<p>all my friends tell me so, and I read a lot of negative reviews.</p>
<p>Overrated compared to what? Obviously it's no Harvard, but it compares well to other state universities of the same caliber (e.g. Virginia). If by "negative reviews" you mean studentsreview.com, most of them come from people who come to UNC from out-of-state. Indeed, UNC has a high chance of sucking if you are from out-of-state and more of an introverted person - but it's their fault for not being smart enough to realize this.</p>
<p>Remember that studentsreview is not a standard survey. If I wanted to, I could rate UNC myself without knowing much about it.</p>
<p>yeah, I was referring to studentsreview.com. Almost all of the reviews it seemed were negative towards UNC-CH, and I was wondering why.</p>
<p>If studentsreview.com is any indication of colleges, Cal State Northridge is a better school than Harvard.</p>
<p>UNC-CH is not overrated.</p>
<p>I don't think UNC is overrated. It's a pretty good school. In fact, I think it's underrated.</p>
<p>Chapel Hill may be a school that we are considering. Which private schools would you equate it with?</p>
<p>I would compare UNC (reputationally speaking) to Emory, Rice, Washington University, Vanderbilt and Georgetown. But it is completely different in all other ways. The private schools I mention are all located in rather large cities. Chapel Hill is a small college town. UNC is also more well rounded than say Georgetown. But by and large, in terms of quality and reputation, UNC belongs in the same class as the private schools I mentioned.</p>
<p>I think when only 17% are out-of-state, you're going to find some unhappy people. Unhappy people gravitate to studentreviews.com.</p>
<p>You make a god point Celebrian. I was reading some reviews on verious schools, including Dartmouth, Michigan, Stanford and other great institutions and I noticed that many reviews were very hateful and clearly written by people who hated the schools rather than by people who had negative experiences at those schools. Studentreviews is a joke.</p>
<p>Why do you think that oos are an unhappy bunch, is it because the culture is so different, being 82% Carolinans? Or is it because the standards of admission are lowered in order to fulfill the in-state requirement?</p>
<p>Yeah, someone could easily just right hundreds of negative reviews about a rival school or school they were rejected from.</p>
<p>Sometimes that happens but not always.Athletically, many many people hate Duke, but the reviews are almost exclusively positive. Yale also has mostly very positive reviews except for a few (most of which sound fake). Anyways, I agree that studentsreview can be helpful to a point, as positive reviews are usually fairly reliable and could help you evaluate a school, but even those can be suspect (like an Adcom going on and making them). Also, the negative reviews cannot always be dismissed. There's a long, detailed diatribe on Harvard's and I'm sure that, while most students don't feel that way, there is probably some truth to what he says.</p>
<p>But yeah, UNC sucks! (sorry, I'm required to say that as a Duke student haha)</p>
<p>Choco: possibly both. While the upper 50% of UNC's student body is very smart, there are quite a few people who go in every year who are, for lack of a better word, pretty stupid. People who come to UNC expecting it to be perfect see this as a reason to complain, while most just don't care because there are plenty of smart people there anyway. As for being OOS, it's not so much the culture difference (UNC is quite liberal for a Southern state university), but the fact that <em>lots</em> of people go to Carolina with people they knew in high school. This means that if you aren't an outgoing person, and go there without knowing anybody, chances are you aren't going to like it that much. But if you are fairly sociable there should be no problem.</p>
<p>I read somewhere that UNC is trying to beef up their out of state ratio to 33%.</p>
<p>unc is trying, but unlike virginia, I think they actually can't accept anymore. I think out of staters think they're going to a public harvard, but then they find out that a large portion are north carolinians who probably didn't have to worry about admissions there anyways (not necesarily stupid people)</p>
<p>That would be a big increase from the current 12%.</p>
<p>I awlays thought it would be weird if I went there, as an out of stater, because it would have been so hard for me to get in, but I would be there with just every-day kids who had not trouble getting in just because they are in-state. Seems messed up to me.</p>
<p>Speaking as an NC resident, I think that would be a really good idea. Unlike other states, which need a higher in-state % than NC because admissions are so competitive within the state (read: California), admission to UNC in-state isn't competitive at all (60% acceptance rate EA I believe), and the other NC universities (outside of State) could use more applicants. Not only would it boost the test averages and such, it would also foster more diversity on the campus.</p>
<p>edit: IIRC the current % of OOS students is 17%</p>