The University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

UNC is an awesome school! It has a great business program, a beautiful campus, and really nice people. It's also reasonably priced, relative to other schools, even for out-of-state students. The social scene is also fun - the greek life is strong and Franklin street is lined with fun college bars. The students have great school spirit, especially when we are doing well with basketball. I would recommend this school to anyone. The only drawback is that it is rather southern (this is coming from someone from the northeast); however compared to other schools in the south, it's about at northern as you can get (except for Duke, which is pretty much NYC misplaced in the south).

3rd Year Female -- Class 2004

Campus Aesthetics: A+, Surrounding City: F

For starters, I can say that the whole "racial tension" bit from other reviews is junk. Although Carolina is in the South (and yes, there are definitely still issues to be worked out for everyone to get along), you'd have to try really hard not to learn a million things about the world around you and the many, many different perspectives of its student body. As a naive kid that grew up in rural NC, I am so thankful for the chance to befriend and get to know people from all races, orientations, backgrounds, etc etc, and just having the chance to listen to different people's stories and their point of view on things. I feel that I am a better and more compassionate human being because of it.

As a Christian, I can tell you that this is a unique opportunity for you to grow in your faith while learning to get along with people that quite possibly, completely disagree with you. The college missionaries that work here (check out Chi Alpha, IV, or Cornerstone) are a resource that is worth more than pure gold in helping you to make decisions for yourself...in fact, if you're considering a career in ministry, I would even challenge you to get a 4-year degree at Carolina and use one of these great campus ministries as a launching point for your career.

As a BS Bio major, I can tell you that the intro courses (intro to bio, intro to chem) are weedout...do everything possible to take these anywhere else or come in with AP credit (or just be a genius who can outsmart a class of 200+ students) so your GPA stays intact. Once you get out of the really big classes and start into the more focused classes, the quality of education skyrockets. I have never worked harder for an A (or sometimes a C) in my life, but the academic rigor prepared me very well for the outside world. I ended up switching fields and went into IT/management, instead, but I can tell you that the quality of my work, my writing, math skills, everything, is so much more polished and sharp than people I've seen come out of other institutions with greater student loans and no real skills to show for it. The catch: If you definitely want to go to med school (dental school, etc, also), there is a GPA game to play and it may be better to go to State or ECU where you will get the educational base you need, but will run into less cut-throat competition and you honestly have a better chance of a better GPA, and then go to Carolina for Med/Dental.

For people not necessarily looking at grad school: If you can ace the weedout classes and *do lab research*, the sciences @ UNC are top notch (bio, chem, etc). I've also had friends go through their comp. sci, school of journalism & mass. comm., and business school and all of us are a) employed b) successful and c) our degrees were well-worth the investment.If I had to do it over again, I would definitely go back to Carolina (but given my career choice, would maybe have picked a BSBA from the Business school as my primary major and maybe minored in Bio, instead).

4th Year Male -- Class 2007

Education Quality: A+, Collaboration/Competitive: C-

I'm an instate student and came to UNC without knowing practically anyone. After attending UNC for three years, I can honestly say it has been the best overall experience of my life. I have made many great friends over this time and don't regret my choice for one moment. The academics at UNC are tough, especially the sciences, but I feel that they prepare you extremely well for further studies. The atmosphere at Carolina is great, it is big enough that it doesn't feel like everyone knows each other and there are great resources, but small enough that every time I walk around I see a familiar face. The school has a great non-academic atmosphere as well: from basketball games, hundreds of student run clubs, and the college town atmosphere is great. The greek scene is certainly present, but also doesn't dominate campus with only about 15% going greek. I can't speak enough on how great an experience I have had here. I'm going to med school next year, and am strongly considering staying at UNC-Med because of the great moments that I have had here.

3rd Year Male -- Class 2010

University Resource Use/ spending: A+, Faculty Accessibility: B-