University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (also known as UNC, UNC-Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, or simply Carolina) is a public research university located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States. First enrolling students in 1795, it is one of several schools to claim the title of the oldest public university in the United States. In recent years, the university has been among the highest ranked public universities in the United States.
UNC has a strong history in athletics, most notably in men's basketball, women's soccer and men's lacrosse. The North Carolina Tar Heels share rivalries with other Tobacco Road schools and have provided many olympians to United States teams. The student newspaper The Daily Tar Heel has won national awards for collegiate media, while the student radio station WXYC provided the world's first internet radio broadcast.
UNC offers 71 bachelor's, 107 master's and 74 doctoral degree programs. The university enrolls more than 28,000 students from all 100 North Carolina counties, the other 49 states, and 47 other countries. State law requires that the percentage of students from North Carolina in each freshman class meet or exceed 82%. The student body consists of 17,981 undergraduate students and 10,935 graduate and professional students (as of Fall 2009). Minorities comprise 30.8% of UNC's undergraduate population and applications from international students have more than doubled in the last five years (from 702 in 2004 to 1,629 in 2009). Eighty-nine percent of enrolling first year students in 2009 reported a GPA of 4.0 or higher on a weighted 4.0 scale. UNC students are strong competitors for national and international scholarships. In 2009, two UNC seniors won Rhodes Scholarships. The most popular majors at UNC are Biology, Business Administration, Psychology, Journalism and Mass Communication, and Political Science. UNC also offers 300 study abroad programs in 70 countries.
At the undergraduate level, all students must fulfill a number of general education requirements as part of the Making Connections curriculum, which was introduced in 2006. English, social science, history, foreign language, mathematics, and natural science courses are required of all students, ensuring that they receive a broad liberal arts education. The university also offers a wide range of first year seminars for incoming freshmen. After their second year, students move on to the College of Arts and Sciences, or choose an undergraduate professional school program within the schools of medicine, nursing, business, education, pharmacy, information and library science, public health, or journalism and mass communication.
