Megan
Ever since I visited Grand Valley at the end of my junior year in high school, I knew this was the right place for me. I LOVE the campus and the atmosphere in general. We have a gorgeous campus that is conveniently located within a half hour of beautiful Lake Michigan and the busy city of Grand Rapids. The one thing that convinced me to go here was the fact that the average class size is under 30 students. Lecture classes are fairly rare, and they are all supplemented with a discussion or lab course taught by the same professor. AND Graduate assistants will never ever teach your class! Top-notch education here!
Sara
The best thing about GVSU is the variety. Even though there is a lot of focus on athletics, I really do feel like they are trying to create a diverse campus. It does sometimes get disheartening, being surrounded by people that I don't identify with. West Michigan is know for it's conservative and religious people, and that does tend to spill over to Grand Valley. This could either be a pro or a con, depending on who you are. I think GVSU is the perfect size, however they could offer more classes on the Pew campus. Allendale isn't a college town at all, but the Pew campus is in downtown Grand Rapids (which is a great city!) There's not a ton of school pride, but I feel like that is starting to change for the better. Recently, GVSU adopted a new gender-neutral housing policy, which is amazing. It was a controversy though, due to the conservative nature of a lot of the people here. I do think GVSU is unusual is the variety of people, classes, and clubs we have. There is an obvious majority on campus, but chances are there are a ton of people you'd get along with well if you put a little effort into it. There's a lot of good classes to take too--there are so many different interesting classes that I wish I had time to take! The whole liberal arts mentality they have here is nice--you don't feel as rushed to find a major. Once and a while you get an awful professor, but the professors that do care make up for the not-so-good ones. A lot of them are very passionate about teaching! GVSU should keep an eye on professors more though--I feel as if they let some really bad teachers slip through the cracks. Overall, I'm pretty happy at GVSU. As long as you can find some good people and classes, the cons are manageable!
Sara
The best thing is that it has something for everyone, while still maintaining a small-campus feel. I wish it wasn't so sports orientated though. GVSU is considered an alright college--it's been getting better academically through the years. There's not much to do in Allendale though, so I'm on campus a lot. There's some school pride, but you tend to see a lot of people wearing shirts with other college logos on them and not Grand Valley's.
GVSU is pretty average. Once in a while they will have a cool event, and they do have a lot to do around campus.