Chance me! UNC Chapel Hill OOS (applying 2018, class of 2022)

I’m applying early action this year. Note: I am an OOS student

Stats:
Unweighted GPA: 3.94
Weighted GPA (out of 4.0): 4.0
Rank: 57 out of 538 (top 10%)
ACT composite: 31
ACT superscore: 32

Background:
Home State: Georgia (OOS)
Race: white
Hook: none
Legacy: none

Courses:

of Honors classes: 9

AP’s taken so far: AP World History, AP Art History, AP Lang, AP Environmental Science, AP Human Geography
AP’s for Senior Year: AP Psych, AP Stat, AP Computer Science Principles
Dual Enrollment courses: U.S. history, intro to psych, english 1102, macroecon
Total # of AP’s and Dual Enrollment: 12 (8 AP’s, 4 dual enrollment)

EC’s:
-Job at local ice cream shop (shift leader)
-Internship at audiology clinic
-National Honors Society (junior and senior year)
-Mentor Club Co-President (junior and senior year)
-Habitat for Humanity Vice President (junior year)
-Beta Club (freshmen to senior year)
-National English Honors Society (sophomore to junior year)
-tutoring at school (pre-calculus and AP world history)

Honors:
Honor roll (freshmen to junior - havent announced senior years yet)
AP scholar with honors
Outstanding Achievement Award (school award)

Generally, the chances for any OOS applicant to UNC-CH are somewhat problematic due to the highly competitive nature of OOS applications there: 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 2021 had a 14% 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 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.

Having stated all of the above, your ACT score and GPA are, IMO, a bit low to make you very competitive for admission as an unhooked OOS applicant. If you have good essays and letters of recommendation, that will help.

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 33+ 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.).

Also, the cut-ff for top 10% in a class of 538 would be 53.8.

Personal Stats: SAT 1470 ACT 33 EC: Viola & Cross Country & Full-time job @ a restaurant; Accepted to UNC-CH(OOS from Arizona); Rejected by Cornell; Accepted to UCBerkeley
You definitely have a chance of acceptance. One thing that I learned from my application experience is that the harder the schools are, the more they are focused on your differences that you can portray through your essays and letters of rec and whether or not those differences fit into their view of what their university is/represents, so basically, whether or not top schools accept you is kind of based off of your luck with the admissions officer (given that your stats are higher than their average).

@gandalf78 Yeah I understand that OOS is incredibly competitive and it is by no means a safety school for anyone these days. I agree that my ACT is below average for OOS but I believe my GPA is actually above average because my school does not add any weight for honors and AP classes, therefore the highest “weighted” GPA we can have is a 4.0 exactly and not a 4.5 (which is what I have). I understand why when u saw my “weighted” GPA it seems quite low but it’s just too hard to explain how it is calculated. You can’t really look at GPA in this process because each high school calculates it differently. Anyways, thanks for your honesty.

@clemson22: Only the admissions office will give you the answer that really counts. At this point, just keep your expectations in check. Best of luck to you.