Rebecca
Georgetown is a school of 6,000 undergraduates. Thanks to the four school structure (School of Foreign Service, Business School, Nursing School and the College), students get to know their peers who are in the same program. Walking across campus, I might recognize 10 out of 40 people I pass, and stop and talk to three.
Often, when I tell people I go to Georgetown they are impressed with the name, and I find myself in a somewhat awkward conversation about the application process.
Washington, D.C. is a great city, both for studying, with great resources such as the Library of Congress, and for culture, with the Smithsonian museums and the Kennedy Center. There are lots of fun neighborhoods with endless restaurants and bars, although as a student I don't eat out often.
Three things I would change: 1) I would eliminate the requirement that freshmen and sophomores have a meal plan. We have one dining hall, Leo J. O'Donovan's, fondly dubbed "Leo's." Although the dining hall does not have bad food, it's not great, and the all-you-can-eat set up makes gaining the "freshman 15" an easy trap. In fact, almost all my friends did gain the freshman 15, on "Leo's chocolate chip cookies" and "fro-yo." I don't have a meal plan this year, and I don't miss it at all. I have a much healthier life style, and I save a lot of money!
2) It would be nice to have a closer grocery store. There is a student store on campus, run by "The Corp." They stock the basic necessities, like soda, chips, pasta, sandwiches and milk. The closest supermarket to campus is Dean and Deluca, a gourmet food shop on M Street. You might treat yourself to a sushi lunch out there, or a two dollar tomato if you're feeling fancy, but for daily food shopping, it's necessary to go father afield, either to Trader Jo's, Safeway or Whole Foods, each about twenty minute walks from campus.
3) I would make birth control available on Georgetown campus. Currently, it is impossible to buy any form of birth control on campus, including condoms and the day after pill-- and the student health services cannot prescribe it. This is supposedly because of Georgetown's status as a Jesuit institution. Students can get condoms from H*ya's For Choice (not allowed to use an "o" in "Hoya's" because of the group's controversy with the Jesuit heritage) or from CVS, a ten minute walk from campus.
The biggest recent controversy on campus may have been violence directed at gay students. The administration has responded with new support for LGBT groups, numerous emails, etc.