<p>From the Daily Tar Heel </p>
<p>"If statistics on potential members of the class of 2012 are any indication, next year's freshman class on average will boast better academic credentials than those of their predecessors at UNC.</p>
<p>While the incoming freshman class has not been finalized, the average SAT score of admitted students so far is 1344, up from 1302 last year, according to preliminary data released by the Office of Undergraduate Admissions.</p>
<p>Their average ACT score is 30 - the scores of the middle 50 percent of last year's class ranged from 26 to 31. And their average GPA is 4.6, about a 4 percent increase from the class of 2011's average of 4.42.</p>
<p>While these numbers reflect admitted students, they are considered incomplete because they include students who might not enroll.</p>
<p>They also include students who were waitlisted but have since been admitted. Ashley Memory, assistant director of admissions, said the University has offered admission to just more than 400 of the approximately 1,300 waitlisted students.</p>
<p>Stephen Farmer, director of undergraduate admissions, said the University is getting close to its target enrollment of 3,900 students and doesn't expect many more offers to be made. But the new enrollments should not have much effect on the overall class averages.</p>
<p>"I don't think it will make much difference in the end, one way or the other," Farmer said.</p>
<p>He stressed that while waitlisted students might be "marginally less appealing" than students who received the original offers, they are still solid academically.</p>
<p>And Farmer believes test scores and academic performance are not perfect indicators of how well a student will do at UNC.</p>
<p>"We can't explain why some fly higher or sink lower," he said. "People are a lot more complicated than we give them credit for."</p>
<p>Preliminary data on the newest enrolling class show that 80 percent of the students were in the top 10 percent of their high school classes, up from 76.4 percent of last year's incoming class. Forty-four percent ranked in the top 10, and 13.9 percent graduated first or second.</p>
<p>Higher academic credentials might translate to an increase in the quality of first-year students. UNC political science professor George Rabinowitz, who has taught many freshmen, said students are getting a little better each year.</p>
<p>"There are fewer students who don't get the work done on time, who are sloppy in their preparation," Rabinowitz said.</p>
<p>Students also seem to be more racially diverse than in previous years.</p>
<p>Preliminary data also show that 30 percent of the enrolled are black, Asian, Native American or Latino, an increase of almost 18 percent from the previous year's entering class.</p>
<p>The students so far come from 42 states and the District of Columbia and 22 countries."</p>