Five Reasons to Apply to Carolina by January 5!

We hope that you are enjoying your much-deserved winter break. As a reminder, if you haven't already applied for first-year admission to Carolina, our final deadline of January 5, 2012 is just days away. You still have plenty of time so why not make a New Year's resolution to apply to Carolina?

Need another reason? We'll give you five. Carolina students not only set high goals for themselves, they possess the initiative to make them happen. With the approach of the New Year, we thought you might enjoy learning about how five of our current students have made their dreams come true.

1. Brittany marches in the band and does research in the Alaskan Arctic.
2. Camille interns for the White House and starts an organization to help young women.
3. Stewart leads a grassroots environmental campaign.
4. Reed starts his own record label.
5. Teon manages the men's basketball team.

These are just five of the countless Carolina students who are making their mark on the world in their own way. Read about more students.

If you applied to Carolina already, we thank you for your application, and we are enjoying getting to know you. Once you do apply, please be sure to login to your MyUNC account to check the status of your application. If you did not received an email from us with your MyUNC registration instructions, please email us immediately.

We wish you the best as you set your own goals for a happy and prosperous New Year.

UNC Researcher's Work Named as 2011 Breakthrough by Science

A study led led by Myron S. Cohen, M.D. of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has been named the 2011 Breakthrough of the Year by the journal Science.

Dr. Cohen led a study known as the HIV Prevention Trials Network 052 which evaluated whether antiretroviral drugs can prevent sexual transmission of HIV among couples in which one partner has HIV and the other does not. The research found that early treatment with antiretroviral therapy reduced HIV transmission in couples by at least 96 percent.

Read more.

Early Action Update

I get a Calvin and Hobbes comic strip in my RSS feeder every morning and this one came up a few days ago. I thought it might make you all laugh. If you're feeling stressed about college applications or impending AP exams, just remember: Few of us are prodigies, but at the very least we can all say that we're potty-trained.

We're working hard to review the applications of our Early Action candidates. We ended up receiving just under 13,000 applications for Early Action, which is slightly less than the 14,000 that we received last year for our first deadline. We think the decrease is mostly due to the fact that our deadline was two weeks earlier this year. We won't know until after our final application deadline on January 5 how many applications we'll get in all. In the meantime, we're continuing to read and re-read your applications carefully and thoroughly. We're on schedule to release EA decisions as planned by the end of January.

Today we are withdrawing the applications of approximately 200 students whose early-action applications were never completed (e.g., missing a teacher recommendation, transcript, test scores). We've attempted to contact these students by both phone and email, but please double-check your MyUNC account to make sure we aren't missing any materials from your application. If you have any questions about the status of your application, just give us a call.

Please just let me know if you have any questions!

Our Newest Ambassadors

This past weekend our Admissions Ambassadors held an overnight retreat at Quaker Lake Camp. I hear there were lots of fun games, much sharing of stories, and--captured for all posterity on video--the Wobble:

Our Admissions Ambassadors are an amazing bunch of students who volunteer their time to give tours, speak on student panels, and participate in other events for prospective students. If you come to campus for a tour or other event, these are the students who will help you get to know Carolina.

Tar Heel Blogger Jenny is one of our newest ambassadors and she just put up a post about her experiences so far. Thank you to all of our ambassadors!!

Meet our Newest Bloggers at Tar Heel Blog

Pulling my head out of a mountain of applications to say hello and introduce you to the wonderful students we've chosen to join the Tar Heel Blog this year. They're an eclectic group, with majors ranging from Global Studies to Chemistry to Exercise and Sport Science. Most of them are first years or sophomores, but they're already incredibly active on campus--LaDarian is part of the UNC Gospel Choir and the a cappella group Visions, Deen is conducting research with a professor in the UNC Neuroscience Center, and Jenny is one of the geniuses behind Carolina Advice, a web-based "helpline" for new students with questions about Carolina.

