So, you’re thinking of transferring. This is a big moment! And UNC Chapel Hill has an amazing tradition of accepting transfer students. Over 900 join the university each year, and they form a strong community at the university. The acceptance rate for transfer applicants is over 45%, and they prioritize accepting in-state students who are coming from two-year junior or community colleges. UNC Chapel Hill is notable for supporting students in transferring credits over, giving you an extra head start towards a UNC degree.
If you’ve done any college work after graduating from high school, you are eligible to apply as a transfer. This includes students currently at four-year or two-year, or who have left college for a short period of time. Based on how many credits you have acquired previously, you can transfer into UNC Chapel Hill as a sophomore, junior, or even as a freshman if you left college part way through your first year. However, your best chance is transferring in as a sophomore or junior.
As you read through this guide, please remember that the application deadline is earlier than many other schools — February 15th. To meet this deadline, you need to begin working with your current school, and your high school, immediately. They need to send transcripts and reports, and while the deadline is extended for receipt of these documents, tardiness on their part isn’t an excuse for an incomplete application.
Ultimately, transferring isn’t an easy into a top school, but it can be a powerful option. We’ll show you how to make that happen.
Every year, we help students transfer into the types of schools they would not have even considered as an option a high school senior. Learn More.
UNC Chapel Hill has a lot of essays compared to the transfer applications for similarly competitive schools, but they have a good reason. “Because every person is complex,” they say, “we don’t reduce any person to a formula, and the decisions we make are never based on any single factor.” And they mean it. The prompts below are designed to show all sides of you — if you let yourself open up and fully express yourself as both a student and a person.
They want to see you. Yes, you. So, show them who you are.
THE PERSONAL STATEMENT
The core of the UNC Chapel Hill transfer application is an essay that should look familiar.
The personal statement helps you distinguish yourself in your own voice. What do you want admissions readers to know about you that is not reflected elsewhere in your application? Choose the option that best helps you answer that question and write an essay using the prompt to inspire and structure your response (1,250 - 3,250 characters, approx. 250 - 650 words).
They offer you seven prompts to pick from as inspiration for this essay, and if they look familiar that is because they are basically the first-year application Common Application college essay prompts. Even though you’ve seen them before, you need to take a different approach as a transfer applicant. Below, we’ll break down each prompt to guide you towards your best response.
Top level, though, is that you actually need to consider each option. For first-year applications, we say that there is one correct choice: the choose your own adventure (option #7). Here, though, it’s different.
Option 1: Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.
This is a classic set up for a Common App essay, and it offers you an opportunity to talk about something that you may feel is critical to your application. That’s a good thing, but it’s also something to be careful about. The prompts further down invite you to do more processing, and to share more about who you are today than this one maybe does on the face of it. It’s easy for responses to this prompt to become all about what’s happened to you, and that’s something we advise you to avoid. Instead of focusing on how life has happened to you, show how you’ve happened to life. In short: you’re the protagonist.
Show them that you’re the protagonist through a strong, focused story with a clear narrative thrust and a larger theme or message that speaks to your resilience and informed perspective on life.
Option 2: The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?
We like this prompt except for one thing: you may be inclined, even by mistake, to cast yourself as a victim. That’s no good, and if you see yourself going to that type of place it’s a bad look.
If you are going to make a response to this prompt succeed, it needs to be written with a community perspective. Don’t set up a situation that is you versus the world. You must be part of a team in some way, even if the internal dynamics of that team aren’t smooth sailing.
The best approach to this prompt, also, is to set up a scene and tell a very focused and supremely vivid story. If you ‘tell’ the story, it will fall flat. It must be shown through tools like imagery and dialog. If you can bring an obstacle to life, this prompt can truly sing.
Option 3: Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?
This is one we suggest avoiding. Why? Because it is inherently combative. It immediately sets you against something, and we’d rather see you as an applicant that is for something (like collaboration, teamwork, personal growth, and inspiration) as opposed to being against something.
If you really want to do this prompt, though, you need to stay out of the “me against the world” trap. “What was the outcome?” is sort of tacked onto the end of the prompt, but it’s actually the most important part. If there isn’t an outcome, it’s just an argument. There must be something that your essay is building towards that is a positive, and that ideally brings other people into your circle or community.
Option 4: Describe a problem you've solved or a problem you'd like to solve. It can be an intellectual challenge, a research query, an ethical dilemma-anything that is of personal importance, no matter the scale. Explain its significance to you and what steps you took or could be taken to identify a solution.
Now this prompt is a fun one. Rather than trying to show that you’ve solved something in its entirety, we love when students write essays that show how they have solved a piece of a bigger problem — whether it’s local, regional, national, or global. This allows you to write about an issue or idea that you care about (similar to Option 6) while simultaneously amplifying the actions you’ve taken to make a difference.
