Daughter needs helps choosing college. Extremely grateful for the options available. Looking for the wisdom of this crowd before committing. Will be a social sciences related major (Economics, Policy, Leadership Studies). UNC CH - Tuition covered with scholarship. U Richmond - Full ride. Rice and Duke - Full pay. Princeton - Waitlisted and full pay. Will be happy at any of these colleges. If she does not choose Duke to save for Grad School (Social sciences focus. May be MBA. Not sure at this point), would she regret based on outcomes at other places? Are outcomes for students (Jobs, Grad School admissions, starting salary) vastly different at these colleges?
With respect to Richmond and your daughter’s criteria, Richmond’s prominent leadership studies program and world-level economics department would be reasons for her to consider it.
Regarding your daughter’s larger-school choices, Duke is not particularly easy to distinguish from Chapel Hill for the study of public policy:
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Congrats to your daughter!
My daughter went to UNC. Her friend was a policy and journalism major and she had very impressive internships during her time there. She also had impressive employment after graduation.
Her other friend was a policy major, had several internships, had a leadership position related to policy on campus, worked for a year after graduation, and then attended grad school at a well regarded/top university.
Your daughter has 4 great options here and will not go wrong with any of them. I think taking costs into consideration for future grad school is a good idea….but that is your call, your personal circumstances etc.
There is no world in which a successful UNC grad would not make it to grad school.
Congrats again to your daughter on four amazing offers!
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You have great choices - I’d leave Princeton out of it because a WL means they didn’t accept her (now) and you need to move on (after getting on the WL of course).
UNC a great school - and free tuition means a lot.
Richmond - unique program with Jepson - and full ride equals a lot more flexibility later in life. Just make sure she has a 2nd major too!!
Rice and Duke are great schools - but and it depends on your “value” judgement - are they worth an extra $60K a year, etc. for a social science degree? Not in any world I live in - but people do make that decision each and every day, so that’s up to you and then your student if you’re able and willing to make that investment in them.
I think it’s a bit early to talk about grad school (MBA or otherwise) because you’d be out and working a few years.
You know, econ will have different outcomes than other social sciences - whether anthro or sociology or public policy, etc.
And it really depends on what one wants to do. If they want to go on Wall Street, some of these are likely better choices than others.
If it’s unsure or will work for a think tank or government agency or in a “regular job” whether an entry level program at a consumer company, insurance company, or otherwise, then likely not a huge difference - and like many social science kids, finding that first internship of interest and then a full time job often leads to difficulty - because many of those kids interests are different than what is out there mainstream. But many also find that interest, hone in and do really well.
Congrats to your student on such a wonderful accomplishment.
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Thank you for the great insights.
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Congrats and all great options! Unless 240k $ is inconsequential to your household, I highly recommend going to one of the awesome schools that offered her scholarships or full tuition. No school is worth 240k$ for undergrad! Save the money for grad school. For what it’s worth, ONE year tuition at Stanford or Harvard Business School (in today’s dollars) is 126k $ 
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More detail about UNC’s offer and about U Richmond’s offer should make the decision easier. What additional benefits are attached to each school’s scholarship offer ?
In any event, it would be tough to pass up an offer from Princeton.
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Duke is very different, fit-wise, from UNC. Duke has the most overlap with Rice on the fit/nerdy-inquisitive vibe factor, and the least overlap with UNC. Duke is intellectually very intense, but collaborative. Class discussion and participation is expected in almost every course. The resources are almost endless: on-campus jobs, easy access to research with professors, on and off campus internships that the school/profs help the students get, and impressive grad/professional/career options. Economics is known to be very difficult at Duke but very popular, and students have a pipeline to finance/consulting and law school (the most common paths students seem to follow from those majors).
Most students take a full load of classes plus volunteer plus have either research or an internship during the school year. They are more work hard than play hard, but they do have fun.
Mine is at Duke and has visited UNC on weekends and we know HS friends there from OOS–the scene and student population is very different. UNC seems too large, too loud and too greek-centric for my Dukie and her group of friends. The classes are much larger at UNC, especially the first two years: it is a much bigger school. Humanities and even STEM at Duke have very few classes larger than 80: D has only had to take one. Most classes are seminar-style, less than 20. U of R is similar in that regard, but less intense academically. She took a class that used the same text as a U of R class where friends are: Duke covered the entire text in the first few weeks then spent the rest of the time with primary source analysis and comparison, with hundreds of pages of reading per week, and multiple papers. U of R used the whole semester to cover the text, with much less reading expectations. Mine loves the intensity and high demand; her friends who are happy at Duke enjoy it too.
All four of these are excellent schools, just be aware the feel and fit will be very different.
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20% of students at UNC participate in Greek life. It is not a part of student life…at all…unless you want it to be.
Many (not all) classes are big at UNC. This is especially true in the sciences. Classes get smaller as you move along. My daughter had non-science classes with 50 students and under. Class size will not prevent you from developing relationships with profs- my daughter attended dinners at the homes of her profs and remains friendly with them today. She tutored their children and traveled with one of her profs.
My kid never attended a party and had no problem finding her people. Her time was spent studying, spending time with her research team, going to dinner with friends, volunteering, etc .
