UNC-Chapel Hill is an acclaimed public research university in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The university is large, with first-year students in each class and an impressive array of opportunities and options. They are also known for an iconic athletic tradition, with students — sporty or not — lining up for hours, if not longer, to get into ‘Tar Heel’ games. Academically, UNC-Chapel Hill has strong programs in almost every field but is especially respected for biology, business, and media and journalism. The acceptance rate is only 15.6%, the most recent data point in a continual drop over the past 5 years. This decline can be attributed to a steep increase in applications, as well as increased attention nationally for academic excellence.
Remember, though, that the 15.6% acceptance rate includes both in-state students, which have to account for at least 82% of accepted students, and out-of-state applicants — only 18% — as required by state law. , the overall acceptance rate was 16.8%. However, for out-of-state students it was only 8.2%.
As you prepare to apply, you should know that UNC’s is a little weird. Stay with us as we explain it. If you have a weighted GPA of 2.8 or above on a 4.0 scale, you have the choice whether to submit your SAT/ACT scores or not. If you have a weighted GPA under 2.8, you are required to submit an ACT score of 17 or higher or an SAT of 930 or higher.
Let’s be clear here, applicants with a GPA under 2.8 are not getting into UNC-Chapel Hill unless they are recruited athletes that coaches really want ( to be eligible as an athletic recruit is 2.0) or the applicant has insanely strong connections to the school. This is not simply a legacy connection, or even having a relative or family friend on the board — we mean multiple large donations type of connections.
Assuming that neither of those are the situation you are in, you’ll want to submit an ACT of 34 or above, or an SAT above 1500, paired with nearly straight A’s, to be a strong applicant. Most accepted students are in the top 10% of their accepted class.
With that out of the way, let’s get into the true difference-maker on your application. After your strong scores and grades, how you tell your story on the application is one of the most important tools you have to increase your odds of acceptance. Below, we’re going to break down the two UNC-Chapel Hill supplements to help you be in the best position for an offer of admission.
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Early in July, the admissions team at UNC-Chapel Hill was kind enough to announce their 2025-2026 supplement prompts ahead of most other top colleges in the US. Right off the bat in the announcement, that what they are looking for is insight into your “excellence, intellect, and character.” They also want to have a strong understanding of what being part of the Carolina community would mean to you, so as we get into the supplements remember that they want to leave these essays with a deeper understanding of you, but also of you at UNC-Chapel Hill.
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)
To decide what to write about here, look to where your passions and those of the university intersect. For example, and this is an obvious one because they literally ask for something related to positive impact, they care deeply about service. Three-quarters of accepted students last year took part in service while in high school. So, how do you serve? And how has it changed both you and your community?
When writing about service, though, it needs to be more than an answer about putting in your volunteer hours. Instead, this response must, at the heart of it, be about community and connection.
While they offer you the opportunity to write about “another community you have engaged in,” we council our students to focus on where they are today. This could be their school, neighborhood, town, or a program within their community, like a Boys & Girls club, mentorship program, or other organization. There are lots of options, but the first filter is looking close to home.
Then, when you’ve picked the community and the experience, it’s time to craft a story. Writing a strong supplement isn’t simply sharing something that has happened to you and making some big broad assertions about what you did and learned. Instead, you want to pull the reader into your world. We work with our students to identify a core experience, and then to pinpoint a scene within that experience. From there, we work together to write the story. If it doesn’t come alive on paper, it isn’t working yet.
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?” supplement prompt more so than it is a “Why us?” Even more than why you want to go to UNC-Chapel Hill, they want to know why you even want to study your prospective area of focus.
Think of this supplement as something of a love story. UNC-Chapel Hill wants to know what your love story is with your academic passion. So, tell them the story. There are so many ways that you can start this story, and it really needs to be personal to you. Students we’ve worked with have gotten into colleges with this, and similar, prompts writing about everything from a moment in a classroom when everything clicked to an experience working on a group project, from falling in love with the subject on their own time to a challenging moment that reinforced your interest.
Importantly, we advise our students to finish this supplement by mapping their academic love story onto what UNC-Chapel Hill offers. Plan to use the last 50 words, or 2-3 sentences, to specifically compliment the program you want to pursue at UNC, tying it to your deepest academic passions.
As you work on your application, remember to shoot for the October Early Action deadline. UNC-Chapel Hill offers non-binding early action and regular decision. It feels like fewer and fewer strong colleges are offering EA, with more turning to Early Decision or Restrictive Early Action, both of which lead to higher yield rates. This is a bummer, as having a few EA applications in the mix is a powerful tool for any applicant. We love for our students who like UNC-Chapel Hill (or just a ‘maybe’, even) to apply to the university EA in addition to, or in lieu of, and Early Decision option.
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