<p>I thought I would try another UNC-A thread. It really sounds like a good school in a fun area. Now the catch is their low graduation rate. Can someone explain why it is low and if we should be concerned about it? How do the nontraditional students influence the traditional college students?</p>
<p>how low is it?</p>
<p>UNC-A is in a lovely area. My daughter didn’t go to UNC-A - she went to another school in Asheville. She loved it and the Asheville “experience”. Since UNC-A is a public school, and given the local economy in Western NC, I suspect that a lot of kids are working their way through school. The major reasons for a low graduation rate for public schools are two fold - financial and change of major.
I would not be daunted by a low graduation rate - it doesn’t mean your child can’t graduate in 4 years and IMO doesn’t really tell you anything about the “quality” of the students.</p>
<p>Ditto - on both counts. The area is gorgeous, and I agree with JustAMom’s comment on interpreting graduation rates in public universities.</p>
<p>Ditto. It’s my opinion that, after accounting for medical, financial, part-time, etc., issues, a lot of hold-up in graduation comes from students not adequately planning there courses (what’s offered which semester, what’s a pre-req, what courses are scheduled at the same conflicting times, etc.).</p>
<p>Northeastmom, if both of us keep posting here about UNC-A, it will become wildly popular, and then my '11er won’t be able to get in!</p>
<p>missypie, LOL! I forgot about your thread. I would not worry about it too much with that low graduation rate. As far as graduation rate, I am lazy so I pulled out my old 2004 college guide book that says the 5 year graduation rate is just 47%. 4 year grad rate is 31%. Retention rate is now 79%, and my old guidebook shows retention to be 78%. SAT scores interestingly have remained steady with the midrange in 2004 and what is listed on the CB site at about 530-640 for verbal and math (approximately).</p>
<p>Whenever one sees low graduation rates at public Us one can say that the student signed up for the wrong courses, ran out of funds, etc. Still some public universities have much higher graduation rates. Also, this school is not expensive when compared with other public universities. OOS students make up 17% of the student body (NC limits how many OOS students may be admitted).</p>
<p>I am hoping we get to visit UNC Ashville sometime this year (son’s junior year).</p>
<p>State schools tend to have low grad rates. They take more local kids who often cannot afford to stay in school full time and end up non traditional students. I see this with a number of local SUNY/CUNYs. </p>
<p>I do believe it is an issue and the reasons for the rate should be investigated. My oldest went to a school with a low retention rate, and found out the hard way that it just was not a very nice school. Cut throat and lots of dysfunction and mismatch there.<br>
However, there are certain categories of schools that just have low retention rates because they accept more students that are not prepared for college. The small former teachers colleges fit that description. Excellent schools for what they do.</p>
<p>How do you feel about the small percentage of students from OOS? This would be one of my concerns with any of the UNCs - would it be hard to fit in, make friends, etc., if everyone else is from NC?</p>
<p>Are you going to visit Warren Wilson, too? We did some research about that school a few years ago, but my daughter decided she wanted a more conventional college experience.</p>
<p>rockvillemom - When my daughter started at U Texas, freshman classes were running was 92% Texan, 4% OOS, and 4% intl. UNC Asheville is full of out-of-staters by comparison! :)</p>
<p>MidwestDad2Kids_ likes the Asheville area. I have never been there, but it sounds great. Worth a visit. Thanks for the new input on this older thread. We hadn’t thought of Warren Wilson. There are so many interesting colleges!</p>
<p>I started this thread, and did visit. We enjoyed the area and the campus. My son did not end up applying because OOS cost was a bit more than our instate public school costs (NJ) and we did not care for their graduation rate. Also, on top of that I needed to factor in travel costs.</p>
<p>Asheville is a lovely area. Not really ‘southern’ - populated by a lot of northern transplants.
One of mine is a Warren Wilson grad. It is a very pretty college. Very unconventional.
There are a number of tiny liberal arts colleges in that area.</p>
<p>We are NC residents. S1 grad. from an instate public in ‘09. One of his best friends was fr. Iowa. One of his roommates was fr. Chicago. With a school that big there will always be kids from all over.
S2 will be a jr. this year at a diff. instate public.
Both kids’ schools are large and have plenty of oos’ers.</p>
<p>The max. allowed by the UNC system is 18% oos. S2’s school has 18% every year, I think. Most of them from NY,NJ.PA,VA,MD.<br>
It’s not UNC-CH. I guess it would be called a third tier directional state u. in CC speak.</p>