Colleges your child crossed off the list after visiting, schools that moved up on the list. Why?

Parents Forum
4442

@UNCHeeladelph UVA vs UNC? Whoa, this is amongst the toughest yet to differentiate. If your family friend desires a Top 5 academic national public university, could she/he go wrong with either choice? There are so many pros to both and so few cons. You will know more than I know, but here are our personal perceptions.

The first two perceptions were very important factors for my middle child at all universities we toured. The last one should be ignored, except to note weather does affect kids.

  1. My daughter relies more on intuition than I do. Since, you say you've been away from it for awhile, during the introductory presentation or on the tour, the leader goes around the room/crowd asking where everyone is from. If they don't, you find out on your own at some point in conversations during the tour.

My daughter knew UNC was a state school, but still wanted to hear something like Hong Kong, California, Charlotte, Wisconsin, Winston-Salem, Kitty Hawk, Mississippi, Boone, London when they asked where everyone was from. Nearly everyone she ran into was from the great state of North Carolina.

Since, UNC had been my daughter’s favorite college since she was six, she didn’t want to give up on it. My daughter later asked a childhood friend who grew up on Lake Norman about her perception of UNC. I remember her friend, specifically saying, “I got tired of, ‘What high school did you go to? Oh, you beat us in football.’” Her friend said that is why she didn’t enroll at UNC and felt compelled to go out of state.

UVA was a bit more geographically diverse, although it was apparent to all, we were in Virginia. She kept UVA on the list at this point, but did not apply to UNC.

I am more numbers driven than this daughter. The numbers do confirm her assessment.

According to their own websites
Out-of-State undergraduate enrollment:
33.3% UVA
17.8% UNC
For reference, another Top 5 Public Uni, U. of Michigan is 44.8% OOS undergrad enrollment and some private schools are 90%+ OOS. UVA is fairly high for a state institution, but still takes care of Virginia first, as is its mandate.

  1. A big plus at the time of the tours, was that UNC students seemed more down to earth than UVA. UVA came off "too preppy" in her words. This preppy perception eliminated UVA and was FAR and AWAY her greatest concern about Vanderbilt. When I looked up the actual Vandy financial aid statistics, she was surprised.
  2. Some people prefer the eclectic range of buildings at UNC. She did not. UVA's campus was slightly more appealing to her. I won't put any weight on campus architecture, layout, feel, energy in this comparison, because it rained cats and dogs at UNC. It didn't rain at UVA.

Hope this helps a little.

4443

@UNCHeeladelph Those two perceptions above may mean nothing to your family friend (FF for brevity), but the following would seem to me to be important to all and may help differentiate between UNC and UVA or wherever else your FF is looking.

You know all of this next bit, but I’ll remind you that you might want to stress to your FF to analyze ‘First Destination’ stats online. Then, really pepper career services department with questions.

Freshmen class profiles get all the press (the input), but what could be more important than the destinations (the output)? Where do the graduates live? What industries? What roles? What employers?

Our most important stop at every university is the career center. Some were amazingly helpful. Some were useless.

I should let your FF do the work, because so much of this career stuff is personal preference: Does FF prefer to live in North Carolina? Washington, DC? West coast? NYC? Overseas? or Does your FF desire the most geographic options?

Does FF care what graduate schools grads are accepted to? Attend?

If FF is considering several majors, can the career center supply some detailed guidance on employers, employment prospects at graduation for the majors of interest?

Do discount headline salaries, because none are adjusted for cost-of-living nor quality-of-life where the grads go. i.e. NYU, which places so many in NYC, better have quite a lot higher starting salary than UNC or UVA just to compensate for the higher cost of rent, taxes, food, a beer, etc… The headline salary also doesn’t compensate for the varying sectors graduates are placed into at each university. Some universities don’t even breakdown by major or industry.

4444

@illiteratemoron , interesting, our impression of UR, W&L, CNU was just exactly about the same as yours. W&M we felt more warmth towards…same impressions as you, but the history and slightly quirky intellectualism felt like a culture match for my son so it became a favorite.

4445

@rjkofnovi I thought it was a positive statement. It was meant to be. I am sorry to have offended you.

I have lived in a number of foreign countries. If I ask the average foreign person about art museums, they might name The Louvre, The British Museum, MOMA, The Tate, The Uffizi, The Vatican, The Met, The National Gallery London, Smithsonian, or perhaps, The Getty. No one ever says, The Art Institute of Chicago. I mean ever. Yet, it is AWESOME.

