<p>I'm a junior in a public HS, and as of now, UNC-Chapel Hill is my top choice.</p>
<p>I have only taken honors/AP/IB courses
When I complete HS, I will have 5 years of french under my belt
I have an abundance of volunteering hours at the Animal Humane Society
I am a part of a leadership EC
I am a part of National Honor Society
I have participated in swimming for 3 years
I have participated in 3 theatrical productions at my HS
I am in Choir, and was a part of Orchestra
I am participating in other various music ECs
I have had a summer job as a secretary at a law firm for 2 summers
My target ACT score is a 32 overall (I'm taking it this Saturday)
My unweighted GPA is 3.7-3.8 (not entirely sure right now)
I get all A's and B's in every class
I am in the top 10% of my graduating class, however, I'm unsure of what my actual rank is
I will be graduating with Highest Honors</p>
<p>I'm not taking the SAT because I have been informed that all colleges accept the ACT now.
I have checked all the colleges I'm interested in to make absolutely sure, and it seems to be true.</p>
<p>Overall, I'm wondering what your thoughts are on whether or not I could get into UNC-Chapel Hill. I'm planning a road trip this summer to go visit, but I'm having second thoughts about my actual shot of getting in. If you need any further information to evaluate my chances, please, don't hesitate to ask, I truly want the most blunt and honest answer you can give me. I don't want to waste my time in NC if I can't get into their schools.</p>
<p>I’ve seen people with significantly less than your credentials get into UNC from my school. But I live in NC and UNC takes something like 70% of its incoming Freshmen from NC High Schools, so I don’t know much about out of state applicants.</p>
<p>I do have to say you should visit. Franklin Street is one of the most amazing places, and the Carolina campus is gorgeous.</p>
<h2>According to the Fiske Guide to Colleges 2010, it’s over 80%, so that’s the aspect that worries me.</h2>
<p>@mom2collegekids</p>
<p>Money is not a particular issue at this point, both of my parents have high paying jobs, and I have been building on a mutual fund pretty much since birth.
Other colleges that I’m looking at are:
-Elon University (NC)
-University of North Carolina-Asheville
-University of Arizona
-University of Wisconsin-Madison (financial safety school, I get the in-state rate)
-University of Massachusetts-Amherst</p>
<p>I have only taken honors/AP/IB courses - That will help a lot</p>
<p>But you are correct UNC accepts 80% + in state by law. and getting in OOS is much harder than in-state. Being a state school they will consider Grades, ACT/SAT, Awards - and everything else is far down the list… So now you know what to work on. </p>
<p>Interesting list of schools - I understand UNC / Elon, what attracted you to University of North Carolina-Asheville (a good but very different school)?</p>
<p>PS: You may already know this but just in case, if you search this website for UNC or UNC-CH, OOS you will find lots of posts that will give you a feeling for other students who did and did not get into UNC.</p>
<p>First of all, thank you. Second, Asheville is a place I’m considering, but haven’t entirely looked into. I’ve read about it in the Fiske Guide, and I liked that they are considered to have a strong psych and history programs, and that that the population’s smaller, which would result in smaller class sizes.</p>
<h2>I’ve already looked into the other posts on the website, thanks for the tip though!</h2>
<p>OK - First of all it’s Never a good idea to fall in love with the idea of going to UNC OOS because it’s about as hard to get into OOS as many of the Ivys. No matter how good you are, no guarantees… </p>
<p>University of North Carolina-Asheville is kind of quirky and almost the opposite of UNC but still a good school (mostly known as a writers school). Large commuter population but from Artsy Asheville. </p>
<p>Elon would be a natural fit for your resume, especially if your looking for an active but intimate feeling school with smaller classes taught by professors not grad students. </p>
<p>University of Massachusetts-Amherst (Zoo Mass) can be a lot of fun and as challenging as you want. But it is it’s own city…</p>
<p>You may want to look into UNC-Wilmington, I would think that would be a better fit than UNC-Asheville</p>
<p>I completely understand, I thought that was one of the things I had said in my first post. But perhaps I was unclear.</p>
<p>This is valuable information for me, thank you very much.</p>
<p>The only thing that worried me about Elon, is that it has been referred to as a school where kids go that haven’t had the best grades, but want to redeem themselves. While this is wonderful for them, I was concerned that it wouldn’t be the best for me.</p>
<p>UMASS-Amherst was one school I also looked at because my sister will be going to Harvard Law next year, and I know it would be nice to have some family to go see on holidays etc. when I can’t fly home.</p>
<p>I’ll definitely look into that school. Thank you so much!</p>
<p>Like everyone else has mentioned, UNC out of state is crazy hard. I know someone who was accepted to Brown but rejected from UNC out of state. That being said, the state of North Carolina is beautiful… There is always Wake Forest… it’s a really good school as well.</p>
<p>Good Luck, UNC-CH has always been my dream school and I’m OOS as well! I hope you get in you have way better stats than me…But UNC-CH for OOS can be unpredictable I have heard, but I’ll go out on a limb here and say that I think you have a good chance at acceptance – although I don’t know about merit based aid (if this is a consideration) as it is VERY competitive.</p>
<p>“The only thing that worried me about Elon, is that it has been referred to as a school where kids go that haven’t had the best grades, but want to redeem themselves.”</p>
<p>OK I will laugh now… Don’t know what school you are referring to but it’s not Elon. Or at least not Elon in the past ten years. I know kids who have been accepted to both UNC and Duke who were waitlisted at Elon. And I had lunch with two Elon students last week who were accepted at Duke and choose to attend Elon. </p>
<p>You may want to do a search on CC and you will find lots of students who were shocked at being waitlisted. Elon is perhaps the best school I know for putting together a talented class of involved students, and isn’t a safety school for even top students.</p>
<p>I know there are two sides to every story, but…</p>
<p>I have friendships with students from all three schools, and the ones at Elon didn’t make good grades in high school. Nor did they do that well on the SAT. In my opinion, Elon is pretty average.</p>
<p>Everyone I know at Elon had good to excellent grades in HS, But if your comparing the GPA/SAT needed to get into UNC OOS or Duke than of course Elon is a much more average school. The fact that I know many students who have been waitlisted at Elon but accepted at UNC or Duke does not speak to the GPA/SAT requirements because if it was just about GPA/SAT than every student who was accepted at UNC OOS or Duke would automatically be accepted to Elon, and that does not happen.</p>
<p>The average accepted Elon student has a good GPA/SAT and also has been very active in HS with significant involvement in personal and outstanding EC’s (often with leadership and community service). </p>
<p>Also, as I have said before, “Elon is perhaps the best school I know for putting together a talented class of involved students”. And putting together a talented class means that no one talent (be it GPA/SAT, community service, or being a gifted performer) gets you automatically accepted because you are being compared to other students with similar talents. I know this confuses some kids who spent their entire HS life studying for the SAT, collecting a near perfect GPA, and figuring out their class rank only to get waitlisted at Elon after being accepted at “higher ranked” (?) schools.</p>
<p>I think it’s great that Elon doesn’t want to be anyones safety school, and that when your accepted they want you for who you are and not just a GPA/SAT number. But that’s just my opinion.</p>