Parent here, my dd is into Carolina with a scholarship, Honors, and Research Honors.
She is waiting until April 1st to finalize where she wants to go. Does anyone have opinions about going to a school like Rice, Duke, Emory vs being at Carolina in the Honors program? Would a student stand out more in Honors Carolina vs another top institution?
Yes a student would stand out more at a state school. She should go to the school that is good in her major but if ur in state u should just stick to unc unless u get good financial aid at those other colleges
Not sure what you are asking.
Does a UNC Honors student stand out compared to SOME of their peers? Yes, since UNC will have a larger spread of students in terms of ability due to the greater number of students. Will they stand out in a honors class that is filled with other honor students? No, they will be challenged and will need to work harder. The same will apply to many of the weeder courses. UNC has a lot of pre-med students that are extremely bright. Keep in mind that it is likely that your student will only take 1-2 honor courses per semester. Having said that, your student will be challenge in most if not all courses if they chose the harder courses. My student is in the same boat as yours and she has definitely been challenged. Bare in mind that she chose to take some 400 and 500 level course as a Freshman.
When you compare rankings with the schools you mentioned, UNC will rank higher in some fields and lower in others. So you need to focus on your actual field of study and not just the overall school rank. I also feel that that the top 10% of UNC student will be just as bright and capable as the students at the schools you mentioned. Many end up at UNC not because they couldn’t get into the IVYs, Duke, … but because they did but couldn’t afford those other schools.
We are OOS. One of the reasons why my D chose UNC over Emory and similar schools ( she was accepted to all) was that they gave us a much better price. My D did not make honors at UNC- not sure why since she exceeds the criteria, but it’s fine. She loves UNC- she feels very adequately challenged while at the same time is able to stay at the top of her classes, and has had several opportunities come her way so far. Just yesterday we were on the phone when a professor stopped her and invited her to join something that he is involved with. Would she have this at Emory or Vanderbilt? I have no idea…