Other special factors *(first generation to college, legacy, athlete, etc.): Possibly a connection at UNC, would have to be 100% sure in order to use it
**Intended Major(s): Business, but neither university does direct admit into their business school
Rank and Test Scores: 3.939, no rank
Unweighted HS GPA: 92
Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): 95/100, 97 average sophomore-senior year, but my freshmen grades pull me down
ACT/SAT Scores: 35 superscore
Coursework: 3 APs so far (all 5s), Taking 5 APs this year. I am in calculus and AP statistics, and I stopped language after Honors Spanish 3
Awards: Highest academic honors at school
Extracurriculars
-High school semester abroad in Chile
-Started a service project to put together trunks/supplies for scholarship campers at a YMCA camp
-Student Government (leadership role)
-7 varsity letters in swimming and lacrosse
-Multiple religious organizations
-Peer leader to freshmen
Essays/LORs/Other: Fairly strong essays, I am super outgoing and participatory so I think my LORs are good as I have strong bonds with my teachers
Schools
Safety: Miami University, CU Boulder
Match: U of Richmond, UGA (instate)
Reach: UNC, UVA (these are my top two that I really want to hear opinions on)
If you are an OOS applicant who doesn’t apply ED to UVA, both UVA and UNC have gotten ridiculously competitive EA as there are just so many qualified OOS applicants and no real way for them to know who would come if accepted so it will take a bit of chance to be admitted to either one if EA.
Your list looks great but U of Richmond is the outlier.
Since you have U of R, how bout William and Mary - that would be a match for you. I agree on UVA/UNC - it’s a crap shoot. W&M and Miami have many similarities - beautiful campus, small town. W&M is smaller but not Richmond small and obviously is much higher ranked that Miami overall although Farmer school is solid.
What is your major in business - because that also matters. For example, if you were applying for Supply Chain, you’d want UTK. If you were looking at MIS, you might add Indiana instead of Miami.
I’m assuming $$ are no issue because if they are, you’ll have a huge disparity between UGA and the rest with Miami being second. Well, UVA and UNC meet need.
As for your Carolina legacy, if you are first gen (which is great), it won’t help. Based on the attached, it helps if you are an out of state child of an alum.
With stats like yours, if you were interested, you could add other top tier universities - especially with your safeties pretty much assured.
I have some questions before I chance:
-estimate your rank: are you top 10%? top 20%? top Half? Ask your college couselor if you do not know–they all can give you an estimate even if they do not rank. Why I ask is that a 3.93 who is just above average is very different than a 3.93 who is top 10%, and your High school’s outcomes at UNC and UVA will likely reflect that.
-Which APs did you take(the 3 5s)?
-What APs are offered at your school? How many APs do the top group of students usually take, total?
-What sciences have you taken each year?
-What are you taking in lieu of the foreign language/what is your senior schedule?
I know I am top 20%, but I don’t know where I fall within that percentage. I am definitely not top 10% so somewhere in between 10-20.
I got 5s on AP English Language, APUSH, and AP World
At my school, no APs are offered to freshmen, only AP World is offered to sophomores. Because of my semester abroad, I couldn’t take an AP science, so my junior year I only took 2 APs (top students might take 2-4).
I took biology freshman year, environmental science sophomore year, chemistry junior year. All on level. At my school, chemistry is usually all sophomores but I had to switch my schedule around to accommodate to going to another school. This year, I am taking AP Macro/Micro, AP Stat, AP Gov, AP English Lit, and on level calculus. No science or Spanish, but I am taking 2 maths and 2 histories
As some posters mentioned above, OOS admissions are extremely competitive at both schools. If you like UNC enough, and your connectivity is solid, definitely apply early. I think your stats look fine!
Just curious, since you can afford OOS tuition, why you wouldn’t consider privates ones like Emory or Wake Forest?
Thank you for the details. Unless your school has a strong track record with many getting in to UNC or UVA each year, I think they are high reaches and you need to expand your list. Out of the top 10% plus not having top rigor is not a good combo for top schools. (Less than top rigor: less APs than top kids as well as no AP science and no science at all senior year, and no physics at all during high school make you less competitive at those types of schools). Apply, for sure! But I think you have a less than 10% chance, best guess.
I think, again, UVA and UNC OOS are a crap shoot - but your semester abroad in HS really stood out to me.
The acceptance rate at UVA was 28% in state and 17% out of state. They don’t show a statistic (GPA/Test Score) comparison.
For UNC, 23% were admitted this year but I see no out of state rate. For last year, they admitted 24% - 48% from in state and 14% out of state.
I think the fact that you have solid safeties - I wouldn’t worry about chance me. I would apply to those schools you want - your first gen will help at many schools and the semester abroad is definitely unique. But apply - and you’ll find out yes or no - and you could even add other top if programs if interested.
Out of state acceptances to UVA and UNC seem really hard to come by. My California daughter, who ended up at Princeton, applied to UVA and UNC EA and got deferred at UVA and admitted to UNC under some weird program where you have to spend the 1st semester of your freshmen year overseas (not something she had applied to). After getting into Princeton early she withdrew her application to UVA. I won’t detail her qualifications, but I will say she was a very, very, very strong student (top 1% percent, easily, in terms of standardized test scores and GPA at a very strong public high school) and she was a multi-sport athlete on teams in and out of school, star of the drama department graduating with distinction in the arts and won a regional theater competition, community service, phenomenal teacher recs (e.g., one said she she wrote a graduate-level analytical paper that was the best he had read in 18 years of teaching), etc. Practically perfect and UNC and UVA didn’t accept her EA, but Princeton did. The point is, with these schools that accept a painfully small number of applicants (I think UNC takes about 10% of their out of state applicants; Princeton admitted about 4% of all applicants), you can’t expect a good outcome no matter who you are. It really is a crap shoot. If you don’t have some kind of attribute they are looking for (athlete, minority, some specialized skill, etc.), the chances of getting into these places is almost nil. Certainly apply and cross your fingers, but get excited about some of the other great schools on your list too.
