The Gale is dedicated to supporting and advocating for William & Mary at its best. To us, that means three primary factors: student community, close relationships with faculty and our unique liberal-arts identity. More specifically:

• Student community
  • Not too big
  • Mostly on-campus
• Close relationships with faculty
  • Small class sizes
  • Participation in research
• Unique liberal-arts identity
  • Balance between disciplines
  • Using “the College”

We’ve decided on six quantifiable metrics that get at those factors, and we’ve given each of them a “candle,” which can be lit, flickering or out. Some of these things are easy to measure. Some of them aren’t. Here’s how we do our best:

• Not too big: Total enrollment under 8,600
  • Why 8,600? It’s a little bigger than W&M was at the peak of undergraduate enrollment around 2010. Anything between 8,601 and 9,000 qualifies as flickering; 9,001+ puts this candle out.
• Mostly on-campus: 70% of undergraduates living on campus
  • Why 70%? It’s basically the 2004–2026 average, even including the dramatic dips during the COVID years. Anything below 65% is out.
• Small class sizes: Student-faculty ratio below 12:1
  • Why 12:1? It’s also our historic average, and something we’ve been able to maintain for most of the past 20 years, even as the student body has grown. 12:1 is flickering, anything higher than that is out.
• Participation in research: ≤2% of undergraduates completing an honors thesis
  • Why 2%? This is the historic average over the 2004–present period we’re evaluating. But more importantly, participating in research can mean dozens of things, from cleaning test tubes and helping out on a weekend archaeological dig all the way up to first authorship on a peer-reviewed paper. W&M does not publish their specifics, so we’re going with this. It also serves as a proxy for the amount of time faculty have to spend mentoring undergrads. Anything below 1.9% is out.
• Balance between disciplines: ≤25% of conferred degrees in computer science, life sciences, mathematics and physics disciplines
  • Why 25%? The historic average since 2004-05 is 19.17%, but we recognize the growing popularity of STEM on campus. We just don’t want it to create an academic imbalance. It’s not a perfect measure, but it’s what we’ve chosen. 26–29% or more is flickering; 30% or more is out.
• Using “the College”: it’s a simple yes-or-no question, really
  • Why yes-or-no? There is a lot to read here at the Gale on this topic. In a nutshell, “College” says more about our strengths and competitive advantages than “university” ever has. There’s no flickering here — this is their current strategy. They’re trying to use “university” all the time, without having to answer to anyone who loves “the College.”

The information on honors theses mostly starts around 2004–05, so that’s where we begin analysis. The dataset we’re using is hand-built from official sources and is available here:

We welcome any critiques or advice about how best to crunch these numbers; contact us at editor@thegale.org and let us know where we’ve gone wrong or can do better.