<p>I'm going to be attending UNC for a masters program and I'm curious as to what everyone's thoughts are on how the academic scandal will affect the school's reputation in academic circles. Right now, the school is seen as being an elite public on-par or slightly below schools like Berkeley, Michigan, UCLA, UVA and probably holds it's own with many ivies from a peer assessment standpoint. I'm wondering, however, if the new scandal could have a meaningful impact on how others perceive UNC from an academic standpoint.</p>
<p>Unfortunately or fortunately (depending on who you are and what your major is), because it currently involves one department and primarily athletes, most are going to look unfavorably at that group versus the university as a whole. So, IMO, unless your major is AAS, I think the reputation of the programs overall are intact.</p>
<p>In my opinion, it is unlikely to have any impact. </p>
<p>It seems that school after school is experiencing challenges in this area. Surely you also read about the widespread academic cheating scandal involving athletes at Harvard this past year. Sadly UNC is in fine company …</p>
<p>That’s what I figured but some people were saying that UNC has been going downhill off late and that this would only push that agenda further. I found this to be pretty silly because UNC still seems to have a really good reputation and is still a peer school to UVA and Duke, which are damn good schools IMO. Schools go up and down in rankings all the time, but UNC still seems to be an elite state school and that shouldn’t change for a very long time I think. The only public schools that may be ahead of it are Berkeley and Michigan (out west, I could also say UCLA has more cachet out here, but that’s more due to regional bias as I’m sure UCLA carries less weight than UNC on the east coast) and possibly UVA, but I don’t see how the school is “going downhill” just because it dips a few spots here and there in the rankings.</p>