North Carolina Central University acceptance rate and your odds of getting in

With an acceptance rate near 87%, North Carolina Central University is an accessible public university in North Carolina. Because it admits most qualified applicants, admission turns on the strength of your whole profile rather than any one number.

Use this page to see what North Carolina Central University weighs, where it ranks among North Carolina schools, and how a profile like yours is likely to land. Admitted students post a 75th-percentile SAT around 1060, a useful checkpoint for where your scores sit, though it is a reference range and not a cutoff.

What are my chances at North Carolina Central University with a 3.1 GPA and a 1000 SAT?

About 98% (Safety), by CollegeCalcAI's deterministic model, for an applicant with a 3.1 unweighted GPA and a 1000 SAT, the middle of North Carolina Central University's admitted range, applying Regular Decision without a hook. A 3.4 GPA with a 1060 SAT comes out near 98%. Courses, activities, essays and the application round move the number; the free calculator includes them.

Estimates, not guarantees. Get yours with your real courses and activities. Assistants and developers can fetch this table from the free API: /api/v1/colleges/north-carolina-central-university.

Here is how to get into North Carolina Central University, built from what its admitted class actually looks like and what the school says it weighs.

For the fall 2023 entering class, North Carolina Central University received 14,192 applications and admitted 12,842, an acceptance rate of 90.5%. 1,465 enrolled. Only about 11% of admitted students enrolled, so the school admits several students for every seat it expects to fill, which is why its acceptance rate reads higher than its selectivity feels. North Carolina Central University enrolls about 6,081 undergraduates in total, 70% of them women, with a student-to-faculty ratio of 16 to 1.

Source: U.S. Department of Education, IPEDS 2023 admissions and enrollment.

On the ACT the middle 50% runs from 19 to 22. North Carolina Central University is test-optional: scores are considered if you submit them but not required. Send a score at or above the middle of the admitted range; otherwise apply without one and let your transcript lead.

Source: College Scorecard (U.S. Department of Education), release 2026-06-10.

In its review, North Carolina Central University leans most on rigor of secondary school record, academic GPA, and standardized test scores. Solid grades in a challenging schedule do most of the work here, with the rest of the application providing context. These ratings come from North Carolina Central University's reported Common Data Set, so the full chart below reflects what the school itself says it values, not a generic guess.

The full sticker price at North Carolina Central University (tuition, fees, housing, food, books) is about $26,556 a year. Tuition and fees are $6,699 for NC residents and $19,735 for out-of-state students, a $13,036 gap that makes residency the single biggest lever on cost. What families actually pay is different: the average net price after grants and scholarships is $15,359 a year, and it ranges from $13,032 for families earning under $30,000 to $23,658 for families earning over $110,000. 59% of undergraduates receive a federal Pell Grant.

Source: College Scorecard (U.S. Department of Education), release 2026-06-10. Net price is what students receiving aid paid after grants, by family income.

Median earnings for North Carolina Central University students ten years after entry are $42,968 ($35,967 at the six-year mark). 42% of first-time, full-time students graduate within six years, and 73% return for a second year. Among graduates who borrowed, median federal debt at graduation is $28,250; 63% of undergraduates take federal loans.

Source: College Scorecard (U.S. Department of Education), release 2026-06-10. Earnings cover students who received federal aid.

Among the 38 North Carolina schools we track, North Carolina Central University ranks #31 most selective by acceptance rate. Schools like Duke University (6%) and Davidson College (13%) sit nearby, which makes North Carolina a useful frame for calibrating a balanced list. As a public university, residency matters: in-state applicants generally see meaningfully better odds than the headline rate suggests.

Build around North Carolina Central University with peers at a comparable selectivity, such as Boise State University, George Mason University, and Southern Illinois University. Running the same profile against each one in the free calculator is the fastest way to see where you are a reach, a match, or a likely.

Acceptance rate, application counts, admitted test ranges, cost, and outcomes reflect publicly reported federal data (U.S. Department of Education: IPEDS 2023 and the College Scorecard) and each school's Common Data Set; figures are rounded and lag the current cycle by one to two years, so confirm deadlines and policies on the school's own site. The typical-admit GPA and SAT are CollegeCalcAI's modeled estimates. Estimates from CollegeCalcAI are a planning tool computed by a fixed, transparent model, not a guarantee of any admission decision.