Accelerate Your Graduate Education

Early Entry allows qualified UNC Charlotte undergraduates to begin taking graduate-level courses while completing their bachelor’s degree. Students can double-count up to 12 graduate credit hours toward both degrees and receive provisional acceptance into the graduate program.

Benefits

• Early entry students have provisional acceptance to the graduate program, pending the award of the bachelor’s degree.
• Most early entry programs are accelerated. Under this model, up to 12 hours earned at the graduate level may be “double-counted” toward both the baccalaureate and graduate degrees.
• Early entry students are charged undergraduate tuition and fees for all courses (graduate and undergraduate) for which they register. Upon completion of the bachelor’s degree, students are fully admitted to the graduate program and are charged graduate tuition and fees.

Requirements

• To be considered for Early Entry admission, a student must complete and submit an application, including any supporting documents.  
• A student must submit an application for admission after completion of 75 or more hours of undergraduate coursework, although it is expected that 90 hours of undergraduate coursework will have been earned by the time the first graduate course is taken.
• A student must have at least a 3.2 overall GPA (on a 4.0 scale), but some programs require a higher GPA.
• A given graduate program may have more rigorous admissions criteria.
• If an early entry student has not met the regular admission requirements of a 3.0 GPA at the end of the baccalaureate degree, the student will be dismissed from the graduate program.
• Students accepted into an early entry program will be subject to the same policies that pertain to other matriculated graduate students.
• Students are restricted to 15 credit hours of graduate level coursework prior to the completion of the baccalaureate degree.
• No courses taken before admission to the graduate program may be applied to a graduate degree.
• Students must be enrolled at UNC Charlotte.

First undergraduate degree students at UNC Charlotte who are required to take fewer than 12 semester hours of undergraduate work to fulfill all requirements for the bachelor’s degree, may be allowed during their final semester, to enroll in certain courses for the purpose of obtaining graduate credit. Dually enrolled students will continue to be considered undergraduate students and be charged for the courses taken at the undergraduate level.

Requirements for Dual Enrollment

On the basis of work attempted prior to the final semester, such students must meet the grade point criteria for admission to a graduate degree program at the University. No course for which credit is applied to an undergraduate degree may receive graduate credit. Permission to take graduate courses under dual registration does not constitute admission to any graduate degree program at the University. (Note: Undergraduate students may also apply for admission to the Early Entry Program to take graduate courses.)

Only UNC Charlotte students pursuing their first undergraduate degree are eligible for dual undergraduate and graduate registration. Fifth-year undergraduate students are not eligible for dual enrollment.