UNC Class of 2023 EA Discussion Thread

In 2015, 2016 and 2017 they came out last Thursday of January, around 4 pm

@Squidney142 If you meet the admissions statistics and youā€™re In-State, youā€™re probably fine.

@chb088 Iā€™m actually not first gen, but thanks, you gave me some hope

Topic for discussion as we all await EA decision day (whenever that ends up being)ā€¦

Full disclosure: my OOS daughter has very strong but not elite stats/ECs and based on historic trends for OOS admissions for UNC, Iā€™m pre-emptvely saying that this is NOT sour grapes for an expected denial.

Iā€™ll add that we visited the campus, she really liked it, would obviously strongly consider if accepted.

My question: is UNC truly still an elite university in terms of quality of the education its students will receive (I understand this question is likely major-dependent) OR is there an element of ā€œbrand inflationā€ because itā€™s the flagship school for NC residents and because of the Freshman enrollment restrictions itā€™s Ivy-league level difficult to get accepted as an OOS applicatant?

Put another way - if one argues that Alabama-Tuscaloosa (37% instate freshmen) or U South Carolina- Columbia (50% instate freshmen) put an 18% cap on OOS students, wouldnā€™t its real/perceived desirability rise purely because it became more difficult to get into for OOS students.

Not claiming UNC isnā€™t a better school than these specific examples, but just curious as to whether itā€™s better than other schools that may be easier to get accepted to such as UGA, Illinois, UMass, etc

UNC has a low acceptance rate even for in state students, so yes it is an elite institution. They only take 27-28% from Meck and Wake counties, and only 48% from others. The other schools you mentioned take 70% or more from in state (I didnā€™t look up exact numbers here). I can tell you the in state students that go there are incredibly bright kids.

@sarajayhawk I see I read that wrong but still think you have an excellent chance. Hopefully youā€™ll be changing your name to saratarheel ā€˜

@projectmgr If you look at the stats for UNC, youā€™ll see that the middle 50% for in-state students is 1310 SAT-1480. This number is higher than in-state students at Alabama and U of South Carolina. Two better comparisons would be UVA, which has a much lower in-state cap of 70%, and also has very high standards - both for in-state and OOS and the U of Florida, which has something like a 92% in-state requirement, but, although a great school, does not have quite as high stats for OOS as UNC Chapel Hill. So, UNC, like UVA and U of Michigan, just happens to be a really highly sought university that is also a state/public school.

Iā€™m OOS too. I also have three cousins who went to U of South Carolina-Columbia and one who went to Auburn. Theyā€™re great kids, but I can tell when I talk to them that they arenā€™t quite on the same level as family friends who attended UNC Chapel Hill. My cousins group up with a lot of family money/trust funds, but they and their college friends arenā€™t as sophisticated as most of the UNC kids that Iā€™ve met.

@SlimJim005 UF I can say is extremely competitive and in fact harder to get in from in state because they are trying to get more from out of state lately. Even in state you need to be at the top of your class and have scores over 1400 and still no guarantee. We know plenty of kids rejected with nearly perfect scores and grades. Ever since they became a top 10 public university itā€™s become close to a lottery to get in! Iā€™m worried about my son getting in this year. UVA is much easier for in state than oos. All these schools are excellent. But like you said, there is no cap set by the legislature in other states like the one imposed in NC.

SlimJim, your last paragraph is a pretty interesting one.

Good points by @SlimJim005 & @fbhsmom -

I should have given better examples than Bama and U-SC perhapsā€¦found this list from a 2018 Washington Post article which lists state public flagships with the smallest % of in-state students.

I cut off the list at UNC for this discussion but as one can see, there are several schools of equal/greater quality (folks can choose their own criteria) that admit larger #s of OOS and have lower admit rates. Parentheses indicate % change of this measure compared to data 10 years prior:

