University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

How it scores

Research and Alumni outcomes are percentiles among 2,287 universities; alumni outcomes are counted per student. Admissions & earnings is the position among universities in the same country (United States).

Admissions, outcomes and alumni

Admit rate

15.3% src

Average SAT

1,439 src

Yield (admits who enrol)

43% src

Median earnings 10 years after entry

$72,200 src

40-year return on investment (Georgetown CEW)

$2.39M src

Average net price per year

$11,655 src

Graduation rate (6 years)

91% src

Rhodes Scholars, 2021–26

3 src

Alumni founders of VC-backed companies (PitchBook)

502 src

Internationally notable alumni (Wikidata)

117 src

Heads of state or government (Wikidata)

2 src

Founders, billionaires and $30M+ alumni

not on the published top lists; estimated

Students (undergraduate headcount / total FTE, IPEDS)

20,752 / 30,523 src

Each figure links to its source. Admissions and earnings figures are comparable only within a country.

Research Index

Percentiles among 1,305 ranked universities. Rank on quality alone: 184. On strength alone: 92. The Research Index scores research only; admissions, earnings and alumni outcomes are scored in the overall ranking where data exists.

The numbers behind it (2020–2023)

Papers in the top 10% of their field

12.9% (12.4%–13.3%)

Papers in the top 1% of their field

1.6% (1.5%–1.8%)

Top-10% papers (fractional count)

1,577

All papers (fractional count)

12,256

International co-authored

36.2%

Open access

73.8%

Papers from 2020–23 since retracted

7 (0.21 per 1,000)

Core publications, fractional counting, field-normalised citation shares. Brackets show Leiden’s stability interval. Collaboration and open-access shares use full counting and aren’t field-normalised. Retraction counts come from the Retraction Watch database and include publishers’ mass retractions as well as honest-error retractions; a retraction is not by itself evidence of misconduct, and the count is never scored.

By field

Position over time

The same method applied to each 4-year publication window. The number of ranked universities grows from period to period, so position is shown as a share of the field.