Aquariums: The only three that would possibly be mentioned from the U.S. would be The National Aquarium, Monterey Bay or the Georgia Aquarium. No one ever says the Shedd. They just don’t.

Repeat for the others.
Field Museum perhaps, maybe, might get a mention.

4446

@bloomfield88
Thank you for the detailed college impression, we are adding Vandy to our summer tour list! How are your (DCs’) perception of the Greek life on Vandy campus?
Re. “Underratedness”, I think the great city of Chicago itself is quite underrated internationally.

4447

@bloomfield88 and @illiteratemoron thanks for the impressions on the VA and NC schools. @bloomfield88 I bet you are going to end up giving your thoughts on all the schools on your list! @illiteratemoron re: your comment on Wawa – my kid considered proximity to Wawa a major plus for any school. Lafayette also has one right next to campus.

4448

As someone who attended UVa (undergrad) and UNC (grad school) and lives in Chapel Hill currently with a daughter who is going to attend UVa in the Fall - here are my thoughts. (Disclaimer: these are my experiences only and not meant to be extrapolated to a “macro” view of the schools)
Campus vs “Grounds” - for me there is no comparison. The fact that UNC is even compared to UVa esthetically seems unfair. Just walk the Lawn and try to find something comparable at UNC, it’s not possible. That being said it’s not fair to compare just about any school to UVa’s grounds…
Quality of education - keep in mind I’m comparing undergrad and grad school, although I have significantly more UNC undergrad friends than UVa due to where I live. My general feeling is that UNC has slightly better programs in the sciences and UVa edge lies in pre-professional (i.e. business, pre-law). Honestly, I’m splitting hairs. If separate yourself from the pack at either school academically you can attain anything you want - Wall Street, Phd, Med School, MBA.
Student body - this is really close. MY FEELING (once again just my opinion) is that the heavily skewed in state numbers at UNC make the student body slightly more limited. This is more a lack of geographic than ethnic diversity. Also taking a preponderance of your students from a state with a weak secondary school system has to carry over. Just having the NOVA schools alone provides this advantage.
With my daughter attending UVa, even though she was accepted at UNC, you can see the value I place on UVa (she wants to go McIntire.) As I’ve told her many times, if we lived in Richmond she probably would have wanted to go to UNC…

4449

@rjm2018 Thank you very much. I am just hoping not to offend anyone, but trying to be real at the same time.

Indiana University:
Several posts back I wrote about Dartmouth. I am replacing a few words in the exact paragraph
“In my mind, Indiana University (and one other) is the quintessential public university in the quintessential university town. I love the vibe. I cannot say enough good things about the ambiance of this uni and town.”

The campus is sprawling, but very nice and open. I particularly like the old section and forest as you walk through Sample Gate from Kirkwood Street and the area surrounding the Showalter Arts Plaza. Even the newest buildings use the local Indiana limestone.

We only lived in Bloomington for one year, but it was a Top 5 happiest year of my life. Students are passionate about their school. IU had a President who started in the late 1930s that was way ahead of his time. He brought so many ideas, arts, music, and even an international flavor that still exists today. My wife who has lived several places in the world still says the food in Bloomington is better than most places in LA at a fraction of the cost. That says a lot. There is always something to do on campus and in Bloomington and it is ridiculously easy to get around. I would gladly move back to Bloomington. It was that nice.

Notre Dame:
Contrasting the Kentucky-like rolling hills and beautiful forests surrounding Bloomington, the location of South Bend and even the weather is not as nice. However, I really like the layout of the ND campus. Obviously, the education level and athletics are amongst the best in the nation. While it is academic, intramurals are very big at ND and all ND alumni that I went to grad school with all loved and played sports. Perhaps, ND has a ‘work hard, play hard’ motto, like the cities of Chicago and Boston? That’s the feeling I got. Definitely more UCLA prototype than Caltech kids. My kids didn’t consider ND, no matter my pitch, but my middle child had to admit she liked the campus.

Georgia:

Big and vertical. The tour took us around in a bus and the campus still seemed big. My naive daughter said she imagined campus would be just like Savannah’s romantic mansions. Ha! There is a quad near Old College that met her impression, but that’s it. Everyone was so friendly. Amongst public universities, Georgia was certainly up there. It remained on her ‘Apply List’ until the very last round. I favored UGA over a few others on her final list.

My super easy going son, who is equally as intelligent (or as dumb) as his sisters, goofed off early in high school and then finally got very serious his senior year. He is making up for lost time. So, he didn’t earn the options his sisters did. He did apply to UGA, but was not accepted. I was really hoping he would be accepted. Athens is simply wonderful and far enough from Atlanta that it remains a university town rather than a burb.

