Thursday, February 25, 2010

Admitted Student Access to MyUNC

Understandably, there has been some confusion among admitted students on how to access MyUNC. We can understand your confusion and we hope that this post will help explain the transition from your Guest ID to your ONYEN.

When you applied to Carolina and first created your MyUNC account, you did so with your email address, what became your Guest ID.

Now that you are admitted, you need to create your ONYEN (or Only Name You'll Ever Need), which is not only your user name for your UNC computer account but also serves as your unique identifier for access to important UNC services such as financial aid and housing.

To create your ONYEN, please visit onyen.unc.edu, and click on “Create An Onyen.” You will then be prompted to enter your last name and your Personal Identification Number (or PID). After entering this information, you will be immediately presented with an ONYEN, and you will be given the opportunity to modify it (if you choose) and to create a confidential password.

Please note that your UNC Guest ID (the username you used when applying for admission) will expire after your ONYEN is created. Once you create your ONYEN you will only be able to access MyUNC with your ONYEN.

Using your ONYEN and password, you may now log into onyen.unc.edu and manage your UNC email account (create an easy-to-remember alias or change your password, for example). You may access your email by clicking on “Webmail” at this same site or by visiting mail.unc.edu. Check your UNC email account regularly because from this point forward, the University will communicate with you through this new account.

If you experience any technical difficulties creating or using your ONYEN, the UNC Help Desk will happily assist you. You may contact them at (919) 962-HELP (4357) or through email at help@unc.edu.

And as always, if we can help in any way, please feel free to contact us.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

MyUNC Outage on March 2

Please note that MyUNC will be down for routine maintenance on Tuesday, March 2 from 12:30 a.m. until 6:00 a.m. EST.

Please also note that transfer applicants must submit their applications by 11:59 p.m. EST on March 1.

We apologize for any inconvenience. If you have any questions, or if we may help you in any way, please do not hesitate to contact us at 919-966-3621 or through email.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Midyear Grades Deadline Extended to 2/26

In light of school closings caused by winter weather throughout the Northeast, we are extending the deadline for the submission of midyear grades until February 26, at 5:00 pm Eastern Time.

Last night we sent out an email to all students who are required to submit their grades informing them of the deadline change. Please note that if you have already submitted your midyear grades, we thank you, and no action is necessary is necessary on your part.

If you have received your grades but haven’t yet reported them to us through your MyUNC page, we urge you to follow these steps by February 26:

  1. Log into MyUNC with your Guest ID, which is your personal email address.

  2. View your "To-do" List.

  3. Click on the "Midyear grades" link in your "To-do List," and follow the online instructions.
Once you submit your grades, the “Midyear grades” link will be removed from your To-do List.

If your midyear grades are not available until after February 26, please report your first-quarter or first-trimester grades instead. Please do not ask your guidance counselor to submit your grades on your behalf. Instead, we require that you report accurate and complete grades online.

If you have courses in progress, please enter "course in progress" in the explanation box. If you have numeric grades, simply enter the equivalent letter grade for each course based on your own school’s grading scale. In addition, please enter the actual grade that you earned in the explanation box beneath your grade.

As a reminder, all second-deadline candidates are required to submit their first-semester or first-trimester grades using this form, as are all first-deadline candidates who have been admitted or deferred.

If you have any questions, please contact us at unchelp@admissions.unc.edu or call us at 919-966-3621 during our working hours of Monday through Friday, from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm Eastern Time.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Midyear Grade Form Update -- The Latest

Thanks to all of you for your feedback on the midyear grade form. We are continuing to review your comments and working to resolve any outstanding issues. Additionally, we are also working to make the form more flexible to cover special circumstances.

We know that many of you have successfully entered your grades and selected “certify” and “submit.” In some cases, the midyear grades item is still showing up in the To-do list. If this has happened to you, we apologize. Please rest assured that we have your grades and we are working to resolve this issue.

Again, thank you for the feedback and your diligence in reporting your grades to us so promptly.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Update on Midyear Grade Report Form

We write to thank the many students who have begun reporting their midyear grades to us. We apologize for any confusion that our form may have created.

Unfortunately, we've discovered a minor glitch. For students with courses in progress or students who are adding courses, the form is requiring grades. If this situation applies to you, please select "pass" as your grade and type "course in progress" in the explanation box below your grade.

