Fordham University Top Questions

that it is a big party school.

That everyone is Catholic and/or has to be or has to go to church because it is a Jesuit university.

A general sterotype about Fordham is students with rich parents that chose the school based on its night life.

Good students, from the tri-state area (new york, new jersey, connecticut), wealthy

That the students here are extremele wealthy and only look out for themselves. They are very stuck up and ego-centric but also very dedicated to their work. They are very bright and motivated, the future leaders of America.

Guidos, catholics, goes to the bars every night, wealthy

As a student at Fordham University, I know that the stereotypes about my school and me are relative to whom I am talking to. Outside of the gated university is a whirlwind of chaos in the "dirty BX", the nickname for the thugged out, rough borough where Fordham can be found in New York City. Commotion, buses, trains, cars, yelling, preaching on street corners, drug deals, pick-pocketing. You name it, it is on Fordham Road, the main street that boarders the Gothic styled Catholic University. I always wonder what those people who live in the Bronx around Fordham think of us. Well actually, I know from first hand experience what they think of us. We stick out like a sore thumb, walking around in our North Faces and UGG boots next to the Rocawear-ed styled locals. Bronx locals stereotype me as a rich white girl who can afford the insane tuition at Fordham. I stereotyped as privileged, racist, and naive. When you set foot onto the campus grounds, the feel of the school and the stereotypes associated with it change drastically. The campus is an oasis of gorgeous large trees and lawns accompanied by old historical stone buildings. The distant sounds of the outside environment evaporate against the stoic Gothic walls of the University Church and the clock tower of the majestic Keating Hall. Walking around the campus during a school day, Fordham students seem different than other college kids around the country. We match the buildings in which we study: stoic, quiet, well-groomed and maintained, walking swiftly from class to class, barely nodding at our fellow students, I-pod headphones stuffed securely into our ears. To an outsider, we appear to be studious, hard-working, and motivated, much more than other colleges across the countries. New York City calls for this sense of an urgency to succeed, and the stereotype of Fordham kids is just that. Everyone wants to succeed, to reach their goals and get where they want to be. But, we can’t be that good right? I mean, we are talking about New York City here. Haven’t you ever seen “Gossip Girl”? Ok. Here is the scoop about the dark side of Fordham. In the Big Apple there are a variety of colleges, liberal arts colleges to law schools to art schools to film schools. Fordham is the party school. Albeit, our party-college status is compared with those crazy fun kids at Columbia and NYU (that’s a joke if you didn’t catch it). There is one damaging stigma that affects everyone at Fordham. Apparently, we all do coke, we all smoke weed, we all drink excessively, and we all do this constantly. With being the best party school, we must have the hardest partiers. With the harsh rules of ResLife and the crazed RA’s and guards that write us up, it’s amazing that we could even get the stuff into our dorms. But, I find that when I tell people I go to Fordham they either think of me as a either a saint or a sinner. The stereotype is that I either pray and say the rosary hourly, or I do lines of coke off my textbooks in math class.

Fordham is considered to be a haven for rich, white students. It has an excellent reputation in the business world.

I think the stereotypes have died down in recent years... Sometimes we get the reputation of being "rich White kids" and exclusively NJ, NJ, CT. Some of the dorms have stereotypes, but most are not grounded in reality.

That Fordham students are very drunk, apathetic toward political and social movements, and that the don't care about their school work.