OP - you look just about as good as you can look for a chance at an OOS admission to UNC. I’m not sure what your legacy connection would be if you’re also 1st gen, and whether UNC would give it the same weight as a parent/grandparent legacy. Anecdotally, over the past several admissions cycles it appears that UNC has taken steps to admit more diverse classes, so being a white female may work against you a bit unless you have an additional hook along with that (LGBTQ?) Definitely go for it, but as others have said, fall in love with the hundreds of other wonderful colleges that would roll out the red carpet for someone with your amazing qualifications!
From the article that tsbna44 posted above re: Carolina legacies (this made me chuckle - Bless UNC’s heart and it’s ability to guilt it’s alumni into continuing to donate money!)
“Sadly, I sometimes hear from alumni who insist that because their child or grandchild was not admitted to Carolina, they plan to no longer support their alma mater. I always encourage them to reconsider — not just because Carolina never wants to lose a member of our family — but because such a dramatic withdrawing of support won’t go unnoticed by their child or grandchild. I explain that they and their student have shared a lifelong enthusiasm for Carolina. Their student is understandably disappointed in not having the opportunity to attend Carolina in the fall, but I ask: Do you now wish to compound that sadness by making your student also feel guilty because you’re no longer going to support Carolina?”
UNC and UVA are both high reaches. Although your stats look good, a 92% GPA, non top 10% rank, and lack of rigor (e.g. no physics, no honors science) aren’t top tier which you have to be to be admitted to UVA and UNC as an OOS student.
Also, as you said, neither UVA nor UNC has direct admit business. At UVA, one can do everything right (straight As, join clubs, etc) and still not be accepted to McIntyre because the process is holistic and they build a diverse class. What would be your plan B if you aren’t admitted to business at either school?
If you like Richmond, look at Bucknell, Lehigh, and Villanova. You would be direct admit at IU Kelley so take a look at that. Also adding SMU, UMiami, and Tulane…but Kelley is better in terms of business than all of those.
Just curious why Georgia Tech isn’t on your list? Very good business program. S20 started at Scheller and moved to ISyE.
University of South Carolina has one of the top rated international business programs. You would probably get merit and access to Honors programs. I graduated many years ago. Would probably be a safety or match at worst.
Not being a direct admit would be a concern. What is your plan B if you don’t get into KF or McIntire?
For a BBA I would also look at SMU and UMiami. Fordham if you like NYC. You probably would get some merit. For overall college experience it’s hard to beat Boston. Northeastern or BU? Personally I think you could haver better safety options. Any particular reason for CU Boulder?
Does your school use Naviance or Scoir? If so, that’s the best resource for your chance information. That and your private school GC or CC should have the most accurate feedback.
Last year’s results at my D’s school were somewhat atypical… UNC acceptances way down but UVA acceptances were up.
Maybe I need to read your OP more closely. Did you say anything about being first gen? I see a possible legacy connection so I’m confused why posters are addressing first gen status.
I believe UNC does do a few select direct-admits to KF.
I misread the info in parenthesis about first gen to be the OP’s response to the question.
Also, chances are the OP would be fine with the fallback non-KF econ major at UNC (as long as she likes econ). My daughter works with 2 fellow UNC econ major grads who did not get into KF. They have the same IB analyst jobs and went through the same internship-to-permanent hire pipeline as my KF daughter.
You’re obviously a great student and you’ve done everything right in high school but I think your chances are still pretty slim at UNC/UVA. I’d def still apply because you never know but expand that list a little, as other posters have said, there are a lot of really good schools out there that aren’t those 2. I think with a very moving essay you could stand out. Good luck
Sincere question. Does OP really need to expand her list if she’d be happy attending her safeties? Are you (and others, not trying to single you out) saying those aren’t safeties?
No she can do whatever she wants to do. But it sounds like she’s really passionate over UVA/UNC and my point was maybe she can find some other schools she likes that much that aren’t quite as much of a reach for her.
Miami U and UC Boulder probably are safeties but has OP visited? There are probably a few higher rated BBA programs that would be safeties and offer merit plus honors colleges.
I see 6 schools on her list. Two are reaches. Having a few more options would be nice.
Being a Georgia resident with Hope and Zell on the table I’m not sure why Georgia Tech and Emory aren’t on the list. At least apply so you have more options.
Maybe I missed it but I didn’t see OP’s budget.
Our Texas HS has quite a few apply to UNC and UVA. For UNC, over the last 10 years, those with a 35 ACT and 4.3 GPA or higher (~top 10%), six were admitted and five denied. The max GPA over those years was a 4.7. Normal weighting applies – +0.5 for honors/pre-AP and +1.0 for AP.
One person was admitted with a 23 ACT, one with a 25 and two with 27s. Athletes?
Georgia is a fine backup and you’ll get in there. The top five schools that students who apply to UNC also applied to include: UT-Austin, UVA, UGa, Vandy and SMU.
Thanks. I see different opinions about the number of applications one should shoot for so I was genuinely curious. Some say if you’re happy with your safeties, go for it with as many reaches as you want, etc.
I agree that more feedback from the OP about budget (especially this!), campus tours, and other preferences would allow more targeted feedback.
