The University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

I am one of those out of staters...advice for the rest of you, dont come here. Registration is the biggest pain, the professors arent very interested in helping you, and the classes are not engaging. I came to chapel hill to grow intellectually, but all carolina does is beat into their students' heads that sports, greek life, and the basic southern close-minded attitudes and opinions are of utmost importance. When people say Carolina is liberal-do not believe them. It has a somewhat low tuition, but as others have said-you get what you pay for.

1st Year Female -- Class 2007

Surrounding City: A, Social Life: F

UNC is not some stellar higher education "best buy." The campus is like a bubble, with each student led to believe that reality lies within the confines of the campus walls. Students overall were extremely cliquish, and I felt like it was high school nightmarishly revisited. It doesn't matter how much someone tries to get involved on campus. Everyone is stigmatized there as belonging to one certain social group or another. I might as well have walked to class with a sign around my kneck stating, "I DON'T AGREE WITH YOUR WORLD VIEWS, I WON'T ALTER MY WAY OF LIFE TO BE YOUR FRIEND, AND YES I CAN'T WAIT TO TRANSFER OUT!" Just because you get into UNC doesn't mean ANYTHING... I met lots of kids who didn't know how to finish a complete sentence at orientation (which by the way is a complete foreshadowing event of the hell to come: no organization, no friendliness, just a lame excuse for wasted pot-heads to reunite with their highschool buddies while the other chosen few walk around depressed about the year to come)! The dorms suck, the food sucks, but hey if you work hard and do well in class you can always live off of your pride and reward yourself for sifting through the bs and coming out the other end. I had one amazing English prof. who ended up leaving the school to teach elsewhere due to the lack of support at the University. Although I did extremely well academically there, it was purely due to my effort, not because the professors presented the material in such an earnest and engaging fashion. I basically went to school there my freshman year for pratically nothing with scholarships and am now taking out exorbiant loan amounts to transfer to a private school up in New York City at NYU where I can only hope I can observe the real world, become a cultured person and learn from a community able to embrace change and accept differences.

1st Year Female -- Class 2005

Collaboration/Competitive: C, Education Quality: F

My goal in this comment isn't to discourage people who are right for carolina from coming to this school. I just want to inform the students who may think they are perfect for this school and be sadly disappointed. The prestige of Carolina is unbelievable, especially in NC. So what you here about it may not entirely be the truth and I think it is fair to let prospective students know this school is not what it seems. You will be treated as a number, as if you do not matter, and in all honesty, you don't matter to the administration here. If you are pre-med do not go to this school, the competition is too fierce for you to get a quality education in any popular science like bio or chem. These departments are ridiculously impersonal so spare yourself the heartbreak and go to a school that will focus on your success as a student and get the attention you need. Trust me you want to be treated like you matter more importantly you deserve it after the money you spend. Don't fall for all those organizations we offer either. What they don't tell you is most of our intro courses weed you out by being huge and cramming 3 classes into one. So you won't have time to enjoy these gems if you are studying like they make you at this school. At least not for your first 2 years. But there is a silver lining the people here are great, socially I have never felt more at home. So if you know what field you want to pursue...do yourself a favor and don't go to this school unless you don't mind giving that dream up and meeting great people in return.

3rd Year Female -- Class 2010

Education Quality: A+, Faculty Accessibility: F