<p>It's gone very quiet on this site. Any admitted students?</p>
<p>My s! He’ll visit on Friday before he makes his decision. Last fall, it was nothing but UNCA but now that he’s received some other acceptances, he’s taking his time. I pretty sure he’ll end up there, though, unless something amazing happens at CofC or USC (South Carolina) on Saturday or Monday. </p>
<p>What about you? Will you be attending UNCA?</p>
<p>My d is visiting on Friday too and is still undecided. When we visited before there were no students on campus and although she liked it, she didn’t love it…I thought it was great! We’re from Massachusetts so she would be an OOS. She’s interested in Political Science or International Studies. Like your son, she has had other acceptances and at the moment is leaning toward DePaul University in Chicago - urban, bigger etc. But she’s also very aware that financially UNCA is incredible value for money and she would get a great education for a lot less!</p>
<p>What about your son -does he know what he wants to major in?</p>
<p>Slight detour on this thread–can you tell me what you did/didn’t like about UNCA? My DS is still a hs junior but this school looks like it might be a good fit. For those who did apply, where else did you look? Any comparisons?</p>
<p>JaneAusten, did you fly in? How was the airport? How would flying in out be in winter?
Can you get to the town without a car? My son is a junior and also OOS, but we are considering this school.</p>
<p>northeastmom - when I went the first time with my daughter we drove from Greensboro because we’d been to see Guilford (that took around 21/2 hrs). This time my husband and daughter are flying to Asheville airport via Charlotte. I can tell you more once they get back this weekend. Not sure what winter would be like.</p>
<p>You can walk or get a bus into town although it would be a bit of a hike on foot but Asheville is very close to the campus - I’m not sure if you’d need a car. Asheville is a really nice place - funky, interesting not unlike Northampton, MA where we live.</p>
<p>ingerp - I sort of pushed my d to look at Asheville because I think it’s something of a gem. It’s a great size, in a great spot and it has a great academic reputation - all for a reasonable price! The drawback for her is that she’s leaning towards wanting an urban school. I’m afraid that she applied to quite a few schools and they’re pretty varied - U of Oregon, Depaul University, Drew, Guilford, Eckerd, Emerson, Fordham. She loved U of O when we went but now thinks it’s to far. Guilford and Eckerd to small, Drew she thought was a party school and she was wait-listed for Emerson and Fordham. DePaul is the one she really likes but it’s way to expensive. Paying these kind of sums for any degree just seems crazy and for an undergraduate degree even more so.</p>
<p>JaneAusten, I agree with you about the crazy sums of money. Thank you for posting about Asheville. Please do post after this weekend! I hope that they have a great time! Please tell us about the campus and Asheville after you speak with your daughter and husband. I hope that they have a blast!! Also, how early did she apply? My son is a junior.</p>
<p>For those interested in our observations:</p>
<p>The town of Asheville is two miles from campus–we clocked it on our last visit because son wants to be able to ride his bike into town. Freshman are not allowed cars, which I think is a very big plus. </p>
<p>We’ve visited the town many times over the last 10 years and even though it is not “urban,” it is a fantastic town, if you are interested in art, music, food, etc. It has a very “liberal, hippie, nature” vibe. I grew up in California and have been in SC for the last 14 years. Asheville feels more like Marin County (if that means anything to you’all) than a traditional Southern town. </p>
<p>UNCA is very much a small, liberal arts college, with a focus on undergrad teaching and interdisciplinary study. We attended a fall open house and I was very impressed with the professors and administrators. </p>
<p>My s wants to study Environmental Science, Psychology (and history and music…). He felt really engaged by the profs and students he’s met. (At another college’s open house, he talked with students who told him how easy the classes were… total turnoff for him.) He liked how he could easily combine his interests. He found that the students seemed serious, but happy and likes that UNCA does not have reputation as a party school. He’s not into spectator sports, like football, so a lack of a team does not bother him. He likes that he can easily go hiking on the weekends and that the students “looked like him.” (Long hair, not preppy but relaxed and a bit quirky.)</p>
