charlottesville.

Thanks.

Shopping will be a bitch, otherwise you should be fine unless you want to get away from the school/baracks for lunch

I wouldnt come without a car, but thats a personal call

[lookingin]

I was just exploring the website and there are some sections of the site requiring you have to have a LawWeb ID -- do any of you remember when ya'll were given those IDs?

[sccjnthn]

Quick question - to keep costs down, plus I don't want go through the hassle of buying a car right now, I plan to not have a car my 1L year. I've read through these forums and seen some others not owning a car as well.

Is this a major mistake? I plan to live in Ivy, have a serviceable bike and I like biking, and don't mind walking up to 30 minutes or so. I figure I can get groceries / other stuff at that nearby shopping center, and rely on the buses when I want to go to the main grounds / corner / downtown Charlottesville.

Thanks.

Shopping will be a bitch, otherwise you should be fine unless you want to get away from the school/baracks for lunch

I wouldnt come without a car, but thats a personal call

Shopping could be a pain but with the savings from not having a car you could easily call a cab or more likely just go with your roommate. I had a piece of crap bike and easily traveled all over town (then again I don't go mall shopping and many other activities I prefer to do with my friends).

[anon sequitur]

If you're the kind of person who thinks living without a car is feasible, it will be easy in ivy. Grocery shopping is really the only thing I can think of that would be a pain, and even then not so much.

[Legal_Padawan]

Hey guys, I'm a little late to the game in terms of the housing search. I had a few questions about it.

-Does anybody know anything about the Copeley/UG waiting list? I just signed up last week, they told me that I would hear back in June. Do I have any shot? (Also, they told me that the application is open to single students too this year, so that lowers my chances even more).

-Follow up to that, if I wait until June to hear back about Copeley, will Ivy already be filled up? Ivy is my default second choice, but is that a mistake? It looks like a lot of people really hated living there.

-Anybody have any first or second-hand experience with University Heights? Their online reviews were significantly better than Ivy's.
http://www.apartmentratings.com/rate/VA ... ments.html
http://www.apartmentratings.com/rate/VA ... rdens.html

-Is living further out and driving in generally a bad idea for 1L? (Not too far, I'm talking 15 min. commute at most). I'm sure it would make socializing harder, and I've also heard bad things about traffic.

I would appreciate your wisdom on any of these questions. Thank you!

[desertlaw]

Quick question - to keep costs down, plus I don't want go through the hassle of buying a car right now, I plan to not have a car my 1L year. I've read through these forums and seen some others not owning a car as well.

Is this a major mistake? I plan to live in Ivy, have a serviceable bike and I like biking, and don't mind walking up to 30 minutes or so. I figure I can get groceries / other stuff at that nearby shopping center, and rely on the buses when I want to go to the main grounds / corner / downtown Charlottesville.

Thanks.

Dude one of the best parts of Cville is taking drives out to the country side. Or driving to a place like Ace BBQ. Or Blue Mountain Brewery. One day, you'll be making like $500k per year because of your UVa degree + UVa personality. So I think getting a $10k car right now would be prudent and reasonable.

[5ky]

If you don't have a car and don't want to get one, you don't need to have one, no.

[desertlaw]

Hey guys, I'm a little late to the game in terms of the housing search. I had a few questions about it.

-Does anybody know anything about the Copeley/UG waiting list? I just signed up last week, they told me that I would hear back in June. Do I have any shot? (Also, they told me that the application is open to single students too this year, so that lowers my chances even more).

-Follow up to that, if I wait until June to hear back about Copeley, will Ivy already be filled up? Ivy is my default second choice, but is that a mistake? It looks like a lot of people really hated living there.

-Anybody have any first or second-hand experience with University Heights? Their online reviews were significantly better than Ivy's.
http://www.apartmentratings.com/rate/VA ... ments.html
http://www.apartmentratings.com/rate/VA ... rdens.html

-Is living further out and driving in generally a bad idea for 1L? (Not too far, I'm talking 15 min. commute at most). I'm sure it would make socializing harder, and I've also heard bad things about traffic.

I would appreciate your wisdom on any of these questions. Thank you!

