Possible Reason for Waitlist at UNC Chapel Hill?

Hello there!

I was just recently put on the waitlist at UNC and was curious if anybody could offer anything about this?
I’m 1/660 students in my class, 4.807 GPA, IB program, 2200 SAT, 4’s and 5’s on the AP tests I’ve taken, 7 on my IB Spanish exam, varsity swim team for 4 years (captain for 2), varsity track for 4 years, executive VP of National Honors Society, Mu Alpha Theta Officer, a lot of volunteer hours, strong letters of recommendation, and 2 strong essays that I received help on from a teacher that used to be a college admissions counselor.

I visited the campus and really loved it there, so I was kind of bummed (and little surprised) that I didn’t get in. On my visit they gave an informational brochure that stated that 77% of their students were in the top 10%, meaning that nearly 1/4 of their students weren’t. This statistic got to me a little, as a quarter of their students receive admission from out of the top 10% whereas I was waitlisted as part of the top 0.2% of my class.

I live in Texas, so I’m wondering if they really only focus on North Carolina natives? Is there anything else that I’m missing here? I’m also concerned that if I do get pulled from the waitlist, all of the scholarships will have already been awarded to others and therefore will not be able to afford attendance.

I was only accepted to 4 out of the 8 schools that I applied to (with minimal scholarship offerings), so its been a pretty difficult past few weeks for me. You know how people say all the time that “Ohh, you’ll have your pick of schools and won’t have to pay a dime” but thats not exactly how it has turned out for me.

Any advice on anything would be appreciated!
Thanks a bunch

I would think with those stats you would have received a number of generous scholarship offers. Did you not apply to any safety schools?

By law, they need to fill their class with a certain % of NC students. Not sure of the exact number but believe it is at least 75%, making the competition for those OOS very tough

They take about 18-19% from OOS which is probably why you were wait listed. Did you fill out the FA forms? If you get off the WL you may get FA, depending.

It’s typically around 20% of students come from out of state. And since UNC is such a highly regarded school, and so inexpensive even for out-of-state students, the competitive pool for out-of-state students is much higher than for in-state. It sounds like you might not have targeted the right types of schools if you were seeking merit money? There should have been a number of schools that would be willing to give you scholarships, but not necessarily schools with the name recognition of a UNC-CH.

Their acceptance rate OOS is usually 15-18%, and the stats for accepted OOS students are just about Ivy-level, so it’s very much a lottery.

UNC admissions are brutal for OOS students.

What does your financial aid need look like?

What was your unweighted GPA (?/4.0)? Not that I think it really makes a difference as I thought you would have been accepted, but I’m curious.

It’s possible that UNC thought that you were using them as a sort of safety, or that you came off badly in your essays.

whitespace, its a 3.9827 unweighted.
fredjan, I filled out my FAFSA, and I believe my CSS profile for them (I cant remember if they requested that or not), but I will certainly be needing financial aid.

Is there anything I can do to convince them of my interest other than an email?

I also did apply to safety schools. Texas A&M only offered 2500 a year. TCU and Hendrix college offered good money, but since they run about $60,000 a year, it only covers about 1/3 of estimated cost.

People need to quit telling children that.

How much can your parents pay per year without taking out loans? Do you have any acceptances you can pay for with the money your parents can pay + college grants + the federal student loan (~$5500/year) + summer work earnings (~$3k)? If not, you may need to take a gap year and apply to a new list of schools.

What’s your CR + M score? Some colleges do offer guaranteed merit for certain SAT (CR + M) scores and GPA; students who need grants to pay for school apply to the colleges that offer them. There’s a thread pinned to the top of the financial aid forum that lists them. Have you checked it?

What about UT-Austin? Don’t they auto-admit top 7% ranked students? That’s a great school. With those stats you look like a strong candidate for Honors.

OP: Texas. That is why. They accept much lower stats from in state, so don’t bother comparing yourself to the published stats. For out of state, the admissions are much tougher.

What does your 4.8 mean in unweighted? Kids with 4.0 unweighted and higher SATs were rejected, so don’t feel like there was anything wrong with your app, ok?

My son is also kind of tired of the “oh you’ll get in anywhere you want with your scores” but from family and friends (which of course is not the reality. If you got into any top 50 schools, consider yourself very lucky and move on:)

Reading 750 Math 720. Im not sure how to find the thread I’m new to this thing

I wish I would have applied to UT, but its too late now

I do not know whether or not this will help, but can your guidance counselor call admissions and let them know this is your top choice? Where have you been accepted?

I will have him try. I’ve been accepted at TCU, Texas AM, and Hendrix College

FA at UNC is mostly focused on need not merit. Scholarships are few. Even your great stats will not likely qualify you for merit. However if you have financial need (based on the Profile and UNC calculations), they can be generous.

OP: A couple of thoughts. First, regarding the waitlist, have your guidance counselor contact the admissions office ASAP and try to find out why you were waitlisted. My high school senior was waitlisted at a school; our guidance counselor spoke with someone in the admissions office there, who said that the problem was some lower grades in the first semester of senior year. The admissions officer also said that the waitlist was essentially divided into two – those students for whom there was a possibility of coming off, and those for whom there was little or no chance of coming off. If you are on the “chance of coming off” waitlist based on what the admissions officer tells your guidance counselor, contact the admissions office quickly and let them know of your continued interest.

Second, if you are female, your chances may have been reduced somewhat, because there is a large cohort of OOS females who apply to UNC: according to the UNC common data set, 59% of the applicants to UNC last year were female, and the same percentage was accepted (although males and females were accepted at basically the same rate: 30%).

Third, UNC is limited to filling its freshmen class with 18% OOS students; so the competition for those slots is very intense.

Fourth, your essays may not have been as good as you thought.

Fifth, if you applied RD, then your competition may have been tougher, because a good number of slots would already have been filled by the time that the admissions officers looked at your file.

Finally, please remember that whether you are accepted or rejected, it is not a reflection on you as a person, or your inherent worth. Here is an article that I have found helpful over the course of the past year to keep things in perspective: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/15/opinion/sunday/frank-bruni-how-to-survive-the-college-admissions-madness.html?rref=collection%2Fcolumn%2Ffrank-bruni&_r=1

You still have some good schools where you have been accepted. Best of luck to you.

As a UNC student on full academic scholarship, this looks kinda odd. Your hard stats are roughly equal to mine (I am in state) and seem equal to my OOS friends that also received merit scholarships. At UNC, you get invited to a Scholars weekend if you are considered for a merit scholarship, other than the Robertson and Morehead-Cain which are separate from the actual UNC Scholars program (they’re both their own “thing”). I am pretty sure our Scholars weekend already happened, so if you didn’t get an invite to that, then sadly you are probably right in saying that you may not be considered for merit aid.