Hi, guys. I got admission from UNC and UWM recently and I’m struggling about which college is the “right” one for me. I’m a transfer student in Purdue now and I’m also an international student. With 59 credits, hopefully I can be a junior next fall. So I’m planning to concentrate on advertising and public relations once I get into the program and minor in music hopefully which is something I really like. And both these two schools have good communication departments. UNC has already gave me the permission to enter my “major”, but for UWM, I still need to take one or two course and write some essays to apply for their department after my first semester there. Besides I really want to go somewhere liberal and diverse or I should say somewhere open to people who are different. I hope you guys can give me some suggests on this. Thanks you in advance!
Congratulations on your acceptances. Those are two excellent schools for communications. They rank differently according to different rankings; NRC (National Research Council) are probably most reputable, but also the most difficult to interpret. QS has UW (by the way, UWM refers to UW-Milwaukee; your acceptance is to UW-Madison, referred to as just UW) ranked number one in the country for 2014, and UNC much lower, but I honestly wouldn’t trust that ranking as much. Etc. Etc. I think some of UW’s prominence is related to its research citations as a top, large department. UNC is a little smaller, but still very good.
As for liberal / progressive / tolerance, Madison would have a slight edge; Chapel Hill is known to be open, tolerant and part of the Raleigh-Durham area – also a great place to be a student. According to your wishes, I would be wary of the overall recent conservative impact on North Carolina, but very similar could be said about the state of Wisconsin. It is typical for students to be admitted to Letters and Science at Wisconsin, so I would not let that impact your decision for communications much. As for a music minor, Wisconsin probably also offers a bit more resources and prominence (this really depends on your instrument or discipline, e.g. composition, education, etc.), but excellent faculty and facilities will also be found at UNC.
Maybe you could research specific faculty, research areas and the like for both schools. Of course, Wisconsin will be larger. UNC warmer. If you could visit both, that would be great. Or at least get in touch with your potential departments as a transfer student, and see what kind of impression you get. As a third year student, your interests and college expectations are more refined; thus it’s less about overall college, and more about your intended goals than a typical freshman. UNC is known as bit more difficult for OOS admissions, but I’d prioritize your overall career goals and fit – which matches you best. I don’t think you can go wrong with either choice, but do check respective cost of attendance if that is a factor. If you are already full-pay at Purdue, chances are both schools may cost less.
Thanks for all the information! It’s really, really helpful.
And yes, the ranking thing can be a little bit messy since there is no “official” ranking for communication programs. But I believe they both have good communication programs. And I think the most important thing I care about is the overall atmosphere of the campus since I tend to go to a more artistic university. Since I’m not able to visit one of these two schools currently so I basically search for all the information accessible online to get to know these two schools.
Again, thank you for your suggestions! I hope I can make the right choice in the end! 
@anhydrite
I’d pick UNC. It’s warmer and the UW system is getting their budget chopped.
UNC has more than its fair share of similar issues.
I agree with Barrons here. UNC vis a vis state issues may be in a worse position long-term, unfortunately (and I am quite fond of UNC-CH as an institution, probably more than its nearby competitor). Wisconsin faces budget proposals which still aren’t vetted yet, but as a state, it is quite polarized, and that means there’s vigorous resistance from a very large constituency to cuts, changes that diminish educational standards, etc. It’s not great by any means, but it is also not a lost cause by any means. In contrast, North Carolina as a state in recent years has swayed pretty hard in an unsupportive manner toward education (and other issues that are not pertinent here), and I’m not clear what it will be able to do to recover support and protections for education long-term. I hope I’m wrong. I want UW and UNC-CH to flourish, but we simply cannot say what will happen in the next decades.
Neither of these will overly affect undergrad education in the next few years (he is a third year transfer), but given his explicit desires, it may be the case that as a community, Madison weathers the state issues a bit more intact than Chapel Hill.
As someone who was artistic and creative going in, I may give the edge to Wisconsin here. Madison also features great museums, culture, and some other artistic programs that are groundbreaking or top in the country (see printmaking, and glass sculpture, Lynda Barry’s classes, etc. at UW). Chapel Hill excels in many things, and has some artistic pockets and a great vibe, though I would personally feel Asheville may have a more artistic and creative community as a whole.
By the way, I did look up communications rankings again. The QS ranking is for world in communications, and it is not so inaccurate as I thought; some of the data in the NRC rankings for mass communication does corroborate Wisconsin as close to number one. But it is fair to say that UNC does well in the NRC communication rankings in the aggregate (which is really the only meaningful way to assess that data).
Yes, the weather in UNC is a big advantage. Although I don’t quite about the budget thing, I will keep an eye on it! Thank you! @Mandalorian
I can’t understand what exactly this means…Can you briefly explain it for me? Thanks! @barrons
@anhydrite From all the information I have at present, I tend to slightly prefer UW since weather is not really an obstacle for me (I’ve already been Indiana for two years lol).
And I contacted both communications and music programs in these two schools. So far I’ve learned that UNC provides music minor while UW doesn’t offer any minor but they do provide general music classes (maybe more in-depth like a certificate under certain situations) to non-major student. It’s always not that easy to make up my mind haha.