Applying as an International First-Year Student

When you complete your Common Application, provide us with your personal email address to make sure our messages go straight to you.

• Extracurricular Activities
  Tell us about how you spend your time outside the classroom and why it’s important to you.

• Essay and Two Short Answers
  Your personal essay and short answers give us the chance to hear your voice and see you as a whole person, not just a student. When you respond, we hope you’ll be yourself and sound like yourself.

• Global Opportunities
  This section of your application is optional.
  In addition to considering applicants for fall enrollment, we are looking for students who want to go abroad before enrolling at Carolina through either the Global Gap Year Fellowship or Carolina Global Launch. If you’d like to be considered for either, indicate your interest and submit two additional short answer responses that share your interest in global experiences.
• Honors Carolina and Special Opportunities
  This section of your application is optional.
  You can express interest in a range of special opportunities including Honors Carolina, assured enrollment in professional or dual-degree programs, or specific scholarships.
• Application Fee or Fee Waiver
  The non-refundable application fee is $85, and if you can’t pay the fee right now, please talk with your school counselor about asking us to waive it. The bottom line: whether you apply with a fee or a waiver, we’ll be grateful to receive your application, and we’ll consider you with care, appreciation, and respect.

• Letter of Recommendation
  This letter should come from a secondary school teacher who taught you in a core academic area, like English, math, science, social science, or world language.

• Official Transcript
  Please ask your school to send us your official transcript, including an official English translation, by secure electronic delivery. To be considered for admission, we need the official transcript for your secondary (and, if applicable, higher secondary) schoolwork. Middle school transcripts are not required for admission.

• Secondary School Official Report
  You’ll need to submit a statement from an official at your secondary school – often a university counselor, advisor, or headmaster. This report cannot come from a private counseling company or agent.
  
• College and University Courses
  If you’ve taken courses for credit at a college or university, you are required to report them on your application and include the specific courses and grades in the UNC supplement, but you don’t need to send official transcripts when applying. If you’re admitted and choose to enroll, we’ll need official transcripts for these courses along with your final high school transcript before you begin classes at Carolina.

• SAT or ACT Scores
  Testing is optional for fall 2024 admission. The UNC System will determine at a future date whether testing is required for future years. This waiver means that you may apply whether or not you’ve taken either test, and if you do take a test, you can choose whether or not to share your scores and have us consider them. Whether or not you ultimately share test scores, we will consider you carefully and comprehensively for admissions, scholarships, and other opportunities. For us, testing is always one factor among many — always viewed alongside those many other factors, and never the sole or dominant reason we make our decisions. If you share your test scores, are admitted, and choose to enroll, we will require that your official scores be sent directly from the testing service.

• English Proficiency Exams
  If you do not hold U.S. citizenship or permanent resident status, we’ll ask you to share your English proficiency exam scores when you apply. We accept TOEFL (our code is C182), IELTS, Duolingo, Cambridge English C1 Advanced and Cambridge C2 Proficiency. These exams show us that you’ll be ready to jump into coursework taught in English. Strong applicants typically score the following, though please note that these are not minimums and testing is always one factor among many, and never the sole or dominant reason we make our decisions:
  • TOEFL or TOEFL iBT Home Edition –  100 or higher.
  • IELTS Academic – 7.5 or higher.
  • Duolingo – 130 or higher.
  • Cambridge English C1 Advanced – 185 or higher.
  • Cambridge English C2 Proficiency.