<p>Duke/Rice/Vanderbilt/Emory/W&M/Davidson/Wake Forest/Washington & Lee are great southern schools. Add Georgetown and Hopkins since they are technically below the Mason-Dixon line. UVirginia and UNorth Carolina offer some of the best graduate programs in the country. They offer a great combo of solid academics with great Greek and sports scene.</p>
<p>These are some great schools where you can hike/bike/golf/ultimate frisbee in Jan/Feb. Should make you think twice about the Ivy hype when its 10degrees in Hanover or Ithaca and the southern Ivys are having 60 degree days.</p>
<p>For Law,Medicine,Business, and most humanities graduate programs at UVa and UNC, "most people" would agree are in the top 10-15 in the country. No one (except Jack) would argue that for the undergrad programs.</p>
<p>Hampden-Sydney College
Centre
Rhodes
Washington and Lee
Davidson
Vanderbilt
Duke
Rice
University of the South
VMI
Citadel
UVA
Wake Forest
William and Mary
UNC</p>
<p>I agree that UNC's professional schools and graduate programs are excellent. Their undergraduate programs are equally outstanding; UNC is known for it's stellar undergraduate instruction in the arts and humanities. I believe it was also ranked 6th last year, among all private and public research universities, for the number of undergraduates studying abroad. Their <em>undergraduate</em> business program was ranked #11 in Businessweek's first-ever ranking of undergrad business programs (in 2006, I believe). It has been ranked 5th best among programs at public universities. The Journalism School is consistently ranked nationally in the top 5 among all journalism and mass communication programs. The Pharmacy School is currently ranked #3 in the nation, I believe (to which, after 2 semesters and the appropriate pre-reqs and gpa, undergraduates can apply).</p>
<p>I could go on and on, but I find it ludicrous to pretend that UNC-CH and UVA are not excellent schools for undergraduates--on many levels. I also find it silly to not believe that any school's stellar and highly ranked graduate programs and professional schools won't also have a positive impact on the undergraduate programs and faculty/instruction. This is especially true for those programs/schools where undergraduates can actually apply (at UNC) in their junior year, if I'm not mistaken (ie, Journalism, Pharmacy, Business).</p>
<p>doctorb: I know you think W&M is the be-all and end-all of schools, and it is most certainly-- by all accounts-- a very fine school. I don't see the need to put down other fine (and consistently higher-ranked) schools, such as UNC and UVA, in order to build up W&M's reputation. Doing so seems very transparent and ultimately fruitless.</p>