College

Try to use affordability and education as your two main determining criteria. Partying is great and all but with enough beer you can have fun in an igloo.

Also, if you're a momma's boy then you may want to either pick a school really close by or one that is really far away. Don't waste your college life driving back and forth.
I go to Maryland and so many people do that at here> I went back 3 times second semester which was good for me. But some people went back every week or other week. I mean home is 25 minutes away which is good if i need to go home to get away from college for a night but it ruins the experience if you go home too much.

However, i personally enjoyed being close to home. I really like the Maryland area.

UNC (as long as it's Chapel Hill) and Wake Forest are the two most highly ranked schools on your list.

US News and World Report College Rankings for 2007 (http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/brief/t1natudoc_brief.php)

UNC Chapel Hill is 27th
Wake Forest is 30th
Penn State and Florida are tied at 47th
Tennessee is 88th
LSU doesn't even make the list

This is a no brainer choice between UNC Chapel Hill and Wake Forest. Assuming you care about your future, of course. Partying should not be a factor in your decision except to break the tie between UNC and Wake.

If you have a major picked out, then that could play a factor as well.

Screw them all, come to the REAL UT (University of Texas at Austin)!!!! Haha, on a serious note UNC Chapel Hill is a great school as is Wake Forest. If the major fits in those two and you are IN state, those seem like the logical choice to me.

But then again its not my decision. Good luck in whatever you choose!

Going along with what matty just said dont choose a school cuz of a girl or a friend either. I made the mistake of going to ODU my freshman year to be close to my high school sweetheart. needless to say after, getting robbed, being mugged and jumped i decided it was time to head to the mountains where i wanted to go in the first place. Dropped the girlfriend and norfolk like a bad habit and havent regretted the move once, i only regret not coming to WVU in the first place.

^^^ those rankings are extremely unfair to public schools. Those rankings take a lot into consideration and using just the overall ranking is really not a fair assessment. I mean everyone has different priorities. . THe ranking takes class size and other things into consideration and weighs them for you.

The most important thing, i feel(again personal choices), is the prestige of the university. I can get by sitting in a 180 person lecture. To some people, that is hell. The prestige of the school is best reflected by the peer assessment rankings which account for only 25% of that score (i forget but i am pretty darn sure that is it). FOR ME, prestige(peer assessment) is much more important than just 25% of my decision.

The other catagories all benefit private universities. Therefore, overrates them for ME. I mean look at the rankings, there is only one public school in the top 20. Vanderbilt better than UNC, UVA, Umich, UCLA, Wisconsin? I don't think it is much better, if at all.

I say this because I have always felt Wake forest is over ranked. It is a great school but it has a 3.5 peer assessment ranking.

UNC ranked 27- peer assessment 4.2
Wake Forest 30- Peer assessment 3.5
PSU ranked 47 Peer assessment 3.8
Florida ranked 47 peer assessment 3.7

I say this to show that prestige wise, wake forest isn't that much better than PUS or Florida. I meen the peer rankings are not perfect but they reflect the general opinion of academics at that school from its peers. I feel that is important.

All my blabbing has to say is that everything in the rankings should be looked at and not the final product. Then evaluate everything on a scale that reflects the person that is choosing.

^^^ those rankings are extremely unfair to public schools. Those rankings take a lot into consideration and using just the overall ranking is really not a fair assessment. I mean everyone has different priorities. . THe ranking takes class size and other things into consideration and weighs them for you.

The most important thing, i feel(again personal choices), is the prestige of the university. I can get by sitting in a 180 person lecture. To some people, that is hell. The prestige of the school is best reflected by the peer assessment rankings which account for only 25% of that score (i forget but i am pretty darn sure that is it). FOR ME, prestige(peer assessment) is much more important than just 25% of my decision.

The other catagories all benefit public universities. I mean look at the rankings, there is only one public school in the top 20. Vanderbilt better than UNC, UVA, Umich, UCLA, Wisconsin? I don't think it is much better.

I say this because I have always felt Wake forest is over ranked. It is a great school but it has a 3.5 peer assessment ranking.

