Admissions

There is no formula for admission to Carolina. We recruit students from all 100 North Carolina counties, across the country and around the world.

A 1986 UNC System policy mandates that no more than 18 percent of out-of-state first-year undergraduate students may enroll on most UNC campuses.

UNC-Chapel Hill received 57,219 first-year applications for fall 2022. The overall acceptance rate was 16.8 percent – 43.1 percent for North Carolina applicants and 8.2 percent for out-of-state applicants. To learn more, visit the profile of the 2022 entering class.

Carolina seeks an entering class whose collective strengths will foster excellence within the campus community; enhance the education of everyone within it; provide for the leadership of the education, government, science, business, humanistic, artistic and professional institutions of the state, nation and world; and enrich the lives of North Carolinians.

We seek qualities including intellect, talent, curiosity and creativity; leadership, kindness and courage; as well as honesty, perseverance and perspective.

We consider each applicant in the context of his or her individual family, school and community circumstances and seek students who have not just achieved, but who have taken advantage of the opportunities that their individual circumstances have presented.

Although we expect each successful candidate to demonstrate strength in many of these areas, we do not expect every candidate to be equally strong in all of them. Just as there is no formula for admission, there is no list of qualities or characteristics that every applicant must present.

Our applicants are highly accomplished, engaged and talented. Carolina welcomed a 2022 incoming class of 4,440 first-year students and 900 transfer students. These students came from 95 North Carolina counties, 50 states, the District of Columbia and 86 countries. Forty percent of all North Carolina first-year and new transfer students were from rural counties.

Among all students, 18 percent will be the first in their families to graduate from college; 37 percent qualified for need-based aid. The class also included 213 students from a Carolina College Advising Corps partner high school during 2021-2022, a public service of the University that seeks to increase college-going rates among low-income, first-generation college and other underrepresented students.