This was the first university to adopt the elective system, permitting the students, as Jefferson wrote, "uncontrolled choice in the lectures they shall attend," instead of prescribing one course of reading for all.

No less important, the University of Virginia was the first college to introduce (1842) the honor system, and still has the most complete honor system to be found among American colleges.

This system is an outgrowth of the Jeffersonian idea of student self-government; under it each student signs, with examination papers, a pledge that he has neither given nor received assistance.

That is found sufficient; students are not watched, nor need they be.

With time this system has been extended, so that it now covers not only examinations, but many departments of college life, eliminating professionalism in athletics and plagiarism in literary work, and resulting in a delightful mutual confidence between the student body and the faculty.
Madison and Monroe were active members of the university's first board of visitors; the first college Y.M.C.A.