You may be able to get an idea of where you place relative to recently admitted students by looking at the UNC-CH Common Data Set: Part C9 of the CDS gives 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; Part C11 gives the percentage of entering first-year students falling within a range of unweighted GPA on a 4.0 scale, and Part C12 gives the average high school GPA of first-year applicants.
The CDS also tells you, under Part C7, 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.
Your GPA is very competitive; the problem I see is with your SAT, which, IMO, should probably be around 1500 for you to be competitive for admission as an OOS applicant (as qualified below). 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 SAT scores of 1490+ and weighted GPAs of 4.4+. 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.). If you are a URM, recruited D-1 athlete, OOS legacy, or have some other hook, then your path may be a bit easier.
I presume that you are applying RD; if so, I would work on raising your SAT score, and making sure that your essays and LORs are top-notch (as they are “very important” academic factors). I would also consider elaborating on your leadership abilities and examples of leadership in your ECs, which relate to the “very important” non-academic factors of character/personal qualities, as part of your overall application.
I don’t know whether your high school has Naviance or any similar program that gives information about how students at your high school have done in applying to colleges and universities; if so, you might peruse that data. If you have not yet applied to UNC-CH, I would try to meet with a guidance counselor at your school to discuss application strategies for UNC-CH; if any former students from your school have been admitted to UNC-CH recently, the guidance counselor may be able to give some insight into how and why such student(s) were successful.
Good luck to you.
