Hi guys! I have been so lucky during early admission and I am blessed to receive admission to UNC Chapel Hill, the University of Virginia, and Boston College. The cost is a factor but not the main factor. I am OOS for all, but BC would be about 60,000 more than UNC and 30,000 more than Virginia. I was offered the Honors program at BC and UNC. UNC also offered me automatic acceptance into the Kenan-Flager business school. I plan to major in Polisci and Econ (polisci and business if i go to UNC). One day I would like to be a political analyst in DC. Where would you choose to attend? What are the reputations of all of the schools? Career placement, overall community, and prestige are all considerations. I’m totally conflicted. Thank you guys so much!
First off: congrats!!! If you are considering prestige, UVA has the best reputation - it is known as one of the “ivies of the south”. I think that would really help you pursue your intended career. I love BC and was myself admitted, but it doesn’t have nearly as good of a reputation as UVA. Don’t really know too much about UNC Chapel Hill, besides that it has a really strong sports culture. Best of luck!
If you want business Kenan Flagler, McIntire, and Carroll are all great. You cannot enter McIntire until junior year, and if you are not a direct admit to Carroll, it is difficult to transfer. Carroll averages 5-10 transfer slots per year for sophomores and juniors. You have a sure entry into the business school at UNC. Good luck with your decision.
UNC’s the cheapest and auto admit to KF? It’s a no brainer.
One thing I know about UVA is since it is near DC there are many professors who work at UVA and also work in DC (some with other professions,some working on projects) But many students there get opportunities to intern in DC. So if you want to work in DC, that might be a great head start. That’s the only two cents I have because I don’t know much about the other schools. But good job on your acceptances and good luck!
Go with UVA.
Did you apply to Georgetown, just out of curiosity? Are you waiting on any RD schools that might be attractive?
BC no better than the other 2 and not worth the extra cost. Even at the same cost I wouldn’t pick it over the other two. So I’d eliminate that one from the running.
UNC and UVA: both are close in terms of reputation.
- UNC you're auto-admit to their biz school. So if going to biz school is important to you, pick this one.
- UVA has the advantage of potentially more DC connections, so go there if that's what's most important to you (as someone mentioned, getting into their biz school is tough)
If it was me, assuming a $30K diff I would choose UNC over UVA. But if money isn’t really an issue, then I’d recommend visiting both UNC and UVA and see which you like best and would want to spend 4 years at.
You can’t go wrong either way. Congrats!
BC would make sense if your goal was to work in Boston after graduation. The BC alumni network is very strong in the Boston area. But since your goal is working in DC, I think you should save some money and choose one of the other two schools.
BC isn’t worth the premium in cost over the other two schools. I’d pick UNC over the other two schools simply because you are in the honors program and an auto-admit into Kenan-Flagler (think of this as a safety for B-School). The lower cost is a nice bonus. I wouldn’t worry about UVA being closer to DC. Plenty of students from UNC work in DC in the summers and after graduation. Chapel Hill/Carrboro is very nice - walkable, nice restaurants, good music, and fairly inexpensive place to live.
While the finances certainly don’t point towards BC, I don’t know what evidence people are using when they are claiming that it’s a slam dunk that an undergrad education at UVA or UNC is far superior to one at BC. All three of these universities are getting their faculties from the same top PhD programs, and their students have comparable test scores and GPAs.
The one area where it IS a slam dunk is what do you do when you aren’t on campus? UNC has a few overrated blocks of restaurants and bars; UVA has a nice pedestrian mall a few miles from campus. BC has…BOSTON.
It’s surprising to me that the offers for UNC and UVA were so different.
Offers for honors or $?
I think money, they mean difference in price over 5 years?