They've begun posting, so go say hello to Ashley, Carter, Deen, Jenny, and LaDarian!

Together We Are Carolina

This week, we're delighted to welcome a post by guest blogger Alexandra Kong, who reflects on her first two years at Carolina. She has kindly agreed to monitor the post for your thoughts, so please feel free to comment.

As a first-year, I arrived as an out-of-state student with no ties to the university. I knew nothing about the school’s history, tradition and distinction or – I’m embarrassed to admit – even that Michael Jordan and Mia Hamm walked through the same quad that I do every day now.

Two years later, I have taken advantage of a variety of opportunities on campus including joining a sorority, working on campus using my work-study grant and fighting against cancer with UNC Relay for Life. However, nothing has made me realize the significance of attending Carolina more than being a part of the team that made the 2011 Late Night with Roy possible.

Week after week, for hours at a time, I and the other fifteen members of the CAA sports marketing committee would talk about Late Night. A lot of candy was eaten, some ideas were thrown out and a few songs were chosen but we finally came up with a finalized show we all approved.

As the number of days until Late Night decreased, our excitement increased - that is, until we were told that a lot of our ideas were nixed. Songs, dances, skits – all gone. A few minutes of collective disappointment later, we put our heads together and threw around ideas until it was late and time for us to go home.

Despite the minor setback, I couldn’t wait to see the final outcome of all our time and effort. I looked forward to the event like it was Christmas.

On Christmas Eve, the dress rehearsal, we went to the Dean Dome where we watched the team perform the dances, got our official t-shirts and backstage passes, ran through the event schedule and received some motivational words and a signed poster from Roy. Already, I felt privileged to be behind the scenes of one of the most highly anticipated events of the year.
The next day surpassed any expectations I had about the event. I don’t remember not smiling from the time I checked in at 3 p.m. until the end of the scrimmage, save the occasional Miami fan sighting or when I was nearly trampled by fans who wanted their light-up Styrofoam giveaways.

I was literally floored by the entire experience, and I even got my two minutes of fame when I went onto the court to hold a carton of Goldfish during the Harris Teeter promotion.

Being a part of Late Night showed me what being a part of this family is about. I have grown from the detached first-year I was two years ago into a Tar Heel, and I’m proud of it. I am so thankful for everything that Carolina has taught me so far, and I know there is still so much for me to learn.

“Together we are Carolina” was declared to be the theme for the 2011-12 men’s basketball team, but it goes so much further than that. This institution would not be what it is without the support of every single person that passes through and I’m fortunate to be able to say that I have contributed to its legacy.

--Alexandra Kong, '13
Communications Studies

Senior Gabe Whaley Wins People Mag's Hero Award

Kelsey Hammer/DTH

Gabe Whaley, one of the great students we photographed two weeks ago, has been awarded a  Reader's Choice Hero Award by People Magazine. His non-profit organization, Kicking4Hunger, will receive $10,000, which Gabe says they will be using to speed up their plans for national expansion. The DTH has the full story. Congrats Gabe!

Writing for the Daily Tar Heel

Interested in studying journalism? Did you know the Daily Tar Heel (or "DTH," as it's usually called) was recently named the best college newspaper by the Princeton Review? Over on the Tar Heel Blog this week, Maddy describes life as a DTH reporter. Check it out and ask her any questions you have about getting involved with the newspaper or studying journalism at Carolina.

Applying Regular Decision

We've passed our early action deadline, and now we're looking ahead to our final first-year application deadline on January 5, 2012. So if you haven't applied yet, you have just over two months to: 1) eat plenty of holiday turkey and pie--this is very important; 2) finish your Carolina application; and 3) oh yeah, school and sports and all the other things that you do. No worries! You can do it. 

