The UNC Chapel Hill letter for early action comes out in a matter of days, and I’m trying to get a better grip on what I should expect. UNC has been my top-choice school for a long time (pretty much since I moved to CH 13 years ago) but I know I shouldn’t put all of my eggs in one basket – based on my stats and everything I’ve read, it seems like a bit of a coin toss at this point. Most of my stats are on target, a few of them a bit below and a few of them a bit higher.
General:
Applying in-state, early action
Female
White
Intended Major is English/Creative Writing
Scores:
ACT - 30 composite
R - 35
E - 35
M - 23
S - 28
Unweighted GPA: 4.0
Weighted: 4.60
Class Rank: top 50% (very competitive school)
AP Classes: Art History, French Language & Culture, English Literature, European History, Chemistry (5 total)
Senior Course Load: Honors American History II, AP Chemistry, Honors Chemistry Lab, AP European History, Honors 20th Century Topics seminar, AP English Literature
AP Scores: Art History (4), French Language & Culture (4)
ECs/work experience/awards:
Editor-in-chief of my school’s literary magazine (11)
Awards in district-wide fiction contests (2nd place freshman year, 3rd place junior year)
Part-time job at TCBY (12)
Consistent volunteering at local farmer’s market (10-11)
Graphic designer for TSA (9)
Ukulele Orchestra member (9-12)
Attended their on-campus Creative Writing camp (9-12)
Recommendations:
English/creative writing/literary magazine teacher (9-11, attended UNC-CH herself, knows me on a very personal level and was involved with the writing awards and my work on the literary magazine)
English II/English Literature teacher: (10, 12, seems to like me a lot, I’ve done well in both of her classes)
Essays:
I’d say they’re fairly strong, since writing is primarily what I’m good at and interested in pursuing. For my common app, it was a bit more of an emotional/“out there” route, but I had a wide variety of people read it (friends to people involved w/ admissions) and got a lot of positive feedback. I also feel pretty good about the supplementals, one of them was about my childhood experiences on campus (specifically my first bee sting in the arboretum) and the other was about writing (and working it into my adult life).
Overall, I feel like my class rank, test scores, and # of APs could be a little bit stronger – and I’m definitely not the typical well-rounded student (a bit more pointy, you know). But I also feel like a display a lot of passion and talent in the areas that I am interested in pursuing (english, writing, etc.), in my ECs, awards, test scores, and the APs that I’m taking. My unweighted GPA is definitely above their average (never had a B) but my weighted isn’t quite as impressive, since I haven’t taken as many APs…I remember at a college visit the speaker commented that the average number of Bs received was something like 2 per year, but the average number of APs taken over the course of the year was 8. So high on one end, low on the other. Is it really just a coin toss at this point? It seems like every scattergram I look at, the exact place where I’m at has a pretty even number of deferred/rejected and accepted symbols. Usually about 200 kids from my school (most of the senior class) apply to UNC, and for the past three years exactly(!) 87 kids have been accepted. 168 applied in 2017, so about 52% will probably be accepted…and then I’ve heard the chances in-state are about 50% as well. Aaaaah. So I’m wondering if anyone has an honest opinion about whether or not it’s more likely one way or another (so I can sleep a little bit better before the big day)?