<p>Corc, I love both schools and would recommend them equally, depending in the individual and her/his preferences and needs. Here are a few things to remember when making up your mind, in order of importance: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>OOS students who receive no financial aid, Michigan is roughly $15,000/year more expensive than UNC. Is money a concern? If it is, UNC makes better sense.</p></li>
<li><p>Academicaly and reputationally, I think Michigan has a slight edge over UNC, but it is not significant. </p></li>
<li><p>Socially, UNC has the edge, but again, it is not significant. </p></li>
<li><p>Michigan probably has a more potent alumni network because it is more spreadout, but both schools have very happy, loyal, proud and influencial alums, so you cannot go wrong either way. </p></li>
<li><p>Although Chapel Hill is lovely, I think Ann Arbor is a more complete town.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Assuming all of this fails to sway you, remember the following two points:</p>
<ol>
<li>UNC is 60% female! Great if you are male, bad if you are female</li>
<li>UNC is a basketball school while Michigan is a football school</li>
</ol>
<p>Duke and UNC-CH are athletic rivals but hardly academic/alumni rivals. Duke has more in common with Stanford, Dartmouth, Rice, HYP, than UNC. UNC has more in common and alumni connections with NC State and East Carolina due to in-state student bodies.</p>
<p>What is it with the people talking out of their *** on this thread? UNC has almost nothing in common with NC State-NC State is an agricultural and engineering school, UNC is a research and liberal arts university. UNC has even less in common with ECU.</p>
<p>Seriously, you really should preface these moronic statements by saying things like, “I really don’t know what I’m talking about, BUT…”</p>
<p>UNC is peers with UVa, Michigan, UCLA, etc. Duke is not a large public university so it isn’t really a peer of UNC, not that UNC would want to be like Duke anyways.</p>
<p>It’s really a tossup with a $60,000 bonus if you pick UNC. I’d pick UNC, make a downpayment on a townhouse after graduation with the $60,000 I saved, and rent out rooms to generate a revenue stream for grad school.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>. . . though this is one of the more bizarre statements I’ve ever encountered on CC.</p>
Since 1984-85, when the modern era of college basketball started, Duke leads UNC in virtually every metric of college basketball excellence except NBA Top 10 picks where they are tied.</p>
<p>CONFERENCE TITLES (regular season and tournament)
Duke: 25
UNC: 18</p>
<p>NCAA TOURNAMENT BERTHS
Duke: 26
UNC: 24</p>
<p>NUMBER 1 SEEDS IN NCAAT
Duke: 12
UNC: 10</p>
<p>SWEET 16 APPEARANCES
Duke: 20
UNC: 18</p>
<p>FINAL FOURS
Duke: 11
UNC: 9</p>
<p>NATIONAL TITLES
Duke: 4
UNC; 3</p>
<p>NCAA TOURNAMENT WINS
Duke: 79
UNC: 69</p>
<p>ALL-AMERICANS
Duke: 26
UNC: 20</p>
<p>NBA TOP 10 PICKS
Duke: 11
UNC: 11</p>
<p>Lets see how far they both advance in the tournament this year. A potential Duke-UNC matchup in the Final Four this year could unleash Armageddon.:D</p>
<p>
I disagree with this and think that Chapel Hill is the slightly better college town after having been to both AA and CH dozens of times and being an impartial observer. Chapel Hill has a charming and quaint atmosphere that Ann Arbor can’t seemingly replicate, especially with the disjointed nature of the city and the constant construction that occurs all over campus.</p>
<p>LDB, I have lived in Ann Arbor and visited Chapel Hill a handful of times (spent one entire summer there back in 2000). I definitely agree that Chapel Hill is more charming, but Ann Arbor is much larger and has more variety. Both are magical in their own ways and among the top college towns anywhere, but Ann Arbor just has more to offer. Let me put it this way, I would not mind living in Ann Arbor but I cannot see myself living in Chapel Hill.</p>
<p>It is interesting that the modern era of college basketball didn’t start until after Michael Jordan left Carolina. Kareen Abdul-Jabar, Bill Walton, James Worthy, Magic Johnson, Isiah Thomas and Larry Bird are all pre-historic figures.</p>
<p>UNC leads Duke in virtually every metric of college basketball experience all-time. I understand why you would wish to discount Duke’s early struggles and UNC’s pre-1984 successes (after all, you want to make Duke look as good as possible), but cherry-picking dates in order to make your side look better isn’t really accurate or truthful.</p>
