UNC Chapel Hill versus Schreyer (Penn State)

hawkette
Tue, 29 Apr 2008 22:23:57 +0000

zeherisa,
Congrats to your son on his acceptances to two terrific colleges (and U Virginia). If the choice ultimately includes U Virginia, I would urge you to look closely there as their McIntire business program is going to be the strongest of the three. But if the decision stays PSU Schreyer vs U North Carolina, I would probably suggest U North Carolina by a hair.

I like PSU Schreyers a lot and think that their program does a lot to give their students a different and better experience than the great numbers at Penn State. Given the resources at Penn State and the access that Schreyers provides, this is no small deal and Schreyers is very plugged into the world of finance, including every major investment banking firm that he could ever want to get to. U North Carolina also places well, but Schreyer’s focused program already does some of the screening and thus he would be (perhaps) better positioned than coming out of U North Carolina’s business program.

One small advantage to U North Carolina is that Chapel Hill is, like State College, a great college town, but there is also a lot of other stuff close by (including Duke a mere 8 miles away and Research Triangle) which is not the case in Happy Valley. U North Carolina also is about half the size of Penn State and some folks prefer this smaller size. And finally, and perhaps most important, is that U North Carolina offers the chance for a change of scenery from Pennsylvania. Not meaning to knock Pennsylvania, but many people consider college as the time to try some new things and going to a college like U North Carolina is a relatively low-risk way to do this. North Carolinians are wonderfully hospitable folks and I suspect that you would greatly enjoy your visits to see him and the school.

As for the social life, it’s great at both and for athletic life, there are the obvious differences in football and basketball. PSU rules the former and UNC the latter, but U North Carolina’s football scene would be considered better than Penn State’s basketball scene (which is pretty much non-existent).