Hi everyone! I will be a senior in high school this coming August. I would like some advice, and comments on how and if I can get into the University of North Carolina. I was apart of the Business and Finance Academy which was a four year program that required an application and certain requirements. I became a Microsoft Office Specialist certified in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access through the academy. I also completed many paid summer internships at certain businesses also through the academy. I was a member of the National BETA Club, and later inducted into National Honor Society where I became Vice President. I was apart of the track and cross country teams for four years. I was fortunate enough to attend states for cross country all four years and was the only freshman to attend. I held a job at Publix for three years. I have great teachers, counselors, and advisers that I am getting letters of recommendation from. I took many honors and AP classes where I earned decent grades. I have a 3.9 GPA and a 30 ACT score. I have worked extremely hard to have a shot at this, and would greatly appreciate any feedback.
I forgot to mention that I am out of state which I understand makes it much more difficult.
Admission of OOS students to UNC-CH is very competitive; and UNC-CH admits OOS applicants in numbers that are calculated not to exceed 18% of an entering freshman class. See “Undergraduate Admissions” on Page 2, here: http://www.admissions.unc.edu/files/2013/09/Admissions__Policy.pdf. As a further example of the difficulty for OOS students to be admitted to UNC-CH, the entering Class of 2020, for example, had a 15% acceptance rate for OOS applicants: http://admissions.unc.edu/apply/class-profile-2/.
If you look at the UNC-CH Common Data Set, under Part C7 it states that standardized test scores, application essay(s), letter(s) of recommendation, and the rigor of your high school record are “very important” academic factors considered for freshman admission, whereas GPA and class rank are “important” academic factors considered for freshman admission. Extracurricular activities, talent, and character/personal qualities are considered as “very important” non-academic factors.
Further, Part C9 of the Common Data Set for UNC-CH, gives you the median 50% for both SAT and ACT scores, as well as the percentage of the entering first-year class falling within certain ranges of SAT and ACT scores; and Part C11 gives you the percentage of entering first-year students falling within a range of unweighted GPA on a 4.0 scale.
By way of comparison, our OOS high school usually has 8-10 students who apply, and 1-2 students who are admitted, each year to UNC-CH; and, with the exception of legacy students, our admitted students have ACT scores of 34+ and weighted GPAs of 4.5+. These successful applicants also were involved in extracurricular activities that showed commitment over time (no “drive-by” ECs), and demonstrated leadership in the school as well as their ECs. Other kids in our city who I know were admitted to UNC-CH recently also had similar academic statistics and non-academic characteristics; and all of these kids were “unhooked” in admissions parlance (i.e., not a recruited D-1 athlete, or a URM, first-generation college student, etc.).
Having stated all of the above, I think that your GPA is fine; however, your ACT score is probably a little low to make you very competitive as an OOS applicant. If you are a URM (“under-represented minority”), recruited D-1 athlete, first-generation college student, or OOS legacy, you may be able to get around a slightly low ACT score; otherwise, I would work on boosting your standardized test scores, and work to have really good essays and LORs.
Thank you so much for your detailed reply! I really appreciate all the information!