<p>Here are the all-time stats:</p>
<p>WINS
UNC: 2,032
Duke: 1,944</p>
<p>NATIONAL TITLES
UNC: 5
Duke: 4</p>
<p>FINAL FOUR APPEARANCES:
UNC: 18
Duke: 14</p>
<p>HEAD-TO-HEAD SERIES
UNC leads 131-101</p>
<p>CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIPS:
UNC: 35
Duke: 38</p>
<p>NCAA TOURNAMENT BERTHS:
UNC: 42
Duke: 35</p>
<p>SWEET 16s
UNC: 31
Duke: 25</p>
<p>So, basically, you can’t reall deny that UNC is the better program historically, but both are great programs.</p>
<p>Too bad college football is a much bigger game than basketball. In that case both UNC and Duke suck for the most part and UM is an historic if not current power.</p>
<p>College football is bigger, both sports are huge though. Anyways, you can’t really put UNC in the same category as Duke football-wise, Duke has been one of the worst programs in the country (last winning season was in 1994, several 1 and 2-win seasons in recent memory, etc) while UNC has made a number of bowl games, has finished with plenty of winning seasons and has won 20 of the last 21 games against Duke.</p>
Duke didn’t really “struggle” early but definitely wasn’t as prominent and as successful of a program in the pre-Coach K era though it did shine for a period of time under Vic Bubas. The reason I draw the cutoff at the 1984-85 season is because that’s when the idea of the 64-team NCAA tournament was developed.</p>
<p>Even ESPN uses the 1984-85 season as a marker when it developed its “prestige” rankings for college basketball several years back.</p>
<p>“All week, we’ve outlined our criteria for the Prestige Rankings, a numerical method of ranking the best Division I men’s college basketball programs since the 1984-85 season. The 1984-85 season was when the NCAA tournament expanded to 64 teams, making it the first time a national champion had to win six tournament games to cut down the nets. It was also the start of the fairest inclusion in the NCAA tournament: Before that season, even the best conferences got only one team in the field. And with the introduction of the 3-point line in 1985-86, the past 24 seasons can be considered the most modern era of college basketball” {ESPN).</p>
<p>
College football is not a “much bigger game” than basketball. The Big Dance is exponentially more exciting and important than the BCS Bowl games and it is more watched by more Americans. People don’t give two hoots about a Bowl game where their squad isn’t playing which isn’t true for March Madness.</p>
<p>Duke has a better program than Wisconsin historically by the way.;)</p>
<p>Duke is a slightly worse football program than Wisconsin and a better program by a small margin than UNC according to ESPN. Duke Football has been dreadful for the better part of two decades but was pretty competitive before then. Highlights include a Sugar Bowl win over Alabama in 1945, an Orange Bowl win over Nebraska in 1955 and a Cotton Bowl win over Arkansas in 1961.</p>
<p>Duke has 17 conference titles while UNC only has 9. The Blue Devils also have more ACC players of the year.</p>
<p>Yes, I am talking about football played in the modern era with two platoons and more than one game per week on TV. I’d go back to the beginning of ESPN as that marks the real modern era of national football TV coverage and popularity. In the 70’s even the Big Dance was smaller with under 40 teams and only a few games were televised.</p>
<p>The NCAA had control over the football television until sometime in the early to mid 1980’s. The University of Oklahoma sued to wrestle control of TV rights from the NCAA. Until then a school had its football games on TV a max of 2 times per year. Football was just as popular - it just wasn’t on TV as much. It was much better being at the games before the TV time out came into play.</p>
<p>The NCAA basketball tournament was still popular and was still modern before the tournament profilerated to 64 teams. Getting in was more meaningful because there were fewer at large teams adn there were no meaningless 1-16 or 2-15 matchups. The biggest difference was that Duke was not a brand name back then and Dean Smith and the four corners dominated the ACC. Duke had a final four appearance in 1978 but they were like the Davidson or George Mason of the final four.</p>