She was an OOS student and described the work as perfectly balanced. Opportunities were plentiful.
Did UNC provide opportunities for small class discussions like the other 3 private schools on your list? She had that experience in a few of her classes, but certainly not to the extent that it is at a smaller school. She did, however, spend a lot of time with her profs outside of class. Some of her profs were very skilled at making large classes feel smaller.
It is an active campus and town. It does get loud at times…in town…especially during basketball season.
I do agree that these are 4 excellent schools…but very different! UNC is a large state school. The others…are not.
I am amazed that this student likes both UR and UNC. They are vastly different.
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My daughter’s HS classmates who graduated from Duke have struggled after graduation. One is on their 3 and final attempt at applying to Med School, another has been interviewing for jobs almost a year and hasn’t landed a job she wants (and is underemployed and being subsidized by her parents). The last one was in grad school and dropped out 6 months ago and has yet to be employed.
Obviously a very small sample size but a surprising outcomes given they were strong students
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Obviously that could happen after any college. Duke’s avg gpa is 3.75 now, so if a premed kid is below that or if they followed bad advice and took premed classes over the summer at other colleges, it makes med school admission harder. Or if they did not have the mcat scores. Or the research/volunteering. But yes, to your point, it can be hard to “shine” and stand out at a school like Duke when the majority come in as superstars. My D knows many 3.9 and 4.0 premeds, and many extremely successful grads in other areas. So it is very doable there, for students that fit the culture and thrive.
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That can happen at all colleges.
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Not refuting that in fact that just supports the argument that a Duke degree (as well as many other comparable schools) is not a golden ticket even for those that thrive there.
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I agree with you. There are a lot of variables involved when it comes to successfully moving on after graduation.
I am still puzzled by being happy, fitting in …at both UNC and Richmond.
I’m not sure why that’s so puzzling…both are quality programs in the south with beautiful campuses. You can make UNC as big or small as you like based on clubs, major and friend groups. I went to grad school there (UNC) with 75 students total in my class. I literally never interacted or set foot on the undergrad campus until graduation day.
My daughter liked both UNC and Richmond and got into both but decided to go to UVA since she grew up about 2 miles from the Dean Dome.
My daughter went to UNC. We visited Duke multiple times and Richmond once.
I agree that a student might love both UNC and UR, and that’s great! I just find both to be so different…that for me one would stand out as a clear favorite.
But…we are all unique, and that’s a good thing. This student has 4 wonderful options.
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Richmond is a full ride. UNC is equivalent to tuition.
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I have friends who are professors at Duke and they report a very high level of privilege among the students there. This is my personal experience with Duke grads that I know too. That said, after the abolition of Affirmative Action Duke did act to increase scholarships to students with a lower SES. I know one student there who meets this description — very smart kid whose parents are small farmers.
Duke fraternities were really bad during COViD about throwing parties. The university tried to delay rush and rather than abide by that a bunch of frats disaffiliated from being on campus and hosted rush parties anyway which then became a huge vector for COVID and put the whole campus on lockdown. Participation in Greek life prior to the disaffiliation was much higher than at UNC (37% vs 20% for UNC which has never had frats or sororities on campus in recent memory). Greek life participation at Duke now shows up as lower but it’s difficult to get hard numbers on since it moved off campus. The Duke Chronicle has done some articles on this that might be worth seeking out if it’s of interest to you.
Richmond strikes me as more traditionally southern in feel but that may be because the only kid I know who went there was from Mississippi. A full ride is hard to turn down. I really like the city of Richmond. It’s very funky. Little sketchy in places but overall very welcoming. The river and park being right there offers some outdoor opportunities.
Can’t speak on Rice, but with it and Duke both being full pay I’d eliminate them. Better things to do with the money you could save and UNC-CH and Richmond are great options.
UNC Chapel Hill is definitely different from the others since it’s a big public. Pretty easy to be whoever you want to be there and it’s a gorgeous campus especially right now in the spring.
Great academics but unfortunately politics are in play because the UNC system Board of Governors are a bunch of political appointees appointed by the right wing state legislature. NC is a very gerrymandered state as evidenced by the right’s hold on the state legislature and yet the Democratic governor was re-elected and is finishing out his second term. I only bring this up because it is having a direct impact on UNC Chapel Hill because they have appointed a new interim conservative chancellor (Duke grad, too, and I won’t be surprised if they move to make him permanent) with no educational experience and they have created a new School of Civic Life and Leadership which is an overt conservative political move. Long time progressive UNC academics fear the conservatives are trying to take a page from Ron Desantis’ book with regard to higher ed “reform”. I remain hopeful that it won’t get that bad but it is a concern.
UNC does still offer an excellent education and many great opportunities. It’s a fantastic school. Just a little info on what’s going on in the background and sometimes foreground. I would have been very happy for my kid to go there but way too close to home for her.
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I would visit both UNC and Richmond.
For Richmond fit is very important. Initially DD was totally in love with Richmond. Their FA did not work for us. DD’s friend who was from very very affluent but humble family did not take Richmond with half ride… DD agreed that she is happy that Richmond did not work out, since she would not fit there…
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I meant information regarding benefits beyond financial assistance; benefits such as priority course registration, special housing, special seminars and events including recruiting events, etc.
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