I'm from NC and went to UNC Chapel Hill for undergrad and to Duke for grad school. First a gentle correction - I have never seen the acronym UNCCH...it's either UNC or UNC Chapel Hill, or "Carolina". If you say UNC only they assume you mean Chapel Hill.

Within NC, honestly the schools are viewed by how the basketball team is doing or this is all I remember. I also left NC at 22 and have lived in DC/Maryland my whole adult life except for 2 yrs in my late 20s when I got my master's at Duke. Academically, UNC is the top state school and Duke is the top private school. Wake Forest and Davidson are top notch private schools after Duke. But to be honest, the private schools have students from all over the country while the state schools are predominately in-state students. I don't remember Wake Forest students having a particular reputation. Duke was widely hated (mainly as the enemy basketball team) and the stereotype is that all Duke students are from New Jersey. This is obviously not true...but in general North Carolinians think the worst nightmare place in the US is New Jersey. This is how I grew up thinking about Duke, but then I went there for grad school because I knew it was a great school (and I loved my time there) and my husband is from New Jersey, which I've come to love, too.

Carolina is a bargain for a great school, and the darling of the state. Duke is a tough admit and tons of North Carolinians hate it. Engineers and CS go to NC State which is underrated. Wake Forest doesn’t make a lot of financial sense for most people. If cost were equal, plenty would switch in a heartbeat for smaller classes and less bureaucracy.

I’m not invested enough to look to exact numbers, but if you’re unfamiliar with NC public tuition rates, it really requires no other explanation as to why WF isn’t more popular. It’s a steal to go to UNC.

The relatively new Chancellor of the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill is a Duke grad , the AD is Fighting Irish ND grad and their new football coach grad of Wesleyan at a mere $10 million a year. Coach Belichick generating some good news for the Heels.

Anonymous wrote:I noticed there was no mention of Wake Forest in the new season of White Lotus. Duke and UNC mentioned as places where elite North Carolinans go but not Wake. The son was choosing between Duke and UNC, too. Didn't mention applying to Wake...

Did you not catch that they were a family of narcissistic, grifting sociopaths with murderous tendencies?
It’s not really an endorsement. Duke even complained about it…

Excellent reason to choose a school.

Anonymous wrote:I noticed there was no mention of Wake Forest in the new season of White Lotus. Duke and UNC mentioned as places where elite North Carolinans go but not Wake. The son was choosing between Duke and UNC, too. Didn't mention applying to Wake...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wake is the Tulane of North Carolina.

SMU is the Emory of Texas.

SMU and Emory are both equal academically the socially, their vibes are very different. Emory draws more from a liberal multicultural Northeast crowd while SMU skews more wealthy, conservative, traditional.

The delusion is out of this world. Rice is the only equivalent school in Texas. SMU has no standing on the world stage, and
What about SMU academically makes them any way close to academically equivalent?
Quick reminder
SMU is ranked 91
Peer reputation of 3.2
SAT-1410

Emory-24
PR-4.2
SAT-1510

The delusion are posters using a failed magazine to gauge a college's worth. SMU and Emory are much closer than eg, Emory and Rice.

Anonymous wrote:I noticed there was no mention of Wake Forest in the new season of White Lotus. Duke and UNC mentioned as places where elite North Carolinans go but not Wake. The son was choosing between Duke and UNC, too. Didn't mention applying to Wake...

Within NC, it's crazy to think about Wake when Chapel Hill is right there, is a better school, is MUCH cheaper, and has a relatively high acceptance rate.

Outside of NC, cost comparison and acceptance rates are totally different. Could see Wake being a better option for UNC for an out of stater.

---
a UNC grad whose high school class sent 50 kids to UNC and 0 to Wake.

Wake Tulane SMU and U-Miami are all in the same cohort.

Anonymous wrote:Wake is the Tulane of North Carolina.

SMU is the Emory of Texas.

No, Wake and Tulane are similar.
SMU is like Villanova, no where near Emory

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wake is the Tulane of North Carolina.

SMU is the Emory of Texas.

SMU and Emory are both equal academically the socially, their vibes are very different. Emory draws more from a liberal multicultural Northeast crowd while SMU skews more wealthy, conservative, traditional.

The delusion is out of this world. Rice is the only equivalent school in Texas. SMU has no standing on the world stage, and
What about SMU academically makes them any way close to academically equivalent?
Quick reminder
SMU is ranked 91
Peer reputation of 3.2
SAT-1410

Emory-24
PR-4.2
SAT-1510

I noticed there was no mention of Wake Forest in the new season of White Lotus. Duke and UNC mentioned as places where elite North Carolinans go but not Wake. The son was choosing between Duke and UNC, too. Didn't mention applying to Wake...

Lots of people refer to it as UNC-CH. Their sports program is a mess.

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:As someone who has lots of family in NC and went to UNCCH I would say that most people would view Wake as behind UNCCH and Duke and ahead of all other schools in NC except perhaps Davidson, but that is a liberal arts college. I don’t know any people who look down their noses at Wake and I have several UNC and Duke alumni as relatives.

No offense…but what other NC schools are there, especially if you claim they are behind Davidson?

I guess ahead of Elon, Highpoint and ECU et al?

NC State. As the kids at Duke say, “if you can’t go to college, go to State.”

This comment sums up why I’d never send my kid to Duke.

That type of snobbery is way out of date. As in circa 1990. And my understanding is that it’s actually an old UNCCH taunt from the 80s ….

No one, and I mean no one, calls it UNCCH. It’s either Carolina or Chapel Hill or UNC. Please stop. So when people write UNCCH it shows they don’t really know the school (or area) at all.

- a Tar Heel

+1

Anonymous wrote:Up until I guess 2 years ago now, wake and UNC were essentially tied in the us News rankings. And this went on for years - Since the 90s, iirc

True