Official tours & signup
Admissions Info Session + Tour
- Format: 30-min info session + 75-min student-led campus tour. Registration required.
- Register: admission.wm.edu/portal/info_sessions (live calendar — most weekdays at 10:30am and 2:30pm, select Saturdays).
- Summer tours: available June–August; try to book 2+ weeks ahead as slots fill quickly.
- Departs from: Office of Undergraduate Admission on Jamestown Road (open weekdays 8am–5pm).
- Physics dept (Small Hall): no public tour published — email [email protected] (757-221-1821) before the trip to ask about a department visit. There's also a virtual student-hosted STEM session on the visit portal.
Wren Building visiting hours
- Self-guided: Mon–Fri 10am–5pm · Sat 9:30am–5pm · Sun 12–5pm. First two floors open; no arrangements needed.
- Guided: free Spotswood Society student tours run only when classes are in session — unlikely for a June visit, so plan on self-guided.
- Heads-up: a roof/envelope repair project ran through spring 2026 — should be wrapped, but check the historic campus page the week before.
The 45-minute walk
Route assembled from W&M's official Self-Guided Tour PDF (written by the student tour guides; printed copies in the Admission Office vestibule, mobile version in the W&M app). Trimmed to the history + STEM spine, with the Small Hall detour the official tour skips.
Start: Office of Undergraduate Admission
Official tour stop #1, on Jamestown Road. Grab the printed self-guided tour from the vestibule even if you booked the guided one — it's the map for this walk.
Sir Christopher Wren Building + Hearth Memorial
Built 1695–1700: the oldest academic building still in use in the United States. Walk the first two floors (free, self-guided). Just outside in the Wren Yard, the Hearth: Memorial to the Enslaved continues the story you started at UVA's memorial and Monticello.
The Sunken Garden
W&M's quad (official stop #3), dug in 1935 by the Civilian Conservation Corps. On a normal day it's frisbees, hammocks and study blankets — the best single read on campus culture you'll get.
Earl Gregg Swem Library
Official stop #8 — home to a student Makerspace and the Reeder Media Center. Pop in and find the makerspace; it's the library-side answer to an engineering kid's "but where do I build things?"
Small Hall — Physics (the detour that matters)
One minute behind the Muscarelle Museum, next to Swem — on the official map but not a numbered tour stop, which tells you something. This is the physics building: the Small Hall Makerspace (laser cutters, electronics benches, open to all students) and the undergrad research labs.
Integrated Science Center
Official stop #10 — 500,000 sq ft of STEM space, and the stat that matters: ~80% of undergrads do faculty-mentored research. That's the W&M counter-pitch to not having an engineering school.
Finish: back via the Wren Yard → DoG Street
Loop back past the Wren Building and exit toward Duke of Gloucester Street — Colonial Williamsburg starts literally across the street. The campus-to-colonial transition is the whole reason this town works as a trip stop.
Engineering-minded at W&M
No engineering school, no ABET degrees, no aero or ECE department. What exists: the new School of Computing, Data Sciences & Physics (2025) — top-tier physics, CS, data science, applied science.
Physics BS with EPAD concentration (Engineering Physics & Applied Design): physics core + applied design/electronics + the Small Hall Makerspace. Research strength boosted by Jefferson Lab (national accelerator, Newport News) 30 min away.
Dual-degree Combined Plan with Columbia: 3–4 years at W&M (physics/EPAD), then 2 at Columbia SEAS — graduate with a W&M BS and a Columbia engineering BS (EE or mechanical/aero track).
No engineering gate
Admitted to the university as a whole; majors declared freely. At a 1450 SAT this is a match school — the question isn't getting in, it's whether the path fits.
Liberal arts first, engineering second
Right kid: wants small classes, history-soaked setting, physics depth, and is genuinely open to the Columbia 3+2 or a grad-school engineering route. Wrong kid: wants to be elbow-deep in a wind tunnel or a cleanroom by sophomore year.
Campus map
wm.edu — visit ·
Official self-guided tour (PDF) ·
Wren Building hours ·
Physics visit page ·
Parking ·
School of CDSP
Hours and tour availability drift — re-verify the week before the trip.