Many of you who have started entering your grades have posted some excellent questions. We hope that these answers will help you; if not, please let us know.

For those of you with numeric grades, simply enter the equivalent letter grade for each course based on your own school’s grading scale. In addition, please enter the actual grade that you earned in the explanation box beneath your grade. Note: If your school does not use pluses or minuses, it is not necessary to attempt to calculate this notation.

For security purposes, you are required to update your password every 3 months. If it has been this long since you created your Guest ID, you must update your password before you may access your account and enter your grades.

If you worked as a Teacher's Aide or took an equivalent non-graded course, please simply type "pass" for your grade and then enter explanatory text in the box below your grade such as "Served as Teacher's Aide."

If you have entered your grades, please note that you must select “certify” to complete this task. If you intend to return to the form, please select “save and return.” If you have inadvertently completed this task but wish to update your grades before February 19, please contact us and we will make the form available again in your To-do list.

As a reminder, all second-deadline candidates are required to submit their first-semester or first-trimester grades using this form, as are all first-deadline candidates who have been admitted or deferred.

If you have any questions, please email us at or call us at 919-966-3621 during our working hours of Monday through Friday, from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm Eastern Time.

Midyear Grade Form Now Available

Our midyear grades form is now available for students to submit their grades to us online.

As a reminder, all second-deadline candidates are required to submit their first-semester or first-trimester grades using this form, as are all first-deadline candidates who have been admitted or deferred.

If you are required to submit your grades, please follow these steps by February 19:

  1. Log into MyUNC with your Guest ID, which is your personal email address.

  2. View your "To-do" List.

  3. Click on the "Midyear grades" link in your "To-do List," and follow the online instructions.

As a follow up, we're also sending an email with these same instructions to all students who are required to submit their grades.

Please note that if your midyear grades are not available until after February 19, please report your first-quarter or first-trimester grades instead. Please do not ask your guidance counselor to submit your grades on your behalf. Instead, we require that you report accurate and complete grades online.

If you have any questions, please email us at or call us at 919-966-3621 during our working hours of Monday through Friday, from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm Eastern Time.

Honors Program

Dr. Meredith is back, this time to describe how students are invited to join the Honors Program at Carolina, as well as how you can get involved even if we're not able to invite you to join the program as a first-year student.

Hello again, It is that time of the year when we start fielding questions about the Honors Program. Invitations were mailed early last week, and most students should have received them by now. Just as I did earlier with merit-based scholarships, I’d like to provide some information about the selection of Honors Program invitees and what that means for the students invited and those not invited.

In my earlier post, I described how the Admissions Committee reviews about 13,000 applications for each of our two deadlines. From this pool, we identify about 600 students per deadline for a faculty committee to review. This committee selects about 300 students to be invited to join the Honors Program in their first semester. At no point in this review are we making decisions based on your SAT, class rank or other numerical values. Your essays and recommendation letters are really the focal point. I won’t repeat my “mental wrestler” description but that’s what we’re looking for. As you can see, it is very competitive and in reality, a great number of very bright students are not invited to join the program in their first semester.

What does all of this mean? If you receive an invitation to join Honors, you will need to either accept the invitation or decline by notifying the Honors Program of your decision. If you accept the invitation, you will be contacted by the Honors Program about selecting classes, advising options and other opportunities and responsibilities.

If you were among the 4,000 admitted students who were not invited, do not despair. If you choose to come to Carolina, and we certainly hope you do, you will have the opportunity to do some amazing things that are not contingent on membership in the Honors Program.
  • You can take a First Year Seminar with one of the top faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill. These classes are small, discussion-based seminars that allow for in-depth examination of the subject matter.
  • You can participate in a connected learning community through the good folks in Housing.
  • Get involved in undergraduate research EVEN IF YOU’RE NOT INTERESTED IN SCIENCE!!
  • Take a couple of Honors classes. What? Yep, anyone with a 3.0 GPA can take an Honors class and about 1/3 of the seats in most Honors classes are actually students not in the Honors Program.
  • Go see the world through our top ranked study abroad program
  • Create your own study abroad program through the Burch Fellows program.
  • Graduate with Honors. Work closely with a faculty mentor in your department to complete a senior thesis and you’ll graduate with Honors from Carolina.
And I’m not even close to being done. Hopefully you can see that there are plenty of exciting, rewarding experiences awaiting you at Carolina. If you find yourself still wanting to join the Honors Program you can apply after your first or second semester. Just contact the Honors Program for more information about that option.

