Excited to see who will be joining me at UNC next year! As an EA applicant, I have a few words:
-DON"T get bogged down in this decision and spend an unnecessary amount of time refreshing college confidential or your portals. Take your mind off and do other things. The EA chat went absolutely crazy. Shouldn’t be long now, and nothing will make it any faster.
-Remember that UNC is heavily holistic. High stats are NOT a given but rather a thorough application that is well-rounded in all areas. The same applies to scholarships and honors opportunities should you be accepted. Stats aren’t what make them but rather your app as a whole. I got the Carolina Scholarship with only a 32 on my ACT but a good writing score, essays, leadership/EC’s and recs. Many people with higher or perfect scores did not receive any merit or additional opportunities.
-If you haven’t already or are within the bounds to do so, make a visit and speak to someone and make yourself known. If you can’t, frequently reach out to your admissions counselor and establish a connection. Speaking to the assistant director of admissions when I made my visit, in my opinion, made the difference. Even though UNC doesn’t interview applicants, that essentially served as a personal interview to showcase myself and what I could bring to UNC as well as affirm my interest.
Again, best of luck to all and I hope to see you as Tar Heels this fall
@Pastpower: If you look at Section C7 of UNC-CH’s Common Data Set, “interview” and “level of applicant’s interest” are not considered as admissions criteria.
Also, when you write “that UNC is heavily holistic”, it may be more holistic for some applicants, given that there are status-based admissions factors which apply to certain applicants but not others. As one example, for North Carolina applicants who live in rural or distressed counties, the UNC System is making an effort to increase college attendance of students from those counties, see here, https://www.northcarolina.edu/sites/default/files/unc_strategic_plan.pdf, at Page 9.
Your advice about taking a break from refreshing CC or university portals is right on target; decisions will come out when the admissions office sends them out, no matter how many times you hit “refresh”.
@gandalf78 I am aware level of interest and interview are not officially admissions criteria at UNC. But, as someone who received admission I was simply giving things I did that I believed helped. We will never know exactly how much of a difference they made but if you’re trying to get in you make every effort. Of course, reaching out to your admissions counselor or director won’t be included in a “numerical data set” or any quantitative means of admissions UNC releases, but it does give you a chance to go beyond the application, and doesn’t everyone want to take a shot any way they can?
@gandalf78 I have to concur with @Pastpower’s statement that not everything can be tabulated by means of a data set. Just because they don’t have something included that you can easily do to show another side of yourself, does that mean you shouldn’t try to do it? My son’s friend who applied and reached out to his counelsor was actually personally invited to a dinner where the counselor wanted to know more about him, something he could not have done by simply applying alone. You never know what might help. Please, reach out if you can.
@Pastpower@bcnkvr: I don’t disagree “with @Pastpower’s statement that not everything can be tabulated by means of a data set”; that’s the point of “holistic review,” right? However, the official position of UNC-CH as indicated in the Common Data Set is that “interview” and “level of interest” are not considered in making admissions decisions; rather, the admissions decision is based on the “four corners” of the materials submitted to the admissions office, unless the admissions office believes there is a need on their part to follow up with the applicant. To suggest that an applicant can get admitted because he/she seeks out an interview with an admissions officer as a means of getting special consideration, thus going “beyond the application,” appears to be inconsistent with UNC-CH policy.
There are colleges and universities where interviews and levels of interest are considered; UNC-CH is not one of them.
@gandalf78 That’s not at all what he said. He didn’t say, “If you want to be admitted, get an interview.” He simply offered it as a word of advice that gets your name out there. I’ve been to many college visits and have spoken to multiple admissions officers. Even though many of these colleges don’t state levels of interest or interviews are means of gaining admission, plenty of them have told me that they are impressed by those who take the initiative to affirm their interest and sometimes it does make a difference. In summation, it’s better to do something than nothing because you never know.
@bcnkvr: “Speaking to the assistant director of admissions when I made my visit, in my opinion, made the difference. Even though UNC doesn’t interview applicants, that essentially served as a personal interview to showcase myself and what I could bring to UNC as well as affirm my interest.”
It’s pretty clear that he engaged in what he considered to be a de facto interview, which in turn “made the difference” in his getting admitted. So he is saying “I got admitted because of the interview” – or, to put it another way, the de facto interview was the proximate cause of his admission. While he might wish that this were true, there is simply no way for him to know that.
What other schools do or say regarding interviews or affirmation of interest by an applicant doesn’t really apply to UNC-CH, which makes it pretty clear in the CDS that interviews – de facto or otherwise – and expressions of interest are not considered in admissions decisions. Idle speculation about the efficacy of such actions is really not helpful to other applicants, because it gives them a false impression as to how admissions decisions are made.
@chb088: Thank you for your kind words. I am a Carolina alum, having gotten a graduate degree from UNC-CH back in the day; I also have an OOS child who currently is an undergraduate at UNC-CH.
I too have found @gandalf78 to be a wise wizard. Definitely helped us see that the chances for our OOS student were, at best, quite modest, which proved prophetic.
@pantha33m: Thank you also for your kind words. Having been through the admissions rodeo a couple of times with my own kids, I have found that tempering expectations is usually the best course, as tough as that may be with very talented and extremely worthy applicants (which pretty much describes the entire UNC-CH applicant pool).
Please chance me. TOEFL 102 (23+30+23+26) 100 (27+24+23+26) SAT 1440 (650+790 using score choice) GPA somewhere between 3.5-3.75. I got 6 C s in my first three years (others are all As and Bs) but 4 As and 2 Bs in the first semester of senior year (mid-year grades). Applied for undecided major.
It says the end of March on their website, so probably literally the end. I don’t know for certain though. Also, does everyone get the decision at the same time? I thought they did, but I could be wrong. That’s a good reason for them not giving the exact day on the website.
just got an email from UNC saying decisions will not be released today or tomorrow and instructions on how to access the portal once decisions do come out. anyone else get this?