Going to ignore your other topics except for the commute part. 15 minute drive can be a nice decompression time to relax, listen to your NPR liberal jerkoff sesh, or just jam to your favorite John Mayer song. But on the down side, Cville traffic sucks and it's frustrating. Also, why drive and pay for gas when you can live in Arlington/Ivy/Pavillions and walk? You can also pick up chicks/meet new bros while walking.

All of that being said, maybe live at Ivy/Arlington for 1L, but then commute for 2L/3L. Plenty of cool people did this and they are cool so it worked out for them obviously.

[albanach]

Going to ignore your other topics except for the commute part. 15 minute drive can be a nice decompression time to relax, listen to your NPR liberal jerkoff sesh, or just jam to your favorite John Mayer song. But on the down side, Cville traffic sucks and it's frustrating. Also, why drive and pay for gas when you can live in Arlington/Ivy/Pavillions and walk? You can also pick up chicks/meet new bros while walking.

All of that being said, maybe live at Ivy/Arlington for 1L, but then commute for 2L/3L. Plenty of cool people did this and they are cool so it worked out for them obviously.

That is good advice.

I've commuted about fifteen minutes per day during my 1L and 2L years, but I've been in Charlottesville for a while. If you're new to town and looking to make friends, I'd stay near to where your friends will be staying. There are plenty of people who have found better places than Ivy, but I haven't seen that many folk at Ivy say they actively hate it there. I think people move because once you have a group of friends you can actually find a house or apartment that has more space and is nicer for less money.

[Cavalier]

I lived on Arlington Blvd for three years without a car, but I think being carless would be a lot tougher in Ivy. If you're on Arlington you can do all your grocery shopping at Harris Teeter, and there's plenty of nearby restaurants (although after two years I was sick of everything - even Chipotle), but I don't think there's a good place for groceries near Ivy.

[thesealocust]

Cars and commutes suck. If you're going to skip both, I strongly recommend living on Arlington. The convenience of barracks road makes a car 100% option, all the time. Ivy is actually fairly isolated relative to Arlington if you don't have an auto.

[5ky]

The UVA bus is pretty efficient in getting from barracks to Ivy Gardens

[StanleyF]

I've commuted all three years here—I've had a 12 minute drive to school, which has been nice. It's far enough away that I can get away from the law school when I want to. As for social life, meeting people has virtually nothing to do with where you live. Your small section will have lots and lots of get togethes, and you will have no problem getting to know people.

But some other things to think about when picking a living situation:

If you live in Ivy, you have to walk to school; you will not be allowed to get a parking permit, and there are very limited non-permitted parking spaces. The problem with this is that, depending on where in Ivy you live, that walk can take like 15 minutes (some people say more, some less). Personally, I've never understood why more Ivy folks don't bike to school. But bike or no bike, it sucks in the rain.

Second, if you live further away, you will have to buy a parking permit. I think the D3 lot was like $300 this year (maybe more? I felt like they were gouging when I wrote the check), and the (much) less convenient Blue lot is about $150.

I think living in Ivy without a car would be fine for day-to-day living. Where it would bug me would be on the weekends, when you might find that you want to get away from the law school. One thing that incoming students don't quite understand is that the first year of law school is 300 people doing exactly the same thing at exactly the same time; when you have an exam the next day, everyone has an exam the next day. This can create a kind of group stress factor that affects some people more than others. Being able to get away from it has really been nice.

Final point: People complaining about Charlottesville traffic are failing to mention that "bad" traffic here means that a 10 minute drive takes 20 minutes. It's not like major metropolitan traffic where a 20 minute drive takes an hour and 20 minutes. Plus, if you just avoid 29 before 9 a.m. and from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., you will probably never see the traffic (other than after basketball and football games). Also, there are almost always back-roads you can take that will avoid the worst of the traffic.

[sprezz]

Hey guys, I'm a little late to the game in terms of the housing search. I had a few questions about it.

-Does anybody know anything about the Copeley/UG waiting list? I just signed up last week, they told me that I would hear back in June. Do I have any shot? (Also, they told me that the application is open to single students too this year, so that lowers my chances even more).