Hopefully this helps clarify the whole invited vs. not invited situation. Not getting an Honors invitation is not a commentary on your value to us nor is it an indication that you were not worthy. Just as we don’t have room in the first year class for all of the outstanding students who apply, we don’t have room in the Honors Program for all of the amazing students who are admitted each year. Come to Carolina and experience all that we have to offer.

-David Meredith

Monday, February 8, 2010

Update on Midyear Grades

As you know, we had planned to make our midyear grade form available today. Unfortunately, we are experiencing technical difficulties with the form and are not yet ready to accept midyear grades.

We are working to make the form available as soon as possible. If we require your midyear grades, we will email you as soon as the form is available with complete instructions.

As a reminder, all second-deadline candidates are required to submit their first-semester or first-trimester grades using this form, as are all first-deadline candidates who have been admitted or deferred.

We thank you for your patience, and we encourage you to keep visiting this blog for the latest updates.

New Math Doesn't Quite Add Up

Yesterday morning the New York Times ran a story, "The New Math on Campus," which claims that the percentages of men and women at Carolina and many other colleges and universities are "skewing" something the story calls "dating culture."

I'm reluctant to complain about this story, because the reporter seemed like a nice guy when I talked with him, and because he no doubt has a tough and thankless job, especially nowadays. Still, I think the story gets a few things wrong.

The first is that this "new" math isn't so new. As I told the reporter, the percentages of men and women in the entering class at Carolina haven't changed for nearly thirty years. If these percentages are "new," then they're new in the way that, say, cable television or microwave popcorn is new. I'm waiting for the next big headline: Orville Redenbacher Is Changing How We Snack.

The second is that "dating culture," from what I can tell, has been skewed and on the skids for a pretty long time. My friends who have college-aged sons and daughters sometimes express amazement at the apparent dearth of dating at the schools their children attend. But the only thing amazing is their amazement, because dating on college campuses, regardless of the male-female ratio, has been dead for a long time. At the college I attended thirty years ago, which was then split evenly between men and women, most students seemed to date roughly once a year, and then only when a formal forced their hand.

The third thing that seemed off to me about this story -- and I'm just going to state this as an impression -- is that the students who were quoted don't sound much like the ones I know here at Carolina. Our students, men and women both, have too much going on, and too much going for them, to spend too much time time agonizing over whether Mr. or Ms. Right is right around the corner. They're too busy using the precious few years they have in Chapel Hill to do what matters most to them: study hard; serve humanity; solve the world's problems.

If you visit us and talk with these students, I'm guessing they'll tell you they lead happy, full, and meaningful lives. They're doing what they feel called to do in the world -- and they're doing it alongside classmates, men and women both, whom they like and admire and respect.

That's the real story here at Carolina -- and although it's not a new one, either, I think it's worth repeating.
____________________________________

This morning's Daily Tar Heel features the following reactions from students:

“I think in general the ratio is skewed, but the implications about dating are not true.”
Kelli Daffron, senior pychology and anthropology major

“I think it’s a little over-the-top. I think of Carolina girls as classier than that.”
Emily Noonan, junior business major

“I’m embarrassed by the things in that article. It’s dis-empowering, to say the least. It reduces dating to numbers.”
John Reitz, senior English and drama major

“That’s not the image we need to be portraying. Those quotes are really demeaning to women.”
Jordan Swain, senior communications studies major

Friday, February 5, 2010

Submit Midyear Grades Online Beginning Monday

Our new midyear grade form will be available on MyUNC beginning on Monday, February 8. All second-deadline candidates will need to submit their first-semester or first-trimester grades using this form, as will all first-deadline candidates who have been admitted or deferred.

To submit your midyear grades beginning on Monday, please log into MyUNC and view your To-Do list. Click on the "Midyear grades" link in your To-Do List, and follow the online instructions.

We had originally planned to deploy this form today but are postponing its debut because of planned maintenance of the ConnectCarolina system this weekend. We also want to make sure we deploy the form during our normal office hours so that we can help students with any problems they might experience.

