The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a large public research university in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. It’s a local school with a global perspective and impact. In 2022, new students arrived on campus from 86 countries, and yet 40% of the 4,440-strong incoming class hailed from rural counties. UNC also has a massive national impact, and is consistently ranked as one of the best public universities in the country while also having an iconic athletic tradition. Nearly half of all students ranked among the top 10 students in their graduating high school class. The overall acceptance rate is 16.8%, and the acceptance rate for North Carolina residents is 43.1%.
UNC’s Global Guarantee provides all Carolina students with access to global education opportunities, and all students start on the same playing field in the College of Arts and Sciences before applying for majors and courses of study as they progress. The top two majors are Biology and Business, and specialized programs are very competitive, so applicants who are certain of their path should consider the Assured Enrollment Program. This program empowers students to apply for a commitment from UNC to accept you into a program that you otherwise may have to wait to get into, or may not get into at all simply due to demand and space constraints, such as the business, education, pharmacy, and environmental health sciences tracks.
As you work on your application, give a lot of thought as to whether to submit your SAT or ACT scores. While UNC is test optional, submitting self-reported scores is encouraged.
If you want to attend one of the best public universities in the country, send us an email. UNC at Chapel Hill is an outstanding academic institution with the culture to match.
The UNC Chapel Hill supplement has two short-answer questions. They start the supplement, though, with a bit of encouragement and explanation.
We’re proud of the Carolina community and how each student makes us better through their excellence, intellect, and character. We’d like to know how you’d contribute to the Carolina community and ask that you respond to each prompt below in up to 250 words. Your essay responses below should be different from your common app essay response.
So, before you even start drafting, sit in this guidance for a moment. They want new stories, not anything you’ve written about already, and they want to leave your supplement knowing how you are going to contribute to their community. This isn’t just about what you want to get, but also what you will give.
Prompt #1: Discuss one of your personal qualities and share a story, anecdote, or memory of how it helped you make a positive impact on a community. This could be your current community or another community you have engaged. (250 words)
First, create a shortlist of words that you feel describe you. You may have had to do this for another supplement prompt for a different school already. If not, ask friends, family, and mentors if you are stumped. Come up with three words that you feel are qualities central to who you are. Then, pair a story with each of the three words that illustrates how it plays into your life
For example, if you are resilient, you might pair that with a story of when you faced hardship or challenges and had to bounce back quickly. If you are elastic and flexible mentally, you might pair that with a story of when you had to expand your worldview rapidly to incorporate new information. Whatever trait and story you pick, though, needs to have a tie in to community as they’ve made it clear that community really what this prompt is about — how do you use your strengths to help others?
We should clarify what they mean by community, though. Really, they are defining community as whatever it means to you. You could go big or small, or anywhere in between. You’re part of many communities, from your town to your block, your school to a sports team, a faith community, or an extracurricular club. Whichever community you pick should be one that you’ve been a member of for at least one year, and ideally one that you are still active in.
Prompt #2: Discuss an academic topic that you’re excited to explore and learn more about in college. Why does this topic interest you? Topics could be a specific course of study, research interests, or any other area related to your academic experience in college. (250 words)
This is a “why us” with an extra dose of curiosity. Start by immersing the reader in a microcosm of something you care deeply about. You love toads? Make the reader love toads. Zoom in on a tiny detail of toad biology and show your enthusiasm and passion through that detail. Obsession, here, is a good thing.
Then, pivot outwards. What drew you to this passion, and why do you want to pursue it at the University of North Carolina? You’ll need to be very specific here. Specify your prospective major (which must be linked to the obsession you started with), two classes within the major you’d like to take, and a professor you would like to study under. UNC is a major research university, so you should also mention a research track or program you’d like to participate in.
As you work on this supplement, focus on the academic reasons why you want to go to UNC, not the landscaping, clubs, or social life. They want you to show them what you want to study, why, and how you are going to do it.
If you select global education and scholarship opportunities such as the Global Gap Year Fellowship, Russian Language Flagship Program, or Carolina Spring Forward: Why do you want to participate in the global opportunities you’ve selected, and in what ways are you hoping to grow through the experience(s)? (250 words)
This prompt is not part of the required supplement, and is only for students who express interest in one of the global education and scholarship opportunities. For many students this prompt gets relegated to the bottom of their priority list, and they rush an answer. You should not be part of that group. Don’t waste the opportunity by answering this prompt with a straightforward and clear-cut “this is why I want to do this program, and this is what I want to learn.” Answering that way isn’t objectively wrong or incorrect, but it would be a bad call.
Instead, tell a story. Frame why you want to do a program through the lens of a story. This shouldn’t be a story about a trip you took that made you fall in love with travel, but a story about values, about passion, about academic interest, and about community. It could take place as close to home as spinning a globe in your childhood bedroom listening to planes fly overhead and wondering if you’d ever get to go on one, or as far away as a place you saw in a documentary and then (literally) dreamed of inhabiting.
UNC Chapel Hill is an amazing school with a high bar. It’s research dominant, centered on a culture of leadership, and rooted in the South while maintaining a global perspective.
If the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill sounds like it might be your dream school, send us an email. We support outstanding student in getting into equally exceptional schools.