12 aps enough?

Wake county dad here.

NCSU CS is murder! It is not low reach for ANYBODY. How is the rest of her application --ECs, class rank etc? If your daughter is at EHS, PCHS, GHHS, class rank will matter. They can’t take everyone from those schools.

UNC CS is easier to get into but do some research on Reddit to see what is going on there. Pure madness with course availability etc.

My suggestion is to carefully pick a major to guarantee admission. The three that you have mentioned are hard to get into but aside from CS, very likely for your daughter.

Lastly, guaranteed merit often means going to a less reputable OOS school that needs to buy talent. Last time I checked, Tuscaloosa Alabama has a great football team but not Google, Apple or Cisco. And the education our children can get for $22K per year at our in-state flagships is basically the best deal in the USA. UNC is top 30 and NCSU is a top 10 best value.