by our College Data Analytics Team
In its yearly rankings, College Factual analyzes over 2,000 colleges and universities to determine which ones are the best in a variety of categories, such as overall value, quality, diversity, which schools are the best for each major, and much more.
University of North Carolina at Wilmington was awarded 84 badges in the 2025 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is general business administration and management.
Explore the best ranked schools for the programs you are most interested in.
College Factual ranked UNCW as #415 out of 2,152 colleges and universities in the country on its 2025 Best Colleges list. This puts it in the top 20% of all schools in the nation. This is an improvement over the previous year, when UNCW held the #457 spot on the Best Overall Colleges list.
Out of the 93 colleges in North Carolina, UNCW is ranked at #12.
See all of the rankings for University of North Carolina at Wilmington.
If you're applying to University of North Carolina at Wilmington you'll face some tough competition, since the school's acceptance rate is only 69%. Definitely don't wait until the last minute to submit your application, since applying early may be in your favor.
About 7% of students accepted to UNCW submitted their SAT scores. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing scores ranged between 620 and 690. Math scores were between 600 and 680.
Learn more about University of North Carolina at Wilmington admissions.
With a student to faculty ratio of 17 to 1, University of North Carolina at Wilmington is about average in this regard as the nationwide rate is 15 to 1. While this does not translate directly to class size, it's a good indicator of how much time professors will have to spend with their students on a one-on-one basis.
When estimating how much access students will have to their teachers, some people like to look at what percentage of faculty members are full time. This is because part-time teachers may not have as much time to spend on campus as their full-time counterparts.
The full-time faculty percentage at University of North Carolina at Wilmington is 71%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.
University of North Carolina at Wilmington has a freshmen retention rate of 83%. That's a good sign that full-time students like the school and their professors enough to want to stick around for another year. It's also a sign that the admissions team did a good job in choosing applicants who were a good fit for the school.
Students are considered to have graduated on time if they finish their studies within four years. At UNCW the on-time graduation rate of first-time, full-time students is 57%. That is great when compared to the national average of 33.3%
During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 14,650 undergraduates at UNCW with 11,989 being full-time and 2,661 being part-time.
| $0-30 K | $30K-48K | $48-75 | $75-110K | $110K + |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $11,916 | $14,101 | $19,438 | $22,829 | $24,292 |
The net price is calculated by adding tuition, room, board and other costs and subtracting financial aid.Note that the net price is typically less than the published for a school. For more information on the sticker price of UNCW, see our tuition and fees and room and board pages.
While almost two-thirds of students nationwide take out loans to pay for college, the percentage may be quite different for the school you plan on attending. At UNCW, approximately 47% of students took out student loans averaging $8,040 a year. That adds up to $32,160 over four years for those students.
Get more details about paying for University of North Carolina at Wilmington.
See which majors at University of North Carolina at Wilmington make the most money.
Get more details about the location of University of North Carolina at Wilmington.
Contact details for UNCW are given below.
| Contact Details | |
|---|---|
| Address: | 601 South College Road, Wilmington, NC 28403-5963 |
| Phone: | 910-962-3000 |
| Website: | www.uncw.edu/ |
| Most Popular Majors | Bachelor’s Degrees | Average Salary of Graduates |
|---|---|---|
| Nursing | 995 | $74,463 |
| Business Administration & Management | 925 | $48,369 |
| General Psychology | 242 | $29,418 |
| Teacher Education Grade Specific | 222 | $40,777 |
| Accounting | 210 | NA |
| Communication & Media Studies | 210 | $36,695 |
| Health & Physical Education | 209 | NA |
| General Biology | 189 | $32,925 |
| Social Work | 156 | $38,380 |
| Public Health | 120 | $36,458 |
Online courses area a great option for busy, working students as well as for those who have scheduling conflicts and want to study on their own time. As time goes by, expect to see more and more online learning options become available.
In 2022-2023, 12,402 students took at least one online class at University of North Carolina at Wilmington. This is a decrease from the 13,440 students who took online classes the previous year.
| Year | Took at Least One Online Class | Took All Classes Online |
|---|---|---|
| 2022-2023 | 12,402 | 4,619 |
| 2021-2022 | 13,440 | 4,857 |
| 2020-2021 | 17,032 | 6,269 |
| 2018-2019 | 7,833 | 3,040 |
Learn more about online learning at University of North Carolina at Wilmington.
If you’re considering University of North Carolina at Wilmington, here are some more schools you may be interested in knowing more about.
Curious on how these schools stack up against UNCW? Pit them head to head with College Combat, our free interactive tool that lets you compare college on the features that matter most to you!
Footnotes
*The racial-ethnic minorities count is calculated by taking the total number of students and subtracting white students, international students, and students whose race/ethnicity was unknown. This number is then divided by the total number of students at the school to obtain the racial-ethnic minorities percentage.
References
More about our data sources and methodologies.