<p>As for the airport in winter: it does snow in Asheville a few times a year but nothing like the northeast. I’m not sure if they close the airport. Here, in upstate SC, a few inches of snow can close schools for two days.</p>
<p>NC state schools aim to admit only about 18% OOS, so for Asheville, that’s fewer than 80 students. That’s my only concern. Most of the students will be from NC. I’m heartened to read that many of you are from OOS, too.</p>
<p>for Ingerp: College of Charleston is the SC liberal arts college and my son has been accepted there, too. He also looked at Guilford, Furman, Davidson, Wofford, and a few Virginia colleges. He did not want to live in any place cold. And financially, UNCA or CofC provide the best value and education, given his interests and my pocketbook. It will interesting to see where he ends up: his gf is going to CofC!</p>
<p>I will write at the weekend and thank you stillnadine for your observations - very interesting information. northeastmom, my daughter applied early everywhere - I knew with the demographics this year that it was going to be tough and that was even before the economy sank!</p>
<p>stillnadine, thank you for your post. Your son sounds a lot like my son, but my son still has one more year of hs. Good luck to him! How is their English department, if you know anything about it? The OOS thing does bother me about this school, but it is hard to find anything “affordable”. My son is outgoing, so I hope being OOS is not going to be a problem for him.</p>
<p>JaneAusten thanks for the information. By early are we talking about October or earlier? stillnadine, how early did your son apply?</p>
<p>My s applied in October for EA. He was deferred, pending fall semester grades and was admitted about a month ago, soon after he sent in the new transcript. </p>
<p>I don’t know much about the English department. I do know they have an active Jewish Studies Center, which surprised me. (And so does CofC, for that matter.) </p>
<p>My OOS concern is that he won’t meet kids “from all over.” But North Carolina itself is pretty diverse, so maybe it really is not a problem. </p>
<p>Has anyone heard any negatives? </p>
<p>JaneA: will you be there on Friday?</p>
<p>stillnadine, thanks for the info. I guess I will try to nag son to get everything in by October.</p>
<p>I was accepted and am visiting on the 10th! I like UNC-A just from what I’ve heard. We visited in the fall but I don’t feel like I learned much or got to interact with students enough. (I’m from the Greensboro area of NC.)</p>
<p>I’m also really glad this forum has some life now. Thanks for starting the thread, JaneAusten. :)</p>
<p>Like froggie3 I originally visited in the Fall with my D and there were only a few students on campus so really didn’t get a feel for the student body, which is why I think it’s important for my D to attend this Friday.</p>
<p>stillnadine: because I went before, it’s my husband’s turn this time, so just the two of them will be there - look out for them. Also like you, D was deferred pending Fall semester grades. She spent one semester in Spain attending a Spanish high school which didn’t give grades, so she had a rather weird transcript. </p>
<p>She applied everywhere EA in October although she later changed her reach schools to RD. I think this year, applying early was definitely beneficial but I’m not sure that it will be so important next year. The baby boomlet thing peaks this year and enrollment is expected to go down next year anyway. I will say though, it was nice to get everything out of the way early and she began to hear from colleges way ahead of everyone else at her school. It was psychologically calming to have her accepted somewhere before December - it felt really great. Best night’s sleep I’d had in a while!</p>
<p>Our daughter is going to UNC Asheville. We’ll be visit there on April 10. I’ll also write something here.</p>
<p>We just felt that those private liberal arts schools were just not generous enough with the financial aid. To me, it’s insane to pay $50,000+ a year to get an undergraduate degree. We’d rather save the money to send her to graduate school at an Ivy League school four years from now.</p>
<p>We are back from our five/three college final blitz and it looks like UNCA is the winner! JaneA, I think my s ate lunch with your d last Friday!</p>