Charlottesville is 2.5 hours from DC. Unless you have a reliable method of transportation and time to drive 5 hours round-trip, I wouldn’t bank on the possibility of doing an internship in DC. (Sure, some professors do work there, but they have the luxury of arranging all their classes on 3-4 days a week and then traveling to stay in DC for 1-2 days a week.) Besides, there are political science internships all over the country, not just in DC, and if you do a summer internship in DC you can do that from any university. UNC is 40 minutes from the North Carolina state capital and the Research Triangle actually has lots of think tanks and political research/policy research organizations (including RTI International, one of the top ones.) Boston IS the capital of Massachusetts and has plenty of political organizations located there, including 23 consulates in the immediate area. There is so much more to political science than DC politics.
I also agree that Boston College, UNC, and UVA have similar levels of academic quality and prestige.
You say that Boston College would be $60,000 more than UNC and $30,000 more than Virginia - do you mean per year or overall? BC is about $63K per year, UNC about $50K, and UVa about $58K. Based on those numbers it does appear that you are talking about overall costs over 4 years rather than cost per year - because that would make UNC only about $3,000 a year and UVa about $28,000 per year for you. If that’s the case then this is a no-brainer (UNC) but if it’s not the case, and you’re looking at full-pay for all…well, not that $60,000 is nothing to sneeze at, but the differences are much closer.
Anyway, my vote is for UNC.
- It’s the cheapest
- You’re auto-admitted into Kenan-Flagler. A lot of political analysis and lobbying and policy is connected to business, and the lines are pretty fluid - and Kenan-Flagler is one of the best undergrad business schools in the country. BC and UVa both have really competitive business schools you might not be able to get into later.
- If you want to do political analysis (which is primarily research), I argue that the Research Triangle is actually one of the best places to be for that - probably better than Charlottesville. First of all, as I mentioned there are lots of research centers and institutes located there that are focused on policy analysis. UNC itself has a School of Government with research going on.
There are also lots of financial services firms and other large corporations located there - Credit Suisse, Fidelity Investments, Deutsche Bank, major branches of Lenovo, Intel, Qualcomm, IBM, Oracle, Ogilvy, Wyeth, Monsanto, Merck, and GlaxoSmithKline.
Honestly, you can’t really go wrong with any of these options, especially if economics is a viable alternative second major for you.
Son just graduated from UVA in May, Politics. Do not assume you will get an internship in DC because you’re there! He did, but totally without help from the University. Nephew was same age at UNC, great experience. Both great schools, spectacular college towns, happening sports scene and social opportunities. Unless one is your dream school, I’d go with the lower cost, save that expense for grad school. Also, McIntyre is very, very competitive to apply into second year. KF is great, so I’d take a sure thing if you have an interest in business.
UNC
UNC, because the Honors program will help you get to know professors better (smaller classes, priority registration), you’ll have more opportunities, and auto-admit to KF is a nice perk, since it means you could major in politics + minor in business + participate in the global programs, or double major, etc. (The undergraduate major has a serious “core” which you can then “customize”, so a minor might be easier to add to a gov’t/politics major.)
http://www.kenan-flagler.unc.edu/programs/undergraduate-business/curriculum/undergraduate-major
http://www.kenan-flagler.unc.edu/en/programs/undergraduate-business/global-programs.aspx
http://www.kenan-flagler.unc.edu/programs/undergraduate-business/curriculum/electives.aspx
http://www.kenan-flagler.unc.edu/leadership/star
http://www.kenan-flagler.unc.edu/news/2016/02/Leadership-App-wins-AACSB-innovation-award
UVA would be second, in part because it’s true many professors in gov’t/politics have links to DC - but you may not get access to them until your sophomore or junior year (“regular” poli sci classes at UVA are huge.)
Definitely UNC Chapel Hill for you. It has the most benefits for you.
UNC is the cheapest
UNC offered auto-acceptance
UNC offered Honors Program to you
UVA & Boston are still good though
UNC with UVA second.
The money amounts you’re talking about - is that over all four years?
^those are graduate program rankings, primarily based on research outputs, not undergraduate programs, so they’re irrelevant even if they’re interesting.
While finances might not be a main factor, I can tell you that it feels amazing to see a huge chunk of change come off your bill every semester. If you feel that you would be happy at any of them, letting money be your deciding factor isn’t a bad idea.