Why should I consider Carolina?
Should I apply online?
How can I get a paper application?
What are the deadlines?
Will applying for early notification increase my chances of being admitted?
Why doesn't Carolina offer binding early decision?
Does Carolina have quotas by high school, county, or region?
How can I make the application process go more smoothly?
How will I know when you received an item that was missing from my application?
What makes a competitive candidate for admission?
What are the minimum course requirements for admission?
Which standardized tests should I take, and how will they be used?
Are SAT Subject Tests, AP, or IB exams required?
Does Carolina require the new SAT or ACT writing test?
How many new students enroll each year?
Do I qualify as a North Carolina resident?
Is it harder to be admitted as an out-of-state student?
What materials should I include in my application?
Do I need to submit my midyear grades?
How does Carolina evaluate home-schooled students?
Is it an advantage to be the child of an alumnus?
May I audition for the Music or Drama department?
Does Carolina admit students without regard to financial need?
What if I'm a transfer student?
What if I'm an international student?
How will I be notified of UNC's decision?
May I appeal an admissions decision?
May I defer my enrollment?

Our students love the unlimited opportunities they create for themselves at Carolina. Here’s a small sample of what you can expect:

Carolina offers an exceptional education at an affordable cost.  We meet the full demonstrated need of every enrolling student who applies for aid on time, and the Carolina Covenant offers a debt-free education to students whose household incomes fall at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty guidelines.  We also offer distinguished scholarships—including the Carolina, Morehead-Cain, Pogue, and Robertson—to more than 500 admitted students each year. Not surprisingly, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance has chosen us its “Best Value” among public universities six consecutive times. 

If all of this describes the kind of opportunities you seek, we encourage you to apply.  If we may help you at any point along the way, please don’t hesitate to let us know. To apply, click here.

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While we'll gladly accept either a paper or an electronic application, we do encourage you to apply online. Our online application is secure and easy to use; it also allows you to pay by credit card and gives you immediate confirmation that your application has been received. Last year, over 90 percent of our applicants submitted their applications online, and these candidates gained admission at the same rate as students who chose the traditional paper application. For more information, visit Apply to Carolina. To get started, log in to your UNC homepage and choose Apply Online.

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If you'd rather not apply online, feel free to download a copy of our paper application from our forms library. All downloadable forms require Acrobat® software, which is available free of charge from Adobe. Before downloading and submitting a paper application, please take ten minutes to create your UNC homepage, if you haven't done so already. Creating your homepage will help us notify you more quickly when we receive your submitted application.

If you'd like to receive a paper copy of our application through the mail, we'll gladly send you one. Log in to your UNC homepage, make sure that your mail and email addresses are correct, and check "Send me a paper application." Please allow three to four weeks for delivery.

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We offer first-year applicants the flexibility of two deadlines, which we call Early Notification and Regular Notification.

Transfer candidates must postmark their paper applications (or submit their online applications) no later than March 1.

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We strive to give all applicants equal consideration without regard to deadline. We encourage you to choose the deadline that best suits your own goals and schedule. We'll do our best to make sure that your choice neither advantages nor disadvantages you.

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We decided to drop our binding early decision plan because we want our applicants to approach their college searches thoughtfully. We believe the best searches are the ones in which students focus on which institution best matches their interests and talents, not on which application plan most improves their chances of being admitted. We also hope that our action will encourage you to write a thoughtful application, investigate our campus thoroughly, and make your final college choice without the pressure of an early commitment.

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Does Carolina have quotas by high school, county, or region?

No. Nor, for that matter, do we have quotas, either stated or implied, by street, sex, race, ethnicity, or type of high school.  We do have a limit on out-of-state enrollment (18 percent) in the entering first-year class.  This limit, in effect, gives us two applicant pools:  one for North Carolinians, and a second for everyone else.  Within these two pools, each student competes against every other student, without regard to arbitrary quotas or ceilings.

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In our experience, students who take the following steps generally enjoy a smoother application process.

1. Apply online.

2. Beat the deadline. Submitting your application well before the deadline gives everyone involved -- you, your guidance counselor, your teacher recommender, our staff -- a little more breathing room. Your counselor and your recommender have more time to prepare their parts of your application. We have more time to notify you of missing items and consider you for merit scholarships and the Honors Program. In general, students who get an early jump on the process tend to experience fewer complications and much less stress than those who wait until the very end.

3. Make sure your application is complete. We'll work hard to gather your credentials, but in the end it will be your responsibility to make sure that your application is complete. Starting one month after you submit your application, we'll notify you every week -- by email and through your UNC homepage -- of any required credentials that are missing from your file. Please check your email and your homepage often.

