cloying

This discussion is ridiculous.

swim4china89

dude, no ones making you guys come to unc. seriously we'd be better off without you anyways. if you think its overrated then dont come to our school. simple as that. no ones forcing you to. if you think your better than us, then move along. im sure the school down the road from UNC will take people like you. but please, dont pretend like you KNOW our school because you dont. even if you do take visits, its not until you move in, and spend a semester or two that you can even make judgements.

statistics arent always right and numbers are numbers. theres a reason college admissions dont just look at your SAT/ACT and GPA. certainly you agree that an applicant should be examined in other aspects such as their character and other personal strengths. just because one applicant or one school doesnt look as good on paper doesnt mean it isnt better.

that being said, im sure people at UVA and Michigan have enough school pride to say that theyre the best or better than this or that college. certainly we do too so please. dont insult us by trying to judge our entire university because you really aren't qualified.

danny_125

I have a 99% confidence interval that UNC's proportion, or mean, ranking is between .21 to .23, well beyond the third interval, making it statistically significant.

scottlh

I agree w/ you simple. I see awful too many people on this thread that think UNC is overrated or a level below other top publics. UNC is not a notch below UVA nor Michigan when you look at things objectively. Michigan is a research focused school with top majors throughout but so is UNC? It's just that UNC Sociology, Pub Health, Nursing, Lib. Science, Journalism, Primary Care Med., Undergrad. business are top 1-5 in the nation (acc. U.S.News). Michigan's Poli-sci, Hist, English, Law, Med (Sugical), Undergrad Business rank top 5 in the nation. Also, the majors that are top 5 for Michigan are also in top 10-20 for UNC. UNC is a very well rounded university (most of the programs top ranked in the nation). So, where do you find enough fault in the university to claim that it is a notch below UCLA? hence UVA? Reputation? You'd think UT-Austin may carry weight in TX but over on the east coast UNC will trump UT anyday, reputation wise. The Chapel Hill (which UNC is often referred to as in academia) is recognized w/ reverence in most of our universities in America. I traveled around/ visited multiple professors at different universities (UPENN, Brown, CMU, UCLA, Harvard, BC, Emory, G-tech) and the wow factor for UNC is definitely there. There is no reason to doubt that UNC is right there in the middle of the top public pack.

armcp

i think its overrated and i've been here for two semesters. i used to go to tulane, and i think it is a much better school than UNC, subjective reputation perceptions aside. unfortunately i cannot heed your call to leave UNC because it is too late for me to transfer back. ideally i think unc should be ranked somewhere around where UW-Madison is right now. it think all the other state schools in the top , except UVA, are overrated as well. there's no way a any of those huge state schools with resources stretched to the limit should be able to compete with the lower ranked privates like WFU and Tufts in or near the top 30. the only reason they are able to make it up there is because of the inflated and subjective peer ratings. those top 5 publics do really well in this category because their name get thrown out there a lot (basketball, football, nobel prize winners etc.).

ldmom06

cloying says it best.

shinagawa

I'm a foreign graduate student, at the end of my fourth semester, and I have to agree it's highly overrated.

Academics are OK, but not as good as everyone seems to think. I took some 400 level cross-registered classes in my first year, and the standard of final-year undergrad work was a joke compared to my undergrad.

The fact is - UNC is a good, solid, local university. That's why so many of its graduates go on to positions of power in North Carolina. But to claim it's even close to UC Berkeley is absolutely ridiculous: UCB is a global university, one of the very best, known the world over.

When I told people in my home country that I was going to grad school in North Carolina, they might ask "Oh at Duke University?", but I don't think a single one had heard of UNC. And these are not uneducated people (they had heard of Duke, after all, which is itself not exactly global), these are phd students at one of the best universities in the world (far, far better than UNC).

UNC-- you're good, but get over yourselves.

elpope

they're talking about for undergrads, obviously

and unlike what many people overseas seem to believe (a friend here said that his school in Indonesia thought Purdue was better than Brown just because their engineering has a better grad program), grad programs don't necessarily always correlate to education/reputation of the school on an undergrad level

shinagawa

Wow, you need to work on your reading comprehension.

Though I am a graduate student, I only made reference to:

- my experience of undergrad classes here
- UNC's international reputation (or lack of it).

How does your reply latch onto any of that?

