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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Larger universities have larger budgets and do more research- sure. What does it mean then, when a large university like UVA [i]doesn't[/i] do more research?

It means fewer total professors, fewer accomplished professors, fewer variety courses offered and decrepit departments, less rigorous courses. And this includes fewer and worse graduate courses which top undergrads generally take.

Again, you keep trying to argue as if UVA is a liberal arts college and the professors there will somehow be able to provide amazing one-on-one counseling to the students there. Sorry, that's simply not the reality. The early introductory courses will be 100+ student lecture halls, and the later upper-level courses will be 50+ student lectures because they don't have enough professors to teach all the upper-level courses in a given major.

What will provide more resources, possibly, is UVA's large endowment. But not the distinction between UNC being research-focused and UVA being "undergraduate-focused". [b]Again, a 16,800 sized state university can be 'undergraduate-focused' but that does not mean its anywhere close to LAC's in that undergraduate focus or any different than a 18000 research university like UNC. [/b]

Look at the courses offered for Chemistry at UNC vs. UVA:
https://catalog.unc.edu/courses/chem/
http://records.ureg.virginia.edu/preview_program.php?catoid=43&poid=5218

UNC has ~58 individual (meaning no lab, 'honors' version, or independent research) courses offered for 100-400 level. Undergraduates can take grad level courses as well, of which they have ~20+ including seminars.

UVA has ~15 offered at the 100-400 level. And you can bet they won't have as many offered at the graduate level.

UVA offers 4 400-level Chem courses. [b]4[/b]. This is when the undergrads are specializing into an area, and they provide 4 courses. 
UNC offers [b]41[/b] 400-level Chem courses.

The courses at UVA are generic requirements while the ones at UNC include both standard generic courses and specialized courses based on a professor's research.

Furthermore, you can also bet that at the 400-level, UVA won't be teaching all the offered courses in the same semester i.e. out of 8 400-level courses in a given major, they might only teach 5 of them on a given semester due to lack of professors. UNC can teach far more variety of courses out of the 41 provided i.e. 20, because they have more professors.

This is not including the 'Special Topics' courses (which is counted as 1) of which there might be multiple different courses offered, most likely more at UNC than UVA.

So again, parents look at USNews rankings to get a idea of the quality of a school as a undergrad institution. 27 vs. 29 essentially equal regardless. But why is it that two universities virtually equal in size and USNews undergraduate ranking provide such a vast difference in academic programs? The research that an institution engages in filters down to undergraduate students in a significant manner. 
[/quote]

I don't know who you are and if you are a parent, graduate or current student, but this is an outstanding post.  It is well written with a methodical, easy to follow argument.  Good job.[/quote]

I'm glad you mentioned that.  UNC and UVA will be very different experiences due to size.  UNC has a total of 239,937 students, out of which 182,462 are undergrads.  That's a staggering number of students and the  reason why I didn't choose UCLA long ago.  UVA, on the other hand, is quite small for a state flagship - the total number of students is only 24,6389 and only 16,777 are undergrads.  I have a DD at UVA now and she had a wonderful experience and a FAR better one-on-one experience with his professors than I did at my SLAC.  In her first year as an engineering student she did have some classes with 100 in them (calculus, intro to aerospace engineering, Biology 101, etc).  But the enormous classes also phased out after first year.  DD also decided her heart wasn't in engineering and switched to Arts and Sciences.  The courses she has this term are all seminars with just 10 or so students in them.  She just got into Oxford for grad work. I think it was the quality of her letters of recommendation from famous faculty who really knew her because they had been in seminars together .... plus the strength of DD's proposed research.  So, if asked, I would say go with UVA but I'm obviously biased.  Also, I think DD was able to shine more as an excellent student in the smaller university setting.  It was easier for her to rise to the top of the pack than it would have been at a larger university.  But YRMV.  Good luck to OP with the decision.[/quote]

Wow, biggest school ever! lol
Been to UNC and UVA often. Size difference is not really enough to be distinguishable. Both are excellent, fine choices.[/quote]

Yes, pretty much the entire population of NC seems to be a student there. [/quote]

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