I’ve never visited UNC-A or Guilford, so I can’t provide a response based on personal experience. After having read some of the posts from other commenters, I did a little bit of digging to get some more context. I will share it here for others who are not as familiar with these schools, though this is likely not new to you, @wmo2.
Size
- UNC-A: 3200 undergrads
- Guilford: 1200 undergrads
Racial Demographics
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UNC-A: 2% Asian, 5% Black, 8% Hispanic, 74% White, 4% 2+ races, 5% unknown, 1% non-resident alien
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Guilford: 6% Asian, 26% Black, 13% Hispanic, 47% White, 4% 2+ races, 2% unknown, 1% non-resident alien
Concentration of Bio Majors
- UNC-A: 41 biology majors in most recent graduating class (5.6% of class)
- Guilford: 27 biology & 9 biological & biomedical sciences (other)…36 total for 13.6% of class
Faculty
- UNC-A: 72.8% of faculty are full-time
- Guilford: 56.4% of faculty are full-time
My thoughts on the above information:
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UNC-A is almost 2.5x the size of Guilford. Does your son think that 1200 will feel like too few students by the time he is a junior or senior? Admittedly, I believe a good percentage of Guilford students study abroad which could also change the feel of being on campus all 4 years. And for many people, an enrollment of 1200 feels perfectly fine.
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I am racially mixed (part black) and spent much of my formative years in schools where I was a small minority and never thought much of it, and ended up at a college that was not that dissimilar. I currently work at an institution that has a much larger percentage of blacks, perhaps up to 50%. Although I never consciously realized that I felt certain constraints or a need to prove myself while in settings where I was a much smaller minority, having the experience with a much greater portion of the population as people of a similar color, I now recognize that I did. Thus, if I had a chance to talk to my 17-year old self, it’s something I would definitely bring up (though who knows if the 17-year old me would have believed me).
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Both bio departments seem to be good-sized. Looking at the faculty’s interests, is your son drawn to certain faculty members more than others? Are there any members doing research that interests him? Would he prefer having a larger portion of his school studying the same subject as him (probably more electives…but more competition) or a smaller proportion with a wider array of majors present?
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I have a preference for full-time faculty (if they are tenure-track faculty, not contract instructors). But what are the professors doing at Guilford? Are they part-time and then working in industry and sharing those experiences with the students? Or are they trying to cobble work together from Guilford, UNCG, and maybe Wake or Winston-Salem to get enough work? The answer would definitely sway my opinion.