Colorado State:
My daughter played in a camp there. The Flatirons aren’t right in front of you like the University of Colorado. So there is no awe factor. I do like that Fort Collins is far enough from Denver that it isn’t a suburb. To us, the campus seemed fine, but then again, nothing stood out. It would definitely be 4th of this four from our perspective. Perhaps, CSU was just too close to home at the time.

4450

IU has had mold issues in the dorms lately and, last year, some kids had to live in the LIBRARY where they set up cubicles as dorm rooms. Bloomington may be pretty but no thanks to that.

4451

@makemesmart That is quite a pleasant surprise. Do check out all the softer topics on the right hand side of the Vanderbilt page in the Princeton Review. I vouch that stuff is true in Vandy’s case. I certainly hope you enjoy your visit and tour and you receive a favorable result if the application is submitted.

My eldest did join her favorite sorority. No hazing or any of that stuff. She got very involved, became an officer and thoroughly enjoyed it. However, by her junior year, her schedule was just too busy to spend any material time with the sorority. She’ll go to the odd function. She says greek life certainly isn’t a must at Vanderbilt and she spends more time with academics, a club, community service, other friends and the team now. I do wonder if my middle child will pledge one or not.

I chuckled at your last sentence.

4452

Thanks @bloomfield88 and @Cavitee. A lot of what you both said makes sense. They are objectively both great public schools and it’s largely a matter of fit and granted the geographic diversity or lack thereof can be a factor. I’ll just add for anyone else who may be worried about that aspect, having gone to UNC OOS, I ended up fitting in seamlessly and my friend group was closer to something your daughter expected (certainly a lot of Charlotte and Greensboro, but definitely some DC, New York, Orlando, Seattle too).

@cavitee, I know opinions differ, but to call UNC’s campus no comparison to UVA’s lawn is a bit of a stretch. Polk Place and McCorkle Place this time of year, come on! :smile:

4453

Also, re: large number of in-state undergrads at UNC, as I’ve said on some other threads, NC has been one of the fastest growing states in the country for decades meaning many in-state students were born, or their parents were born, in other parts of the country. NC also has large Asian and Indian American communities drawn to the state’s high flying tech and pharma base. Large Latino population too.

In RTP and Charlotte most people you meet moved there from somewhere else. This means many in-state students are more geographically/culturally diverse than you might think.

4454

@AlmostThere2018 Agree 100% about UNC, I was not born in NC, but grew up here. Most of my friends growing up were also not born in NC- the big IBM migration back in the day. My kids weren’t born here either, but have gone to school here K-12. The acronym for Cary - is Centralized (or Containment) Area of Relocated Yankees. It’s rare that a new family in my neighborhood is from NC- they are all from out of state. A lot of people move here because of our public universities and cheap tuition. My D18 found people were shocked at her college in Florida because she doesn’t have a southern accent. Most of her friends, many of whom go to UNC, were also not born in NC.

If the worry is the NC kids go home every weekend- I don’t find that to be at all true- at least that’s what their parents complain.

As a side note, my D’s FL school let’s very few OOS in- she didn’t find it to be a problem at all.

4455

@bloomfield88
Thank you!
I could not add IU to our ever-expanding list, lol. Their wonderful music program was a draw, and I have no idea that Bloomington is a foodie town!

4456

@bloomfield88, thank you so much for your wonderful synopses of CSU, Georgia, IU and Notre Dame! ?

4457

The College of Arts and Sciences at Cornell seems to be well known for foreign language study, so maybe they call “international relations” something else. Maybe that depends on what sort of international relations you want to have. There’s a well-known business school, and great ice cream at the Dairy Bar. I don’t know what they have for international government oriented stuff.

4458

Georgetown has a whole school, 1/3 of the university, devoted to government stuff. That’s the DC part of it. It goes beyond just having an international relations department, maybe it’s second in the country to the Woodrow Wilson school at Princeton.

4459

How do we stray so far from the topic so often. Lol. I’m guilty too btw.

I’ll get back to a cross off. GW NYU and BU became drive by views as it became clear the campus wasn’t storybook enough for d.

Oh well.

4460

From recent spring break trip: Wesleyan fell off (D20 just wasn’t feeling it) and Vassar moved up (I think due to low prior expectations).

4461

@oniongrass agreed that Georgetown has a lot more to offer than government…my daughter is in the business school. Couldn’t be happier there all around…academics, friends, access to DC/Georgetown, professional opportunities abound…