UNC is actually fairly good in my grad programme. Not top-notch, but good. But I was talking about the undergrad standards, which are way way below those of my undergrad.

ldmom06

shinagawa - Why did you bother to attend UNC? Just curious if you had other options.

And fyi, UCB is good...but not quite as famous as you think. Like many state schools, it's prominence varies from region to region.

In fact, take your following statement: "When I told people in my home country that I was going to grad school in North Carolina, they might ask "Oh at Duke University?" Now substitute Bay Area of California for North Carolina, and Stanford for Duke....and now you get the picture. Ironic, isn't it?

shinagawa

Sorry gotta hit the road/

scottlh

It is funny how foreign grad students who happen to figure out UNC is up there somewhere in U.S.News ranking, decide to come to UNC and once they get in, they'd look down on undergrad. quality just becaue they think their foreign undergrad program is superior based on incompatibility. Well, I'd have to say, welcome to America. A U.S. univerisity in U.S. - UNC-CH is respected in a manner in which some of your elite universities in your own country are respected. That means by graduating UNC undergrad., many graduates enjoy recognition in our job market, amongst graduate programs and rest of our society just like Waseda/ Osaka U. graduates in Japan, Yonsei/ Seo-Gang U. graduates in S.Korea, Sorbonne/ Ecole graduates in France or Manchester/ Imperial U. graduates in UK etc., If having duke on resume seems better for you to gain recognition in your own country, please do yourself a favor and pursue your future academic goal over there 8 miles down the road. Good local university? Are you kidding me? Maybe a problem for you is that eversince you've stepped your foot in American soil, you probably haven't even traveled outside of RTP, muchless, CH. Look, I am a Korean born immigrant myself and have plethora of foreign friends that have gone onto elite universities; and they all recognize UNC for academic excellence and well deserved reputation. In fact, my ex-girlfriend, who was one of the elites graduating from Seoul U. in Korea decided to attend UNC grad school based on the fact that there are plenty of gov't officials and business partners "in power" in Korea that have attended UNC grad schools. Also, I live in NJ and UNC is very well respected in northeast along w/ top private U's (You'll know when you're looking for a job at any of SMP500 companies). My suggestion - While you're at hitting the road, travel up to VA or Atl, GA and survey UNC for its recognition or ask some of the other graduate students in the campus for their opinion of what they think their foreign perception of the university is.

hornet

Ahhh Carolina folks, you bought Armcp's bait. Anytime a discussion of UNC's strengths and weaknesses comes up, it goes rabid and really does a disservice to UNC's image. If you look on many of the other college's discussions about S's and weaknesses of a given University, for the most part, they are so much less emotionally toned and hostile. UNC people, please defend UNC with intelligence and grace-openly admit weaknesses without being so defensive. The defensiveness has scared away many potentially good UNC prospects (there is a whole pm world that quietly discusses this fact). All colleges have their weaknesses. It is okay for folks to voice them. UNC has many wonderful strengths that will offset the complaints without folks needing to get so personal. Have faith in Carolina's reputation!

ldmom06

"The defensiveness has scared away many potentially good UNC prospects (there is a whole pm world that quietly discusses this fact)."

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If this is actually true hornet, then I truly have to wonder about these prospects. Do they really rely on an internet forum which is frequented by roughly a dozen students and parents on a regular basis in order to make life decision like which college they will attend. Or..... are you perhaps prone to hyperbole?

I actually think the problem is many people who are not ecstatically happy at UNC, for whatever reason, become highly resentful when they read the accounts of students who love their school, feel academically challenged and have no regrets about their college choice. If a person is unhappy, of course they don't want to hear this, and of course, they are going focus on the negative and toss the positive.

AND, the only thing I see here is response to statements or claims that are NOT factual or true or well-supported or 'typical'. If someone is going to come here and criticize the school, citing the atypical, they should at least have their facts together or some logical, supportable basis for their opinion..... because I guarantee you; a weak argument presented ANYwhere on CC is going to be shredded alive. You don't need to visit the UNC forum for that one. (I just love it that the little winky-face is Carolina Blue...)

BTW...just because someone 'disagrees' does not mean they are defensive. But hey, that is a nice tactic in the art of redirection...lol! Go for it if you must.

hornet

"Or..... are you perhaps prone to hyperbole?"
"But hey, that is a nice tactic in the art of redirection...lol! Go for it if you must."

This is exactly what I am talking about. These types of comments assume quite a bit and are a wonderful example of what I wish the board would stay away from.