Update for First-Deadline Applicants Awaiting Decisions

We're preparing to post another round of decisions this evening between 5 and 7 pm. Decisions will be posted on students' MyUNC pages, and can be accessed by clicking the "View Official Test Scores, Outstanding Items, and Application Status" link.

We've been working this week to resolve the decisions of our final first-deadline candidates, and after today's decision posting, all students whose first-deadline applications were complete as of 2:00 pm today should have a decision on their MyUNC page.

I'm still not seeing a decision. What should I do?
First, check to see if you have any missing items in your To-Do List. If you have missing items, please submit them as soon as possible by emailing them to unchelp@admissions.unc.edu. If you have a green dot and there are no missing items on your To-Do List, please give us a call. It's possible that you may have inadvertently chosen our second deadline when you started your application. If that is the case, you're still marked as a second-deadline applicant in our system, even if you submitted your application before Nov. 2. We have emailed these students with instructions to call us if they wish to change their deadline notification to first deadline, and we are reviewing the applications of students who requested this change.

We will not post any additional decisions over the weekend, though we will resume posting decisions for any additional first-deadline candidates whose applications become complete next week.

We appreciate your patience as we have finalized these decisions. If you have a specific question about the status of your application, please call our office at (919) 966-3621. We will be here until 5 pm Eastern Time today and then again at 8 am on Monday.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Update on MyUNC

Please note that MyUNC will be down for routine maintenance beginning Saturday, February 6, at 6 p.m. until 11 p.m.

Additionally, on February 12, from 3:00 a.m. to 7:00 a.m., we will not be able to accept online enrollment deposit or application payments by credit card.

We apologize for any inconvenience. If you have any questions, or if we may help you in any way, please do not hesitate to contact us at 919-966-3621 or through email.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Special Note to First-Deadline Candidates

To all of our first-deadline candidates who did not receive their decisions by January 31, we apologize. We realize that you have waited patiently for several months, and we can understand your frustration at having to wait longer. For those of you who are still without a decision, we have tried to reach you by email or telephone regarding the information we need to finalize your decision.

If you applied by November 2 and you still have not heard from us, please login to MyUNC to make sure that you do not have any missing items. These items will be listed in your “To-do” list. In order for us to finalize your decision it is crucial that you provide the missing item(s) as soon as possible. If you sent in a required missing item more than 10 days ago, and still do not have a decision, please contact us at (919) 966-3621.

In reviewing the remainder of these cases, we believe that there may have been confusion about deadline notification. A number of applicants who applied by November 2 selected our final deadline for their notification. Because these students applied prior to the first deadline, we emailed them several weeks ago and today to confirm that the second deadline was indeed their choice. If you received that email and did not have an opportunity to respond, or if you think this situation could apply to you, please call or email us so we can appropriately adjust your notification date.

If you are still awaiting a decision and neither of the above situations applies to you, or if you have any questions, please call (919) 966-3621 or email us. Again, we are sorry for the delay, but please know that we are working around the clock to resolve these issues.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Update on Decisions

To all of our first-deadline candidates, thank you again for your patience as we finalize and communicate decisions.

We are continuing to make decisions on all first-deadline candidates whose applications are complete. We will post any decisions we make during the course of the day between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. each day.

Any candidates whose decisions are not posted by this time are still under review, and we will notify them as soon as possible.

Important Note about Mid-Year Grades

We require mid-year grades from all first-deadline admitted and deferred candidates, as well as from all second-deadline applicants.

If we require your midyear grades, you will receive a mid-year grade reminder on your "To-do" list in your MyUNC account starting February 5. Please follow the instructions in your "To-do" list to submit your grades no later than February 19. Please report your most recent grades in all the courses you’ve taken so far this year. Most students report first-semester grades. If your school is on a trimester system, you may report your first trimester grades.

Since we will only accept midyear grades that you yourself report electronically, please do not ask your college counselor to send a paper copy on your behalf.

We will confirm midyear grades from all admitted students after we receive your official final transcript, which is a firm enrollment requirement.

Monday, February 1, 2010

Update on First-Deadline Decisions

As you know, we released the majority of decisions for first-deadline candidates with completed applications yesterday. Since this release, we've finalized the decisions for another round of first-deadline applicants, and we'll be posting these decisions by the end of the day. We’ll also be in touch with our remaining deadline 1 applicants who are still awaiting a decision to let them know the status of their application.

Again, thank you for your patience during this time.