-Follow up to that, if I wait until June to hear back about Copeley, will Ivy already be filled up? Ivy is my default second choice, but is that a mistake? It looks like a lot of people really hated living there.

-Anybody have any first or second-hand experience with University Heights? Their online reviews were significantly better than Ivy's.
http://www.apartmentratings.com/rate/VA ... ments.html
http://www.apartmentratings.com/rate/VA ... rdens.html

-Is living further out and driving in generally a bad idea for 1L? (Not too far, I'm talking 15 min. commute at most). I'm sure it would make socializing harder, and I've also heard bad things about traffic.

I would appreciate your wisdom on any of these questions. Thank you!

generally agree with others here in support of living a little further away and commuting. traffic being bad is a hilarious joke. co-signing earlier comment that it's only frustrating in the aggregate when every 15 or 20 minute drive you make should have only taken ten based on the distance traveled. having to go a little out of your way to pregames or whatever in ivy isn't bad at all. cabs are cheap, and if taking one twice in a night is offensive to you just live within walking distance of the corner/midtown/downtown and funnel your friends in your direction. note that living between rugby/university ave/14th/grady or on wertland is a ug noise hazard, but other than that go nuts.

if you don't have a strong preference between fallback options [seems like you're pretty flexible re: commutability] i bet you could find something that would be acceptable as late as june. i know ug's that didn't want copeley that got stuck there as recently as 09-10, so there seems to be at least the possibility that someone wanting copeley could get in off the waitlist--depending on how the waitlist differs from the first round, which i can't speak to. i'd be willing to bet that something acceptable would still be around in a month. if it stresses you out to wait though or if you have a clear second favorite option, futureyou probly won't regret accepting something else now. living in cville is pretty nice however you do it.

don't trust apartment rating websites; multiple cville agencies have given tenants financial incentives for leaving positive comments. u-heights is no better than ivy's equal, and i'm guessing most people would say it's not even quite that.

[desertlaw]

U-Heights is a melting pot of townies, grad students, undergrads, and foreign families that are scared of golden retriever puppies. If I could do it again, I'd probably choose Ivy. But U-Heights does give me some street cred.

[005618502]

U-Heights is a melting pot of townies, grad students, undergrads, and foreign families that are scared of golden retriever puppies. If I could do it again, I'd probably choose Ivy. But U-Heights does give me some street cred.

I dont see how anyone could not love that pup.....

[digifly]

U-Heights is a melting pot of townies, grad students, undergrads, and foreign families that are scared of golden retriever puppies. If I could do it again, I'd probably choose Ivy. But U-Heights does give me some street cred.

I dont see how anyone could not love that pup.....

+1

[paulinaporizkova]

im drunk and over this shit

[paulinaporizkova]

im drunk and over this shit

what a sad life i live

[005618502]

im drunk and over this shit

what a sad life i live

That depends are you a 2L or 3L? oh wait either way you are better off than us 1Ls lol

[NoodleyOne]

1Ls still have hope, I am guessing...

Anyway, question. What is the closest gym to Jeffersonian/Law School? What type of shit do they have there? Free weights, machines, etc? Do they have an indoor pool? (I killed my knee and swimming makes it feel SOOO much better)

[pjo]

1Ls still have hope, I am guessing...

Anyway, question. What is the closest gym to Jeffersonian/Law School? What type of shit do they have there? Free weights, machines, etc? Do they have an indoor pool? (I killed my knee and swimming makes it feel SOOO much better)

North Grounds Gym is right across from Darden. You actually have to pass it if you walk from Ivy to the law school. Originally, I thought the gym sucked (I still can't understand why they don't have a dual cable machine), but in actuality it's a pretty decent gym. You see TONs of people from the law school there, especially between 4 and 6, which can be a good or bad thing, depending on your take of things. They're open fairly late as well (I think 10 or 11 on the weekday). Their free weights go up to 120 I believe. They have two benches, and I want to say an additional 4 or 5 free weight benches. They have two racks, but one is a stationery rack.

Right now, North Grounds Gym does not have a pool; however, they are currently building an addition onto the gym which will include pool. It should be completed by the time school starts next year.