4. Check your email. We use email heavily -- not just to advise you of missing items, but also to confirm our receipt of your application and to invite you to open houses and other programs -- please give us an email address where we can reach you throughout the year. Just as important, please let us know if your address changes, either by updating your profile on your UNC homepage or by writing us. We also post important messages on your UNC homepage, so please visit often.

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I received a notification from your office letting me know about an item that was missing from my application. How will I know when you received the missing credential?

Please note that it may take four weeks for us to log and file the items you submit; therefore, please continue to check your UNC homepage to check on the status of your application.  If you sent an item more than four weeks ago and it is still listed as missing on your homepage, please let us know by sending an email to missing_items@admissions.unc.edu. You may also call us at 919-966-3621.   

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We aim to build a talented and diverse body of students who display strong academic performance and intellectual curiosity. We receive freshman applications from roughly 20,000 well-qualified students from all parts of North Carolina, the nation, and the world. These students come from various ethnic, religious, geographical and socioeconomic backgrounds. From this large group of applicants, we choose a small number of the most competitive students, with an eye towards enrolling a class of roughly 3,900.

Our admissions process is competitive, but we strive to make it fair and humane. We don’t use formulas or cutoffs or thresholds; no one is automatically admitted or denied because of a single number. Instead, we read each application thoroughly, one by one. When we read yours, we’ll try to understand you as fully as we can, both as a student and as a person, and within both your high school and our applicant pool.

We understand that students travel many different roads to get to Carolina, and we celebrate the variety of interests, backgrounds, and aspirations that they bring with them. We know that not every talented student needs to be talented in exactly the same way.

At the same time, it’s fair to say that we seek excellence. We focus first on academic excellence, using a variety of information—courses, grades, test scores, recommendations, essays—to help us assess performance and potential. We pay particular attention to the rigor of each candidate’s course of study. Competitive candidates typically exceed our minimum course requirements (see below), and most take exceptionally tough academic programs -- often the most difficult course of study available in their schools. Because new students at Carolina must take placement exams in math and foreign language, we strongly recommend advanced study of those subjects right through to the final year of high school.

Beyond academics, we seek excellence in other areas: in the arts; in athletics; in
leadership, service, citizenship, and character. This list isn’t exhaustive or prescriptive; our candidates do things we’ve hardly imagined, and we’re more than happy to be surprised. When we read your application, we’ll be interested in what you've done and what you care about—those things that make you the unique person you are.

Refer to Facts and Figures and Applying for additional information.

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Competitive candidates typically exceed our minimum course requirements listed below, and most take exceptionally tough academic programs — often the most difficult course of study available in their schools.

Because new students at Carolina must take placement exams in math and foreign language, we strongly recommend advanced study of those subjects right through to the final year of high school.

To be considered for admission, a student should present a minimum of 16 units of high school coursework within the five traditional academic areas (literature, mathematics, physical and biological sciences, social sciences, and foreign languages), including these requirements:

• four units of English;
• at least four units of college preparatory mathematics (two algebra, one geometry and a higher level mathematics course for which algebra II is a prerequisite);*
• at least two units of a single foreign language;
• three units in science, including at least one unit in a life or biological science and at least one unit in a physical science, and including at least one laboratory course;
• two units of social science, including United States history

Admitted students will take placement exams in foreign language; therefore, it is preferred that students continue in advanced levels of foreign language courses during their final year in high school even if they have already met the minimum requirements in these fields.

Admission to Carolina is competitive. Therefore, it is recommended that students enroll in course levels beyond these minimum requirements.

*For students attending a North Carolina public high school, the fourth unit of math must be one of the courses listed below. For North Carolina students attending a nonpublic school and all out-of-state students, the fourth math must be comparable to one of the courses listed below or it must be approved by the Office of Undergraduate Admissions.

• AP Calculus
• AP Statistics
• Pre-Calculus
• Discrete Mathematics
• IB Mathematics Level II
• Integrated Mathematics IV
• Advanced Functions and Modeling

For additional information, please refer to the Undergraduate Bulletin.

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We require that freshman applicants take either the SAT Reasoning Test with the writing section or the ACT plus writing. We don't prefer one test over the other -- either one is fine, but the score needs to be submitted directly from the appropriate testing service.

When requesting score reports, please be sure to use our correct college code: 5816 for the SAT and 3162 for the ACT. We'll use your highest verbal and highest math score on the SAT and your highest composite score on the ACT.

For the early notification deadline, we will consider scores from any tests taken prior to or during November. For the regular notification deadline, we will consider scores from any tests taken prior to or during February.

