hi, i am a junior with around 4.1W weighted GPA, 3.5 UW, 1440 SAT on the new one, my SAT translates to a 31 ACT, and i have a long list of volunteering (around 200 hours), internships including one at johns hopkins hospital, and a long list of helping community members. what are my chances? I am also Vice President of my grade, served multiple years in student government, future business leaders of America reginoal and county champion, state champion, national contender. 4 years of lacrosse in high school, in national honors society, 6 AP classes in high school. Also an officer of 3 clubs, and a minority, and trilingual.
I presume you are OOS based on your interning at Johns Hopkins Hospital?
yes
I heard that UNC barely takes out of state applicants, so is it worth applying to with my scores?
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.
If you are a URM (“under-represented minority”), recruited D-1 athlete, first-generation college student, or OOS legacy, you may have a slightly easier path. Otherwise, focus on getting high standardized test scores, boost your GPA to the extent you can, and work to have really good ECs, essays, and LORs.
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.).
Your GPA and ACT score are a little low; but if you are a URM that will probably help you. Also, you might consider retaking the ACT (perhaps with some test preparation), and work to get your GPA up this semester. If you think that you will have a really good Fall semester in terms of your grades, you might consider applying RD as opposed to EA; but this is something that you should probably discuss with your guidance counselor. Also, if your high school has Naviance (or something similar), you might look at it to see how other students at your school have fared in applying to UNC-CH.