Structure your essay by starting with a moment of intense action or focus as you work to figure out your solution or disentangle the problem. Then, pull back. Give the reader the context they need to understand why this matters to you, and why it should to them too. From that foundation, you’ll be able to explore the problem you faced in greater detail, amplifying the significant to you and emphasizing your engagement with the issue.
Option 5: Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.
This prompt can be perfect for students who thrive in collaborative environments, but advise skipping it if you would want to write about something where you went solo. Now, there are ways to define a team that are broad. Maybe you compete in competitive Scrabble. Yes, it’s a one-person game, but perhaps you train with your grandfather, or compete alongside a sibling or dear friend. If you won an award for debate or speech, it’s extremely unlikely that you got on that stage by yourself. There was a team you trained alongside, and coaches you supported you towards your goals.
This is all to say that the most important part of any response to this prompt involves a team, and a successful response to this prompt highlights that front and center.
Option 6: Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?
This prompt is wildly fun, and we love it. The best answers go all in, fully embracing the invitation to share what excites you.
Instead of trying to write about everything, tell the story of one tiny thing within your passion in a way that is intensely, perhaps even wildly, focused. If you love the science of coral, focus on a polyp. If you get excited about political theory, zoom in on one tiny aspect of value prioritization, or another concept that makes you excited.
And don’t wait to answer the final question of what or who you turn to when you want to learn more until the end. Weave this aspect of the prompt in throughout the story, making it an integral part of the essay.
Option 7: Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you've already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.
For high school students who are first-year applicants, this is our go-to prompt. In fact, it’s the only one we advise students to pick…ever…really. However, we feel pretty differently in the transfer round. While you can pick this one, consider an earlier prompt first, especially 4, 5, or 6. If you end up here, that’s ok, but it isn’t where you should start.
THE SHORT ESSAYS
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)
Ok, so if you are excited by this supplemental prompt, you may have been thinking of picking Option 4 or 5 for the personal statement. This doesn’t mean you can’t pick either of those, but it does underline the importance of not repeating things in your application. Whatever you write about here you absolutely must not have already mentioned elsewhere.
But let’s focus in on what you should do here. The most important thing is to look close to home. The second most important thing is to make it something current or super recent, ideally within the last 6 months.
Do not write about a trip you took somewhere to help a community that isn’t local to you at home. Don’t write about something you did sophomore year of high school. You aren’t in high school anymore, and you want to show growth not stasis.
Whatever you focus on, tell a story of a precise experience that illustrates your overall engagement and impact.
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)
You’ve made it this far, and you will probably be happy to hear that this is the final supplement. It is also, in some ways, the most important. When you apply to transfer, they care a lot about your academic focus and intention. They may be accepting you for a particular major (see major-specific requirements below), but even if that isn’t the case, they want to see direction. Showing focus underlines that you aren’t “college hopping,” you are working towards you well-defined and articulated goals.
After introducing the topic, be sure to tie it directly to what UNC Chapel Hill offers. Specifically referencing aspects of the program will emphasize your seriousness and focus.
RESUME
Alert! UNC Chapel Hill lets you upload a resume! You should absolutely do this, but there are some rules you need to follow.
Your resume must be one page — not two sides of one page — no exceptions.
It also must be focused. This isn’t an application for a summer job or internship. Tailor your resume to UNC Chapel Hill, and your academic focus. Leave things off if they veer away or distract from your central narrative, even if they are what one might call objectively ‘impressive.’
The final must is that your resume needs to be beautifully formatted. In the era of easy-to-access templates (Word, GoogleDocs, etc.), there is no excuse for a make-shift format full of weird margins and strange bullet points. Use the tools you have access to, and that includes a template.
FINAL THOUGHTS
If you are applying to enter as a Junior, your major typically needs to be locked in. Some majors come with additional requirements for these transfers that you’ll want to look at before starting your application. It’s a pretty long list, so please look to see if your prospective major comes with additional requirements.
The majors that require additional essays or documents are Biomedical Engineering, Business Administration, Clinical Laboratory Science, Data Science, Dental Hygiene, Human Development and Family Studies, Human Organizational Leadership and Development, Information Science, the Hussman School of Journalism and Media, Neurodiagnostics and Sleep Science, Nursing, Public Health: Biostatistics, Public Health: Environmental Health Science, Public Health: Health Policy Management, Public Health: Nutrition, and Radiologic Science.
Examples of additional requirements include additional essays for the Business Administration degree and prerequisite courses for the Public Health offerings.
Whatever your academic dreams, spotlighting them with focus, intention, and passion for UNC Chapel Hill will make your application a stand-out.
If you’re dreaming of a transfer, contact us. We can help.