Beginning with the Fall 2006 class, all students applying for admission to Carolina will be required to submit results from either the SAT Reasoning exam with writing or the ACT with writing as described in writing test question below.

We don't use minimum scores, and we view test results in the context of everything else we know about our applicants.

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While we don't require SAT Subject Tests or results from AP or IB exams for admission, we encourage you to self-report any scores you've received on your application.

Although we don't require SAT subject tests for admission, the Department of Mathematics recommends that enrolling students arrange to take the SAT Subject Test Math 2. Many majors at Carolina require a quantitative reasoning course that you will not be allowed to enroll in without an appropriate placement score. AP and IB scores are not reported until mid-July, so it is safest to take the SAT Subject Test Math 2 to ensure your ability to register for a quantitative reasoning course. For more information, see the Math Placement and Credit overview and the Math Placement Test site. Other SAT Subject Tests may be useful to you for placement in foreign language and English.

Enrolling students must also have their AP results sent directly to us from the testing service. Read more about placement exams.

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Yes, the new writing section is required for all freshmen applying for admission.

The writing section of the SAT and ACT was administered for the first time in March 2005. As you prepare for college, please note the following:

• All students applying for admission to Carolina are required to submit results from either the SAT Reasoning exam with writing or the ACT with writing.
  
  
• If you took the SAT or ACT before the writing section was offered, you must take the exam again in order to provide a writing score. If you are submitting SAT scores, we will not accept the ACT writing component, which is administered separately, to fulfill the writing requirement.
  


• We'll use your highest verbal, math, and writing score on the SAT OR your highest composite and writing score on the ACT.
  Example:
  Your 1st SAT - Math=600; Verbal=700; Writing=620
  Your 2nd SAT - Math=650; Verbal=620; Writing=710
       We'll use: Math=650; Verbal=700; Writing=710
  


• Even if you submit an SAT Subject Test writing score, you are still required to provide an SAT or ACT writing score.
  


• Our freshman application will still require personal essays, enabling us to gain additional insight into each of our applicants.
  


• We will review the writing scores and, in some cases, may choose to review the actual essay.
  


• We don't have minimum scores, and we view testing as just one of many factors in our holistic application review process, which considers everything we know about our applicants.

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We enrolled 3,895 new freshman for Fall 2007; 80.4% come from North Carolina and
19.6% are residents of other states and countries. Each year, we review approximately 20,000 applications, and around 9,000 of those applications come from North Carolina residents.

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In the most general sense, in order to be considered a North Carolina resident for admission and tuition purposes, a person has to have established domicile -- the person's permanent residence of indefinite duration -- in North Carolina and maintain it for at least twelve months before the semester in question begins. Also, the person's purpose for being in North Carolina must be for reasons other than education. Simply owning a home or property in North Carolina won't guarantee residency.

Residency affects a freshman applicant's admission and tuition. For transfer applicants, residency affects tuition only. Because residency issues can be very complicated, we have a residency counselor on staff to help students and parents with their questions. Read more about residency.

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As mandated by the University of North Carolina General Administration, 82 percent of each first-year class must be comprised of residents of North Carolina. For this reason, the number of available admission spots for out-of-state students is significantly smaller. Additionally, we receive more applications from students outside of the state.

In recent years, approximately 20,000 students have applied for freshmen admission at Carolina. Almost 11,000 of those students were considered out-of-state for admission purposes. Approximately 2,400 those students received admission offers. The remaining 9,000 applicants were North Carolina residents. Usually about 4,500 of those students are admitted. These admission offers are targeted at yielding a freshman class of 3,900.

There are no additional requirements for out-of-state students; we use the same process to evaluate both in-state and out-of-state students. However, because we are limited in the number we may admit from out of state and because we receive applications from very well-qualified students throughout the nation and the world, the competition for out-of-state students is extremely strong.

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We require the following credentials of all freshman applicants:

• Completed and signed application
• Teacher recommendation
• Counselor's statement and high school transcript
• Official SAT Reasoning Test (with writing) or ACT (with writing) scores, submitted directly from the testing service
• $70 non-refundable application fee

Do I need to submit my midyear grades?

We require midyear grades of all Early Notification candidates whose decisions have been deferred. We also require midyears for all Regular Notification candidates. Reminders will be sent to all students by email and on your UNC homepage.  Please don't ask your guidance counselor to submit your midyears on your behalf.  Instead, we require that students accurately self-report their midyear grades online.  If you are admitted, we will confirm your self-reported midyear grades when we receive your official final transcript, which is a firm enrollment requirement.

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We welcome applications from students schooled at home and impose on those students no special or extra requirements. At the same time, it's important for home-schooled students to recognize that their credentials may lack some or most of the contextualizing information typically found in the transcripts, grades, and academic programs of students schooled in other, more traditional settings. For that reason, we recommend that home-schooled students do their best to help us see their academic performance in the clearest possible light.

