where do I go??
Hello Reddit! I posted a few days ago about being disappointed with UNC.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ApplyingToCollege/s/y6sYpVozMz
I realize now that I definitely had warped and unreasonable expectations going into my visit after building it up in my head for years. To those who commented, thank you for your input and advice. Although I didn’t reply to all the comments, I did read them and I really appreciate it.
This post is going to be more info and a sort of update on my current college decision situation. Advice is greatly appreciated.
This fall I applied to 20 schools. Most were instate safeties as I was hoping to leverage scholarship offers. The significant schools I applied to were as follows:
Targets
University of Tennessee - Knoxville: accepted ✅
University of Iowa: accepted ✅
University of Illinois: accepted ✅
Reaches
University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill: accepted ✅ & full ride & accelerated research & honors
University of Virginia: waitlisted
There are some others, but these are the only schools that matter as it pertains to my looming decision.
Some background on my academics: Since Summer 2024 I have been a full time student at my local community college and this spring I’ll graduate from high school with an associate’s degree. This was the only rigorous path I could take as my hs has no APs, and even then I had to go to the board about it and get the whole thing approved. My area is very rural and low income; there are like 92 kids in the whole high school.
Because I am graduating with an AA, I am trying to weigh efficiency with experience and prestige. It’s hard for me to fathom taking bs boring classes again after doing that for the past two years. Right now I am committed to Iowa as everything transfers there seamlessly (oddly enough I’m from IL, but it’s much more of a pain to take my credits there). I could have my BS in stats in 2028 and my MS in stats in 2029 with their U2G program, which is incredibly enticing. I have always been a very practical person, and I love that’d I’d be able to start my career sooner, and therefore buy my Porsche sooner.
The problem is that I don’t like Iowa even though I love the stats department there. I really wanted to go to a large school with fun athletics, the problem is that I grew up a badger fan and I just can’t buy in. I know that sounds so stupid, but I am just so irritated by it because I wanted to be a crazy, genuinely obnoxious fan of whatever school I went to.
I am also getting married this summer and my fiancé is going to Iowa, so although I am not choosing Iowa for him everything just aligns very nicely. (I know this is crazy and people will have opinions, but I just need advice on picking a school).
UNC has been my dream school for ages, in part because I was planning to go into biostats. I still want to do this, but I don’t want to specialize right away. I’d prefer to get a BS in stats and perhaps even a regular MS in stats before specializing. I want to do this just to ensure that I’ve had time to consider and explore all avenues and applications of stats as multiple are interesting to me right now. I also want to make myself versatile and marketable if I decide to pivot or switch industries in the future.
UNC is obviously very strong for public health and was the best fit for me at the time I applied. Now that I have shifted my mind set slightly, I am not sure. I know they aren’t particularly know for statistics and some might consider other schools a better choice for an undergraduate degree in statistics.
With that being said I am very torn. I am in a very blessed spot financially. Although my family is low income, UNC gave me a full ride and I have VA educational benefits (Fry Scholarship), so I can afford the schools listed.
The great thing about Iowa is that it is so efficient I would have VA benefits left to use for another masters, potentially at UNC. However, UNC is my dream school and they are objectively more prestigious. UNC is also very illustrious to me because I’ve always dreamed of going somewhere far away and escaping my small town and the narratives in it (my dad committed suicide when I was eight and it’s felt like living in a zoo ever since - like all people see is dead dad girl). Iowa and Illinois feel so similar to my town and I don’t like that. It doesn’t feel fun or interesting like I hoped my school would. It also just kind of feels like I’m giving up/failing if I go anywhere but UNC because the other places are less prestigious.
I don’t know if I am getting too caught up in the prestige aspect, so input on that is appreciated.
Another thing is that when I visited UNC on an admitted students day I was disappointed. I think I was riding high on getting accepted to my dream school, which apparently I thought to be promise land university. It was also a very emotional time for me in general due to other personal reasons. Because of that I did not have a clear head when visiting campus and I did judge it harshly as it obviously was not the promise land I built it up to be. I was also seeing very negative daily Tar Heel articles in the week leading up to the visit so I was worried/apprehensive going into it. The one more reasonable(?) thing that worried me on my visit was that there wasn’t a stats or even general math or comp sci session and other schools I visited on admitted students days did.
I am very upset with myself for being so out of wack on my visit because now I have no idea what to do. I feel incredibly trapped, and I now wish I applied to more schools that I actually cared for. I chickened out because I was convinced I’d never get in. So advice for any upcoming applicants: bet on yourself; apply to the schools you care about even if you think you have no chance. I wish I could go back and visit UNC with a cleared head, but that is unfortunately out of the question as my family simply cannot afford it.
Thank you if you read this far. Your thoughts and advice are so greatly appreciated as I desperately need to figure out what to do.
PS: I know I really only mentioned Iowa and UNC throughout this post, but if you think I should consider another school listed above that input is appreciated as well.