”I went to UNC undergrad and I got my Ph.D. at UVA and taught several classes at UVA.
The admissions policies dictate the biggest differences as 85% of UNC students have to be in state versus the Jefferson mandated 50% out of state at UVA. The average student at UVA is simply better due to this policy while the top out of state students at UNC are at or near Ivy League levels due to Carolina’s skewed admissions policy and low price.
The bottom line is that UNC is much easier or lower pressure if you are a very good student. I was from far away and I had an advantage in almost every class I took at UNC as a result. I worked perhaps 10–15 hours a week at studies and spent the rest of the time paying for UNC with coding and a stats job at the EPA. It would be hard to do this almost anywhere else and perhaps impossible today, so this is the main reason I went. UNC is a great value and it isn’t a killer.
The different admissions policies dictate differences in atmosphere. UNC is a southern school and has a real Southern feel to it and the fraternities are full of NC middle class good ol boys. Well, most people are from NC.
UVA, while having a big frat presence, doesn’t feel so southern as if you count Northern Virginia (with its great high schools) as being Yankee, greater than 50% of the class is Northern.
The UVA job market is also tied to Washington. An incredible number of grads work there and the private sector that has grown around government in DC is huge.
If my parents helped me pay, I think I would have chosen Virginia as an undergrad. UNC has serious academics, but Virginia is the closet thing to a private school in public form (so is its endowment). It doesn’t have as many crappy majors and doesn’t feel like State U. If you go to UNC, it would help to like the South, be comfortable with the fact that 500–600 athletes are not really students and some really low brow majors exist-recreation, etc.“