Some students worry that applying regular decision will be more competitive, or that we won't think they are as interested in Carolina and so be tougher on them. Nope. We really don't care which deadline you choose. We offer two deadlines to give students more options, and we trust you to choose the deadline that works best with your schedule. We work very hard to make sure that each applicant is considered within the context of our entire applicant pool, so early-action and regular-decision candidates are held to the very same standards. And we review applicants solely on the basis of the information submitted within their application, so demonstrated interest on the part of the student is a non-factor. While we are completely honored to learn that Carolina is a student's first-choice college and we love meeting students on campus or during our recruitment travels, those indicators of interest are not going to play a role in our review of their application. We want all of our applicants on a level playing field, so whether you apply first or second deadline you'll receive exactly the same review.

As a reminder, regular decision applicants must apply by January 5 and will get their decision by the end of March. All admitted students from both deadlines will have until May 1 to make up their mind about whether or not they'll enroll at Carolina. Let me know if you have any questions!

Photographing Our Great Students

We held our annual photoshoot this week, taking the many student photos that will populate the emails and brochures we'll send to prospective students over the coming year. We've been doing this annual shoot for a few years now, and it's just a blast. I love getting to sit and talk with these students between shots. I thought I'd share a few of their stories on the blog today:

• Lina Carballo (seated above right) is a senior biomedical engineering student. She took us to the lab where she is working with Professor Richard Goldberg on a project to develop tools for people with disabilities. All of the students in the class are working on devices that would interpret nerve impulses to control a hand-like instrument that will move an egg from one location to another. The technology could be used to help people who have lost the use of limbs or have other physical impairments. It was pretty amazing to see. There is a great Spotlight Story on Dr. Golberg's class that describes some of the other recent projects.
• Gabriel Whaley is a senior philosophy major who, together with his roommate, founded a non-profit called Kicking4Hunger. They run free soccer camps around the state in return for food which is donated to local food banks. Their aim is to help kids develop leadership and learn about healthy lifestyles, all while giving back to their local communities. Gabriel said that they plan to expand the project across the country and even to other parts of the world. After talking to him and his roommate, I have no doubt they will make it happen!
• Lauren-Kristine Pryzant is a sophomore business and economics major who co-founded Flash! Seminars -- small, one-time seminars on a wide variety of subjects taught by top faculty members. Think flash mob but with debate instead of dancing! Next week's topic is on math and art; last week students discussed the death penalty. 

It was a fun (and tiring!) two days of photography, but we met nearly 70 students who are all doing very cool things. We'll be featuring these students in upcoming emails and other publications, so you will likely hear more of their great stories. But now I have to get back to reading applications--they piled up while I was out of the office! Thanks again to all of you who applied for Early Action. Now we are hunkering down like squirrels for the winter. But with applications instead of acorns. And we're not going to eat the applications, just read them. That was a bad metaphor. Sorry. Anyway, thank you again to our EA candidates!

Submitting Your Common Application

To all of you who have submitted Early Action applications, thank you! We’re looking forward to reading your applications and learning more about you.

There has been a bit of confusion about what exactly needs to be submitted within the Common Application in order to be considered for Early Action. You need to submit three things: your application, your UNC-Chapel Hill Supplement, and your application fee payment. For the fee, you need to complete the payment page by indicating how you will pay the application fee. If you're paying by credit card, it's ok if your payment takes a few days after the deadline to process. And if you're paying by check or fee waiver, the mailed payment can arrive at our office after the deadline.

So, when you log into the Common App and look at the “My Colleges” section, under UNC-Chapel Hill, you should see this:

Three little green triangles show that you’ve submitted these three portions of your application. School Forms can still be in progress because we don’t require those materials by the deadline.

If you meant to submit your application by the Early Action deadline but don’t have three little green triangles, it’s not too late. Go ahead and submit your application, supplement, and payment. You’ll need to choose Regular Decision within your application, as the Early Action option is no longer available. Then send us an email to deadline@admissions.unc.edu and explain that you would like to be considered for Early Action. Please also include your full name, mailing address, and date of birth in the email. If we receive your application by October 19, 2011 and you send us an email request, we’ll still consider you for Early Action.

