My daughter was accepted to UNC and NCSU and wants to major in Biomedical Engineering (BME). She likes biology, chemistry, math and statistics and would like to work on organ engineering (not that she knows much about the field at this point). Although BME is a joint program between the two schools and students get dual diplomas, the way the system works is that students are considered as BME-intent majors for their first year on campus and take core prerequisite courses, but do not get admitted into the BME program until their second year and the acceptance to the program is not guaranteed (only 80 students get chosen at each site). My daughter is academically very strong (all A’s and 13 AP classes in high school), but there is no guarantee that she will remain studious in college.
My daughter is torn which school’s offer to accept. UNC has a Medical School and is overall better than NCSU in Biology, but does not have an Engineering School. NCSU is strong in engineering and, should my daughter end up not liking BME or not getting accepted into BME, she will have other types of engineering she can consider (chemical, mechanical, industrial, textile, etc.). She liked both campuses when she visited them.
Among pluses of UNC is that their financial aid package is $10,000 better (at least for the first year) and overall UNC is ranked higher than NCSU. The advantage of NCSU is that my daughter may get into their Honors Program (she applied and is awaiting to hear the results), whereas Honors option was not available to her at UNC. NCSU has a summer transition program available to their students (classes and activities), something that would be beneficial to my daughter. In theory, summer school is available at UNC as well, but I could not find any information regarding an organized program with cohort building activities for students outside of summer classes (besides UNC’s Summer Bridge Program that seems to be targeting students from small rural high schools that does not apply to us). My daughter is not very social and thus may need that extra help to get to know people. The engineering program at NCSU seems to be very cohesive and my daughter will have access to their Minority Engineering Program, which provides group cohort-building activities and personalized counseling. We also liked that at NCSU housing is grouped by interests and she can live with like-minded people in the Engineering village.
I may be biased towards NCSU because I know more about it (my husband and I both work at NCSU), but UNC’s better overall ranking and stronger financial aid package are hard to ignore. Those of you that know about UNC and/or NCSU, please, do share in your experience to help my daughter get a fuller picture to decide what school to attend. Thank you!