University of Vermont: 21 percent (-7)
University of Alabama: 32 percent (-34)
University of North Dakota: 36 percent (-8)
University of Delaware: 38 percent (+1)
University of New Hampshire: 41 percent (-8)
University of Mississippi: 43 percent (-11)
University of Rhode Island: 44 percent (-8)
West Virginia University: 45 percent (-4)
University of South Carolina: 47 percent (-15)
University of Oregon: 48 percent (-17)
University of Arkansas: 49 percent (-19)
University of Iowa: 50 percent (-7)
University of Michigan: 51 percent (-13)
University of Wyoming: 51 percent (-8)
University of Colorado at Boulder: 53 percent (-6)
Pennsylvania State University: 53 percent (-15)
University of Arizona: 55 percent (-8)
University of Maine: 56 percent (-21)
Indiana University at Bloomington: 57 percent (-4)
University of Wisconsin at Madison: 57 percent (-3)
University of Kansas: 57 percent (-15)
University of Oklahoma at Norman: 58 percent (-10)
University of Kentucky: 61 percent (-13)
University of South Dakota: 61 percent (-9)
University of Montana: 64 percent (-7)
University of Minnesota at Twin Cities: 64 percent (-1)
University of Missouri at Columbia: 66 percent (-14)
University of Connecticut: 66 percent (-4)
University of Virginia: 66 percent (+3)
University of Hawaii at Manoa: 66 percent (-2)
Ohio State University: 67 percent (-19)
University of Washington at Seattle: 68 percent (-10)
University of Utah: 69 percent (-9)
University of Maryland at College Park: 69 percent (+1)
University of Nevada at Reno: 70 percent (-11)
University of Nebraska at Lincoln: 70 percent (-10)
University of Idaho: 72 percent (+10)
University of Massachusetts at Amherst: 73 percent (-4)
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: 74 percent (-14)
University of California at Berkeley: 76 percent (-15)
Louisiana State University: 81 percent (-4)
University of Tennessee at Knoxville: 82 percent (-4)
Rutgers University at New Brunswick (N.J.): 82 percent (-8)
University of Florida: 83 percent (-4)
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: 83 percent (-1)

Full article link here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2018/03/29/flagships-go-national-at-u-michigan-nearly-half-of-students-now-from-out-of-state/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.9d680d90d493

Again - Iā€™m not saying UNC isnā€™t a quality institution; just questioning if itā€™s rated as high as it is because the NC resident quota rule for incoming Freshmen is constructed as it is.

So with "deferral to RD pool"off the table this year, how will that affect the EA decisions? Heard last year that some kids got offers to attend in the spring instead of fall. Wonder if that option will increase? or maybe waitlist #ers increase? or unfortunately outright rejections?

I donā€™t see how you can draw that conclusion from this data given that Michigan is generally considered more competitive than UNC and almost 50 percent are OOS.

@tuxrd2 Youā€™ve got a good question. If they arenā€™t deferring this year, then do more get denied?

@turxd2 I am also wondering the same thing.

From the admissions page, ā€œWe no longer defer Early Action applicants. Instead, students who apply early action will receive one of three decisions: admitted, denied, or waitlisted.ā€

Waitlisted will be notified after May 1.

Q- Do you have a set number of waiting list offers that you will make?
A- We intend to keep this number relatively limited, as we want to minimize the number of students who must wait for an updated decision from us.

Sounds like less will be waitlisted, and more will be denied.

@momcatof4 @stuckinthefuture @SlimJim005 So if we think perhaps increased rejections, is it no longer advantageous to apply EA? I think maybe RD would have been the better route. EA received over 27K.
I understand why they are no longer offering ā€œdefer to RDā€ (at least their reasoning to not make kids wait longer) but Iā€™m not sure I like being the test subject on how they achieve this.

This is from UNC FAQā€™s undergrad admissions from previous year on deferred chances:
What are my chances of being admitted?
Unfortunately, itā€™s impossible to predict at this point. We ended up offering admission to 4 percent of deferred students last year and 10 percent the previous year. We wonā€™t know until March how many weā€™ll be able to admit this year.

Loved this bit of information too!
Q- If your Early Action applicant pool is particularly strong, will you potentially make all your waitlist offers to Early Action applicants and not make any waitlist offers to Regular Decision applicants?
A- No. We plan to offer places on the waitlist to both Early Action and Regular Decision applicants.

Q- Will you be prioritizing students on the waiting list who applied for the Early Action deadline?
A- No. Weā€™ll review all students on the waiting list without regard to when they applied. Please also note that we do not rank students on our waiting list.

According to Collegedata.com, 32% of 24737 applicants were admitted early action for the Fall of 2017. In total, 24% of 40919 applicants were admitted for the Fall of 2017. This equates to roughly 12% of regular decision applicants being admitted.

Here is why they do not want to keep deferring students. They admit way more students than the size of the incoming class. That is why the rate of waitlisted and then offered admissions students is very low:
See below the stats for the class of 2022:

Posted on Aug. 17, 2018
43,472 applied for admission (6 percent more than last year and the 13th consecutive year in which applications have increased)
9,519, or 22 percent, were admitted
4,295 are expected to enroll

Actual class enrolled was 5095!!