You said, in part: He had to settle for UNC-Chapel Hill.
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It is not "settling" to go to UNC vs. Duke. Sadly, both have a terrible liberal atmosphere, but those who look for it can find a very substantial conservative core-- just look for the ones who are actually working. I am a double Carolina grad, and my wife has a Pharmacy degree from Carolina also. We didn't "settle." (And we don't have student loans outstanding, either.)
Sorry - that was a joke - I should have put my "settle" in quotes. I know the children of UNC grads who get into Duke and go to UNC because of family tradition. I also know the reverse.
As an NCSU grad I will have to agree with you. I'd pick UNC over Duke any day... In fact I will even support UNC except during The Game. :-)
I went to a small college in Alabama, called Jacksonville State University. I went for one year and dropped out and went back into the Army. It seemed that nearly every class that I took, the professors all ranted for half the classes about the Vietnam war and the mean military. I got into an argument with one professor over the war because I had done my time in Nam, wounded there and time in the hospital. I asked him if he had ever even visited Vietnam and of course he had not. So, I said everything you know you read in the papers and see on TV, you haven't actually been there and seen the troops or asked them? He was really POed that I pi$$ed on his parade in class.
I listened to this crap for a year and finally decided that if this was what I had to listen to for four years, then to hell with it. I went back into the service to be among people I knew and understood and believed the things I did. I found nothing in college that made me want to stay there. I certainly was not getting an education because nothing was being taught. I was being indoctrinated by a communist in my opinion.