How hard is it to get into Tufts compared with UNC?

For a regular applicant, Tufts is usually harder to get into than UNC overall, especially if you are comparing one private, highly selective university with a large public flagship that has different standards for in-state and out-of-state students. Tufts has a smaller class and a more compressed applicant pool, so admissions there tends to feel tighter across the board. UNC is also very selective, but the experience differs a lot depending on residency.

Tufts tends to fit students applying to a smaller, private research university where the bar is consistently high for most applicants and where strong academics alone rarely feel like enough. It draws a large number of applicants with top grades, rigorous coursework, and substantial extracurricular depth, so standing out can be difficult. For many students, Tufts is the tougher admit simply because there are fewer seats and very little residency advantage.

UNC makes more sense to think about in two categories. For North Carolina residents, it is still selective, but it is often more attainable than Tufts because the university is designed to serve in-state students and gives them a meaningful advantage in admissions. For out-of-state applicants, though, UNC can become extremely difficult, sometimes feeling just as hard as other highly selective schools because available space for nonresidents is much more limited.

So the clearest comparison is this: Tufts is usually the more selective school in a broad national sense, but UNC out-of-state can be comparably tough and in some cases feel even harder because of the residency cap. If you are in-state for UNC, Tufts is very likely the harder admit. If you are out-of-state for UNC, the gap narrows a lot.