Please let us know what questions you have.

Early Action Deadline SUNDAY October 16

Hello! In order to give you all a little more time on your applications, we'll be accepting Early Action applications through the weekend (until 11:59pm Eastern Time on Sunday, October 16, 2011). See below for more FAQs about the Early Action deadline. Thanks and good luck on those applications!

Early Action!

Our Early Action deadline of October 15 is coming up this weekend, so there are just a few days left. If you’re planning to submit an early-action application, here are some of the FAQs we’ve been getting this week:

What must be submitted by the deadline?
Only your application and the UNC-CH supplemental form (if you are submitting the Common App) must be submitted by the deadline of October 15. Everything else—transcript and counselor form, letters of recommendation, test scores—can arrive after the deadline. Even if these items arrive later, we'll still consider you for Early Action so long as your part of the application is submitted by the deadline.

We accept SAT and ACT scores for tests taken through November for Early Action and through December for Regular Decision. Just be sure to have the test report sent to us as soon as it is ready.

What happens after I submit my application?
Whether you submit the Common Application or the CFNC application, we’ll receive your application electronically on the business day after you hit the “submit” button. We’ll send you an email thanking you for submitting your application at that time. Then, within another day or so, we’ll send you a second email detailing how you can create your MyUNC account. Be on the lookout for this important email as it will include specific login information. All emails will come from unchelp@admissions.unc.edu, so be sure that your email will accept messages sent from this address. Through MyUNC, you’ll be able to view your Admissions To-Do List and you’ll also be able to view your decision when it’s ready (in January for Early Action or in March for Regular Decision).

Have you received my [transcript, test scores, etc…]?
After you create your MyUNC account, you can track all submitted materials through your To-Do List. You can see what test scores we’ve received by clicking the “View my test scores” link at the bottom of your Student Center. Please know that we are receiving thousands of documents every day so it can take a good bit of time (up to 4-6 weeks) for us to link submitted materials to your application. If you call our office, we probably will not be able to tell you anything more than you can see for yourself on your To-Do List. Please be patient and continue checking MyUNC. We’re working hard to link materials as quickly as we can.

Above all, please don’t stress about your submitted application materials! They will all find their way into your application in good time. And we don’t give any advantage to students who apply early, so a slight delay is not going to affect the review of your application in any way. Just do your due diligence in sending the materials in a timely manner, and follow up with your counselor and teacher to be sure they’re submitting their materials as well.

Keep in mind that our final application deadline will be January 5.

What other questions do you have? Please just let me know.

On the Road This Week

I'm late in getting this week's travel highlights up, but we'll be attending some great events this week all around the country:

• Together with UVa, Emory, and Notre Dame, we'll be hosting receptions on the West Coast this week for our last leg of this consortium tour. Our Director of Admissions, Stephen Farmer, will be in Seattle, Portland, Sacramento, San Francisco, and Palo Alto. Learn more and RSVP.
• On Wednesday, we're hosting a special reception for local students from the Triangle area at Panther Creek High School. Sr. Assistant Director Damon Toone will be there from 7-9pm. RSVP online. 
• In partnership with two of our awesome advisers from the Carolina College Advising Corps, we'll be attending college fairs at two Charlotte high schools this week. Assistant Director Kendra Lawrence will be helping Adviser Portia Newman at the West Charlotte High School College and Career Fair on Wed, 10/12 from 6:30 - 8:30 pm and she'll also be helping Adviser Deziree Martin at the Olympic High School College and Career Fair on Thurs, 10/13 from 6:30 - 8:30 pm.
• Assistant Director Andrew Parrish will be at the South Florida Sunshine Invitational College Fair in Boca Raton on Saturday, October 15 from 11:30 am - 2:00 pm. 

As always, check Tar Heels in Your Town for the full details of our travels. Our travel season is winding down as we prepare to begin reading applications, so we hope to see you before we hunker down for reading season!