UNC ranked 27- peer assessment 4.2
Wake Forest 30- Peer assessment 3.5
PSU ranked 47 Peer assessment 3.8
Florida ranked 47 peer assessment 3.7

I say this to show that prestige wise, wake forest isn't that much better than PUS or Florida. I meen the peer rankings are not perfect but they reflect the general opinion of academics at that school from its peers. I feel that is important.

All my blabbing has to say is that everything in the rankings should be looked at and not the final product. Then evaluate everything on a scale that reflects the person that is choosing.

But college recruiters could give a crap about peer assessments, BSB. They look at things like US News, Barrons, and the Princeton Review. I agree that there often is a disconnect between the quality of education you get and the reputation of the school amongst college recruiters, but if you want to do what's in your best interests, you appeal to the college recruiters.

The best jobs go to the "best" schools. And to recruiters, in this case, that means UNC Chapel Hill and Wake. That's the only area in which rankings should really matter: how easy can you get a job when you graduate, and how much $ can you make with that degree. The rest of the rankings, pun intended, are academic.

Well i would hope that recruiters look at much more than these rankings because most of them are extremely flawed. US news does a decent job though. I feel the prestige is the general outlook of the college in academic terms. It is reflective of not only what the peers think(even though that is what is polled) but what recruiters think. Recruiters should know that the academic quality of students coming out of Wake is not much better than out of PSU.

Public schools are at a huge disadvantage in the overall ranking because it puts weight on things that publics can't compete with. When i get home i can list all the things that are weighted and not all have to do with the education. I would hope that recruiters would know where the best students are coming from and are looking at more than just rankings.
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Otherwise, what I feel is most important is the journalism schools themselves. Maybe that is because i go to a huge university and there is a big disconnect from say the life sciences education and the business, journalism, and engineering education. I was between UMD, Wisconsin, and PSU when choosing colleges. I am studying business and all are pretty decent at it. Wisconsin was the best, by a lot in my opinion, but i went to UMD primarly because it was instate. UMD's overall ranking is 54 or 56 but its business ranking is top 20 by USnews and is 35 by business week. Even more specifically, my specific major is ranked 6th of all universities. I feel that when recruiters come to look for someone in supply chain management they will know that UMD has pretty good students.

SO i feel it is important to find out how good all the schools are at journalism and more specifically sports journalism. I think recruiters know which journalism schools bring out the best educated students.



Regardless of everything-> I feel UNC is the clear choice. I feel it is a much better choice than wake. Not just the small difference of 27 and 30.

Help me out with your timeline here EQ. I thought schools required a decision by May 1st typically? Are you a junior, or are these schools you've been waitlisted and then bumped up at? The reason I ask is because, since you are looking at primarily top tier state schools, you would be insane to not go to UNC. I mean, completely insane. If you have the record to get into PSU and Florida as an out of state applicant then you will walk into UNC in state. It's the best school, better than Wake even, and it's significantly cheaper. It's about a fourth of the price of what PSU would be out of state.

So what is the timeframe here?

Edit: sorry, just saw that you had been waitlisted at UNC. I was told that you should never wait on a school that's waitlisted you unless you are prepared to take a year off.

Help me out with your timeline here EQ. I thought schools required a decision by May 1st typically? Are you a junior, or are these schools you've been waitlisted and then bumped up at? The reason I ask is because, since you are looking at primarily top tier state schools, you would be insane to not go to UNC. I mean, completely insane. If you have the record to get into PSU and Florida as an out of state applicant then you will walk into UNC in state. It's the best school, better than Wake even, and it's significantly cheaper. It's about a fourth of the price of what PSU would be out of state.

So what is the timeframe here?

Edit: sorry, just saw that you had been waitlisted at UNC. I was told that you should never wait on a school that's waitlisted you unless you are prepared to take a year off.


I am probably going to Tennessee because my cousins go there.

I am probably going to Tennessee because my cousins go there.

I would not base your decision on that. I made a conscious decision when I was deciding what college to go to not to go to the same school as my friends. College is the time to broaden your horizons, not just academically. Make new friends, meet new people. You don't want to get stuck leaning on your cousins because it's what you know. Expand your world.