Your safeties are your matches, except ECU. NC State is a reach. Honestly I think the chances are not great that you will get in UNC or NC State, but better for State than Carolina. I am in NC, too. UNC-Greensboro should be on your list. It’s a good school and more likely to be a safety for you. You could also look at UNC-Asheville. That would be a good target/match. Maybe App State as a target, too.
Your EC’s are very good. Did you take the pre-ACT? Have you taken any AP Exams and if so did you get any 4s & 5s? Have you gotten your ACT score yet? (For those reading along at home, the ACT is required for all high school juniors in public school, including charter schools, in NC, whether the student is college bound or not. It’s for accountability and benchmarking.)
For reference my white D22 had a 3.7 weighted GPA and a 28 ACT (very uneven – high in English and Reading, not great in Math and Science), 3 AP classes with 2 4s on exams and one 2 or 3 (I can’t remember). She had mostly As & Bs, never had a D, maybe had 1 C in a math class but I think they were mostly Bs. She did not apply to UNC or State because 1) she didn’t want to go to either one and 2) she didn’t think she would get in. She did get in UNC-G and UNC-A. Didn’t apply to UNC-W, UNC-C, ECU, or App State, but I think she would’ve had good chances at all of those and I think you do too, but I would view them as Targets rather than safeties.
You can do a search on the college name and “Common Data Set” and that will give you the average SAT/ACT and GPA of students who are accepted to the school.
UNC: Common Data Set - OIRA
NCState: https://report.isa.ncsu.edu/ir/cds/pdfs/CDS_2022-23.v2.pdf
ECU: https://ipar.ecu.edu/research/rsrch-public-ecu-data/
Note for UNC Chapel Hill the high school GPAs:
Percent who had GPA of 4.0 = 93% Percent who had GPA between 3.75 and 3.99 = 3% Percent who had GPA between 3.50 and 3.74 = 2% Percent who had GPA between 3.25 and 3.49 = 1% Percent who had GPA between 3.00 and 3.24 = 1%
For NC State:
Percent who had GPA of 4.0 20% Percent who had GPA between 3.75 and 3.99 57% Percent who had GPA between 3.50 and 3.74 19% Percent who had GPA between 3.25 and 3.49 3% Percent who had GPA between 3.00 and 3.24 1%
For ECU:
Percent who had GPA of 4.0 3.07% Percent who had GPA between 3.75 and 3.99 15.16% Percent who had GPA between 3.50 and 3.74 18.55% Percent who had GPA between 3.25 and 3.49 17.86% Percent who had GPA between 3.00 and 3.24 19.45% Percent who had GPA between 2.50 and 2.99 24.40% Percent who had GPA between 2.0 and 2.49 1.51%
Note also that ECU’s CDS says that they do not consider standardized tests for acceptance (not sure but a good score might still get you placed out of freshman English or something). I don’t know if this is a COVID thing or a continuing policy. The CDS will also tell you what criteria are most important when they make acceptance decisions, so this is for ECU:
ECU Relative importance of Academic factors:
Rigor of secondary school record Very Important Class rank Important Academic GPA Very Important Standardized test scores Not Considered Application Essay Very Important Recommendation(s) Not Considered
Extra curriculars for ECU are mostly in the “considered” column
For NC State it’s:
NC State Relative importance of Academic factors:
Rigor of secondary school record Very Important Class rank Very Important Academic GPA Very Important Standardized test scores Important Application Essay Considered Recommendation(s) Considered
And again most EC’s are in the “considered” column.
So I would view UNC- Chapel Hill as a very high reach; NC State as a reach; UNC-W and UNC-C as targets; ECU and UNC-G as safeties.
Western Carolina, Elizabeth City State, and UNC-Pembroke have a tuition reduction program from the state called the NC Tuition Promise Plan that makes these schools a little cheaper tuition wise (still have to pay the going rate for room and board). For WCU it would come out to about $15k a year including housing and meal plan, with tuition being about $5k of that.