Your Rank in Class

In my post about GPA last week, a great question came up in the comments: What about rank in class? How do we view that?

Rank in class is just about as tricky a number as GPA, because it depends so much on your school. The size of your school, the rigor of your curriculum, the academic achievements of your fellow students—all of these things affect class rank. So, as with GPA, we work very hard to understand your class rank within the context of your specific school. We ask your counselor to report your rank in class, or to estimate it if your school does not rank. We also ask your counselor to tell us about the curriculum in your school, whether they limit how many advanced classes a student can take, if there were any circumstances that limited your curriculum, and what percentage of graduates from your school typically go on to a 4-year college. All of this information taken together helps us understand the context of your school, and how you are achieving in comparison with your nearest peers.

Last year, as reported in our class profile, 80% of our enrolling class was in the top 10% of their high school class, so that gives you a rough idea of where most of our admitted students fall. But please don’t think that there is any type of cutoff. We hear that rumor a lot: “If you’re not in the top 10% of your class then you can’t get in.” NOT TRUE! We would never make an admission decision about a student on the basis of a single number.

At the heart of the matter, we’re looking to see that you’ve taken advantage of the opportunities available in your school and community by continually challenging yourself. We want students here at Carolina who are going to continue pushing themselves and their fellow students to grow intellectually and explore new ideas—both inside and outside of the classroom. So help us understand how you’ll do that. How are you hoping to stretch your mind once you get here? That’s a great thing to think about as you write your essays.

Please just let me know what other questions you have. And don’t forget that our Early Action deadline is only 10 days away. October 15 will be here before we know it!

A Typical Monday at Carolina...

Tar Heel Blogger Katelyn has just posted a fun description of how she spends a Typical Monday. From  French grammar and the study of epigenetics to a service project in the Pit and volunteering at the Craniofacial Center at UNC Hospitals, she's keeping busy! Check it out.

On the Road This Week

Travel season continues and our recruiters are traveling far and wide. Here are a few highlights of where we’ll be in the coming week:

Along with UVa, Emory, and Notre Dame, we’re hosting receptions across the Midwest and Deep South next week. Sr. Assistant Director Dave Meredith will be in Memphis, Little Rock, New Orleans, Jackson, and Mobile. Associate Director Andrea Felder will be in Lexington, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Kansas City, and Tulsa. Learn more and RSVP.

On Sunday, Oct. 2, Sr. Assistant Director Damon Toone will be in New York at the NACAC Long Island National College Fair.

We’ll be at three major CACRAO fairs this week:

• Winston-Salem on Mon, Oct. 3. Assistant Directors Jazmin Garcia Smith and Kendra Lawrence will be at the Benton Convention Center from 5-8pm.
• Fayetteville on Tues, Oct. 4. Assistant Director Melissa Kotacka and Admissions Representative Kellie Bennett will be at the Crown Coliseum from 4-8pm. 
• Greensboro on Tues, Oct. 4. Assistant Director Jazmin Garcia Smith and I will be at the Greensboro Coliseum Complex from 5-8pm. (Now, I don’t normally do college fairs. I’m more of a behind-the-scenes communications person in the office. And I’m told these large CACRAO fairs can be crazy busy, so frankly, I'm a little nervous. I’ll be the blonde at the UNC table with the deer-in-the-headlights expression. Do come and say hello to me!)

And last but not least, on Tuesday, Oct. 4, we’re hosting a reception for prospective students at Greensboro Day School from 7-9pm. Assistant Director Kendra Lawrence will be there to answer all your questions about Carolina and applying for admission. Open to all. Please RSVP here.

As always, for the full list of our upcoming travels, visit Tar Heels in Your Town. We hope to see you soon!

