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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]UNC without a doubt and regardless of the cost differential.

Have you toured the campuses?  UNC wins hands down.  The campus is beautiful and well-kept.  There is a lot of money being poured into it and you can see it everywhere on campus.  Whereas UVA is really run down and it has a strong hard-luck vibe now that it didn't have back when I was a student there.  I wish I could say that UVA has done a good job keeping up appearances but it just hasn't.  Enough said.

There also is a lot to be said for the easy drive to UNC.  A straight shot down 95 to 84 on nice straight interstate highways.  It is pretty much a piece of cake.

Although in this area there are a lot of UVA supporters it is my opinion that UNC has a better national/international profile and name recognition.[/quote]

UNC has a better national representation?  Haha, no.[/quote]

UNC definitely has a better international reputation because they pump out far more research. The Shanghai Ranking ranks UNC 23/33 US/Global while UVA is ranked 59-66/151-200.

Nationally, someone in the Midwest or West may know UNC more because of basketball and Duke. Among academics, they know UNC because of the Research Triangle.

In the Mid-Atlantic/NYC area, UVa is probably considered more prestigious, but that may be entirely based on history and somewhat higher average student quality, and also reading USNews a lot.

Again, the problem with UVA is that its research is very weak for a "top" public school. And this does trickle down to undergrads among research universities with better professors, better TA's, better courses, better programs, and better research opportunities[/quote]

So your theory is a school that prioritizes research is somehow good for undergrads?  I'd say find a school that prioritizes undergraduate education. To[/quote]
This is not a difficult concept to understand. Which university is known better worldwide, Harvard or Williams? Academic research brings academic prestige and reputation to the school.

And yes, a school with little research will have professors that generally aren't as capable in research terms. That doesn't mean they wouldn't be good educators, but at that point why not simply learn from a high school teacher. Why do you need to learn from a Ph.D. professor?
Also schools with little research will have a lot of adjuncts, lecturers, etc. 
[b]More research = more research professors = more interesting classes for undergrads, better TA's, better overall program foundation.[/b]

The flipside is most research universities might have larger class size, and in the case of UNC/UVA, UVA probably have a better population academically. [/quote]

If you look at student surveys and responses in places like Princeton Review and Niche, research-intensive universities generally get much lower satisfaction scores for teaching and student-teacher interactions.  Research universities also use adjuncts and lecturers in addition to TAs, so not sure what your point is there.  The University of California system did a time study on how professors spend their time and it came down to about 1/3 research, 1/3 graduate education, and 1/3 undergraduate education.  So even though undergraduates have reduced in-state tuition there, the conclusion was they still subsidize research and graduate study with their tuition based on the attention they get (or don't get to put it another way).  [/quote]

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