albertoncemore

Hi guys,
Well, now I am admitted into Washington University in St.Louis and UNC. But I definitely cannot decide which one I should go to. Can you give me some advice?
I'm a Math major, but I have heard that Wash U is good at medicine and relatively not that good in Math.
Please help me.

noimagination

I think the two programs are comparable. Barring significant geographic (midwest vs. south) or size (small-mid vs. largish), I would go to whichever one is cheaper and pocket the difference.

geniustai

Are you in-state for UNC?

albertoncemore

Well, I'm an international student and do not live in Carolina.

Alexandre

I would go with UNC, but WUSTL is just as good. I just prefer Chapel Hill (one of America's quaintest and funnest college towns) to St Louis (arguably America's most dangerous city).

averby

I don't know anyone going to WUSTL for math so go to UNC.
But if you want prestige then go to WUSTL.

tk21769

Congratulations. WUSTL is one of the most selective schools in the USA; UNC is considered one of the best public universities.

You can compare the NRC rankings of their doctoral programs in mathematics for a general indication of relative faculty strength. I'm not sure this is going to be too helpful, though, to distinguish the two schools' undergraduate math programs.
NRC Rankings Overview: Mathematics - Faculty - The Chronicle of Higher Education

I don't think WUSTL is in a particularly dangerous part of St. Louis, so that might not be a good distinguisher either.

WUSTL is a national university. It draws students from all over the USA. UNC is a state university so a large majority of undergraduates will come from NC. WUSTL also offers much smaller class sizes. About 70% of WUSTL classes have <20 students. At UNC, the percentage is less than half. Once you get past the first two years, I would expect your math classes to be small at either school, but you'll presumably be taking lots of non-math courses over the 4 years.
(Avg Class size?)

Alexandre

Averby, WUSTL is certainly prestigious, but no more so than UNC. Neither is considered as prestigious as Harvard or MIT but both have excellent reputations.

Furthermore, UNC class sizes are small too, but as a public university, it does not have the luxury of manipulating data like private universities do. It is a myth that classes at public universities are significantly larger than at private universities. They may be slightly larger, but not to the point where it makes a difference.

There are very few parts of St Louis that are pleasant. Yes, roughly half the crime takes place in the northern parts of St Louis, but most of the city is not student-friendly. When I visited a friend in St Louis, she commented on how the city had close to a million residents in the 1950s and that since the 1960s, the population has declined to roughly a third of a million. Anytime a city's population declines by over 50%, there is cause for concern. I would say that St Louis is one of the least pleasant cities I have visited, and that includes Detroit. Chapel Hill on the other hand is a very pleasant, fun and student-friendly town.

Another factor to consider is cost. I know the OP said that cost was not a major factor, but there is a significant difference in cost of attendance. Attending WUSTL is roughly $20,000 more expensive than UNC. That's $80,000 over four years.

If the OP were majoring in Biology or premed, I would have a harder time recommending UNC over WUSTL. But for virtually any other major, I would recommend UNC.

Dad_of_3

I've known more than one who discovered that the math they liked in HS actually was a lot closer to applied math used in Engg rather than what they experienced as a math major. So I'd recommend looking at the schools' Engg programs also in case this applies to you.

noimagination

I've lived in St. Louis. I think the city has a lot of spirit, and the Forest Park / Clayton neighborhood is nice. Unless you come from a very small/sheltered town, I can't imagine that you'd feel especially unsafe in the immediate area.

Still, I can't deny that the RTP area is more of a growth center than STL.

tk21769

The public data I've seen suggests otherwise to me. However, at UNC (or Michigan) v. WUSTL in particular, especially in specific majors, it may not be a big issue.

According to the UNC Common Data Set, 158 classes (out of 3,107) have 100+ students.
Another 158 have 50-99 students. 476 have 30-49. So about 25% are what I'd consider "big" for purposes of discussion and instructor feedback. These won't be distributed evenly across all majors and levels.

Unfortunately I cannot find a CDS document for WUSTL. You could check out the CDS distribution numbers for some schools close to WUSTL in the list I cited. At Princeton, for example, about 18% of classes have 30 or more students.

In any case, the cost difference is indeed substantial. If there's a class size advantage to WUSTL, that alone may not be worth the extra cost to you.

Pizzagirl

Alexandre, with all due respect, I don't think you're familiar with the area at all.

WUSTL is in a very lovely area of St. Louis -- bordered by a park, the pleasant Clayton metro area with upscale dining, shopping, businesses, Ritz-Carlton, etc. -- and multi-million dollar homes, often older and quite charming. It's very safe and quasi-suburban in its overall feel.

The actual city of St. Louis has rough areas -- as does any major city -- but they are pretty much irrelevant to the WUSTL experience (just as, say, South Boston is irrelevant to someone deciding to go to Harvard or MIT).

I think this is a choice between an excellent smaller school and an excellent bigger school, and one's personal preferences for small / big come into play.

I agree the city of St. Louis is not super-exciting for young people, but it's not because of safety concerns -- it's just a city that doesn't have much of a downtown. To some extent, Clayton serves as the downtown.

Gatsby11

Don’t be swayed by Alexandre’s hyperbole; the neighborhoods immediately surrounding WUSTL are safe and affluent, with very large mansions and tree-lined boulevards. As to the larger city, Pizzagirl is spot on (I assume this is because she has lived in STL/MO at some point?) Like any large metropolitan area, St. Louis has a few rough spots, but it does offer a variety of safe, upscale dining, shopping areas, museums and student-friendly urban parks etc.

Your choice should come down to measures of personal fit. However, in my opinion, WUSTL’s national drawing power, smaller class sizes, and prestige give it a slight edge.

Congrats!

Pizzagirl

I think WUSTL is more prestigious than UNC, personally. People know WUSTL as a top national school. I'm a personal fan of UNC and considered going there myself, but once you move away from the east coast, most people are going to just think "oh, the state university for North Carolina" and not think of it as anything special. If my kids were making that decision, I'd come down in favor of WUSTL.

MisterK

I'm sure that both schools are wonderful. UNC certainly doesn't take a back seat to WUStl in terms of prestige. UNC is top tier all the way, one of our country's great state universities.