In recent years successful home-schooled applicants have chosen one or more of the following methods: taking courses in a local college or community college; joining organizations in their community; providing samples of their academic projects (for example, essays or research papers) and detailed descriptions of their courses; sending more than one recommendation from non-family-members who know them well and can comment specifically on their capacity for high-level academic work; taking and submitting optional SAT Subject Tests. Last year 47 home-school students applied for freshman admission; 22 were admitted, and 14 enrolled.

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Because we maintain close ties with our alumni and value their commitment to the University, we do ask about alumni ties on our application. If your mother, father, step-father, or step-mother attended Carolina, your family ties to University may be used in our final admission decision.

For North Carolina residents, such ties are most often used to distinguish among candidates with similar academic records -- in other words, they may be a tie-breaker. Since the number of alumni within the state is considerable, giving a significant advantage to their in-state children wouldn't be fair to other North Carolina taxpayers.

For alumni children from out of state, this factor plays a more significant role. These students will have a slight competitive edge over students from out of state who are not children of alumni.

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To be considered for any available music scholarships, contact the Music department to schedule an audition. These auditions are generally held in January and February.

For drama, no audition is required, but for students who are interested in pursuing drama as a major, you may contact the Drama department to set up an interview.

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Yes, we practice need-blind admissions. In making admissions decisions, we don't take into account our applicants' ability to pay for their education. Nor, for that matter, do we take into account an applicant's likelihood of enrolling at Carolina if admitted.

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We enroll roughly 800 transfer students each fall. If you're interested in transferring to Carolina from another accredited college or university, and if you're in good standing and eligible to return to all institutions you've previously attended, we'd welcome the chance to review your credentials. Read more about transfer admissions.

As a general rule, we don't allow undergraduates, whether freshman or transfer, to enter the University in spring semester.

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Carolina enrolls students from around the state, the nation, and the world. We welcome applications from citizens of all nationalities and provide the same careful review to all candidates. Applicants who are neither citizens nor permanent residents of the United States must, however, take a few additional steps in our admissions process. Read more about international admissions.

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How will I be notified of UNC's decision?

Official decision letters are mailed to each student’s home address. As a courtesy, we also post decisions on each student’s personal UNC home page.

Early notification applicants will receive their decisions around January 15 and no later than January 31. Early notification applicants whose decisions were deferred will receive their final decision on or around March 20. All students who applied for regular notification will also receive their decisions on or before March 20. Transfer candidates will be notified by April 21.

May I appeal an admissions decision?

According to the policy revised by the Board of Trustees on January 17, 2006, appeals concerning individual admission, or admission rescission, decisions may be had only if it is contended that:  (a) a provision set forth in The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Admissions Policy (“Admissions Policy”) has been violated; or (b) the decision not to admit the individual or to rescind admission resulted from a material procedural error in the admissions process.  Appeals must be made by the applicant in writing to the Director of Undergraduate of Admissions within 30 days after the applicant has received the decision letter. For the complete appeals policy, click here.

May I defer my enrollment?

Applicants who have been offered admission may request a deferral for one academic year in order to work, travel, or pursue other extraordinary opportunities.  Admitted applicants may also seek a one-year deferral for military service, required religious observance, or medical reasons.  In seeking a deferral, admitted applicants agree not to enroll in any for-credit or degree-seeking course of study during their deferral year.   

To request that we defer your admission, please write the Director of Admissions, Stephen Farmer, no later than July 1 of the year for which you have been admitted; if your deferral is granted, please write again by December 31 to confirm your enrollment. 

Even if you are seeking a deferral, it is necessary for you to pay your enrollment deposit by the deadline indicated in your original admission letter and reply form.  This enrollment deposit is nonrefundable and will automatically be applied towards your first-semester charges at the University.  Application fees for University housing and registration fees for orientation typically are nonrefundable after May 1 and may not be carried over to the following academic year.  Merit- and need-based aid awards are not transferable, and reapplication for scholarship and student aid funds is required each year.            

Deferrals are considered on a case-by-case basis and are not automatically granted.  In making your written request, please explain in detail your reasons for seeking a deferral and your plans for the deferral year.  Because undergraduate students, with very few exceptions, begin their enrollment at the University in the fall, the deferral request should be for one full academic year.            

Please address all correspondence regarding deferrals to Mr. Stephen Farmer, Associate Provost and Director of Undergraduate Admissions, CB 2200 – Jackson Hall, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-2200.  Mr. Farmer and the admissions committee will review your request and respond in writing.