<p>stillnadine - you’re right, he did! My d said she met him - but she thinks it’s so weird that I’m posting here that I think she felt embarrassed!!! Positive reviews from both my husband and daughter. My h thought the school was great, liked the buildings, liked what he heard. My d also liked the people she met and the school and thought she could do well there. Her hesitation and I must admit mine to, is the small number of OOS students, the fact that Asheville is very similar to Northampton where we live in MA and I’m wondering if it’s a big enough change for her. If the school was in the centre of a big city it would be PERFECT. </p>
<p>The reason I haven’t written before this is because my head’s spinning with pros and cons for the two schools on the final list. In a city, it’s possible to get internships, job opportunities etc and the networking that comes with city connections. Any small liberal arts college be it public or private, away from an urban centre (and so many are) can’t offer this I don’t think. One of the reasons my h liked Asheville was because he liked the idea of our d staying on campus and not being lured by the lights of a big city and that’s a good point.</p>
<p>I should also mention that I’m from England and all this is very new to me - I didn’t go through this system myself and I know very little about North Carolina so it’s hard for me to gauge what UNCA is really like. I’m just so totally stunned by the costs involved in college here that UNCA seemed to me a very good combination of price, academic rigour, size and location. Having visited, my h feels the same way. He really liked it. </p>
<p>I’d really like to hear from anyone who has experience of the Political Science major or International studies major. That’s what my d intends to major in and she wasn’t able to talk to anyone on Friday from the department. She’d ultimately like to spend time a year studying in the UK and I wonder how easy that would be for her.</p>
<p>Sorry for this long post but I’ve got so many questions as we enter the home run for deciding. Also my d is going to be in England for all the orientation days - she finishes school on 6th June and it never occurred to us that she might need to be at Asheville so early for orientation. Now I’m worried that this will really handicap her.</p>
<p>So many worries - I’m tired of worrying about college, I really am…</p>
<p>For orientation, does it matter as to which one a student attends? Are an equal number of class seats held open for a person attending the last orientation? My son is a hs junior, but I just looked at the orientation program once JaneAusten mentioned it. I find it unfortunate that the 2 out of 3 dates this year are held while our high school is still in session. I realize that classes end much earlier in NC, but this makes it difficult for the OOS student where classes are still in session until mid to late June.</p>
<p>I think they are all the same. They also offer new students a choice of programs, right before classes begin, which may not be academic orientation but sound like great ways to get a good start at making Asheville home for the next 4 years. </p>
<p>[UNC</a> Asheville Campus Recreation](<a href=“http://www.unca.edu/recreation/WE.html]UNC”>http://www.unca.edu/recreation/WE.html)</p>
<p>Jane, re: study abroard… at nearly every session/tour/visit, people talked about study abroad. In fact, my s wrote his UNCA essay on the opportunity to study environmental science in Peru. But I share your concern that the town is isolated from big city opportunities, connections and internships. Not being in a city really appeals to my s, who loves the out-of-doors, which ruled out USouth Carolina. And I also am concerned about the limited OOS numbers. But I was told that there was much more diversity than one would expect.</p>
<p>Did you look at College of Charleston? It’s right in the middle of the city and is a public LAC (so lower cost). Because it is right in the midst of things, it is definately more of a party school, which is a big turnoff for my s. I guess now it is sorta silly to even consider new options but I, too, wish we could have found an affordable, academic, but less isolated school.</p>
<p>North Carolina is a different from other southern states in many ways, in my opinion. It is home to some great universities and high tech companies, which draws smart people from all over the world. Charlotte (about 90 minutes from Asheville) is a big banking center. Even though UNCA can only admit about 18% OOS, my guess is that many of the instate students may have originally been from other places. </p>
<p>I don’t really know anything about PoliSci/International Studies maybe the admissions people could arrange a phone interview??</p>
<p>Such a rollercoaster this admissions process, with the ups and downs. We’re still a bit wobbly, even after we stepped off the ride!</p>