Consider Applying for a Global Gap Year Fellowship

Have you ever considered a gap year? More and more students in the U.S. are deciding to postpone college for one year in order to pursue travel, community service, work, or a mixture of the three. A year away from a traditional school setting allows students to gain life experience, become more independent, and re-energize before entering college. Many students choose to spend their gap year on service projects, either abroad or in their own communities, while others work to earn money for college. Most students choose to travel for at least part of their gap year.

This year, UNC will be selecting seven incoming first-year students for a Global Gap Year Fellowship. The fellowship provides $7,500 to each student for use toward a gap year that combines global travel with volunteer service. Current UNC students and the Campus Y help Gap Year Fellows prepare for their year abroad and integrate that experience into their education when they return to campus.

A group of current UNC students who took a gap year have formed a student organization called GAPPL -- the Gap Year People. Their website has lots of info and resources for students who are considering a gap year. They even have a whole section for parents--mostly dealing with how to talk them into it!

Conor Farese, a student who graduated from UNC this past spring, was very active in promoting gap years through GAPPL. During his gap year, Conor had an internship with a ceramicist in Florida, worked to earn money while living with relatives in Georgia, did a NOLS course in coastal sailing in Baja California, then traveled to Tanzania on a service trip. Just hearing about Conor's experiences during his gap year always gave me goose bumps. Read more about his experiences here.

Only students who are admitted under Early Action will be eligible for the Global Gap Year Fellowship, so that means if you're interested in the fellowship you need to submit your application for admission by October 15. In early February, we'll be sending all newly-admitted students information on how to apply for the fellowship.

So if you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?

Our Newest Students

Our newest students are now a month into their lives at Carolina. It's high time we introduced them to you.


I wish we could help you know them as we're coming to know them -- as the lively people we see walking back and forth to class, or laughing with friends in the Pit, or hunkering down in one of our libraries, or playing pickup soccer at Hooker Fields.


If you visit us here in Chapel Hill -- and we hope you will -- you'll see them this way, too. But for right now, here's a brief profile of the class that just entered.


These numbers can't do justice to our students, for reasons that Julie has already suggested in her excellent post about GPA. But they'll help you get to know them a little better, at least until you come see us.


Until then, we wish you all the best.



FALL 2011 FIRST-YEAR ADMISSIONS

Applied 23,753
Admitted 7,469 (31% of those applying; 52% of NC applicants, 18% of others)
Enrolled 4,025 (54% of those admitted; 66% of NC admits, 31% of others)



FALL 2011 ENROLLED FIRST-YEAR CLASS
Academics
1st in high-school class 7% (of the 74% whose schools reported rank)
2nd in high-school class 6%
1st-10th in high-school class 43%
Top 10% in high-school class 80%
Top 20% in high-school class 95%

Average high-school GPA 4.5 (of the 91% whose schools reported 4.0 GPAs)
High-school GPA of 4.0+ 90%

25th-75th percentiles
--SAT Critical Reading 590-700
--SAT Math 610-710
--SAT Writing 590-690
--ACT Composite 28-32


Demographics
U.S. citizens 96%
Permanent residents 2%
Non-resident aliens 2%
Women 58% / Men 42%
First-generation college 18%
Carolina Covenant Scholars 12%
States represented 40 (plus North Carolina and the District of Columbia)
North Carolina counties represented 95
Countries represented 21 (plus the United States)
Sons or daughters of UNC alumni 18%

Native American 2%
Asian/Asian American 12%
Black/African American 11%
Hispanic/Latina/Latino 7%
Native Hawaiian / Other Pacific Islander Less than 1%




FALL 2011 TRANSFER ADMISSIONS -- COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
Applied 2,848
Admitted 1,048 (37% of those applying; 28% of sophomores, 45% of juniors)
Enrolled 680 (65% of those admitted)



FALL 2011 ENROLLED TRANSFER CLASS
Academics
Average college GPA 3.6
Average SAT (Critical Reading and Math) -- sophomores only 1247

Demographics
U.S. citizens 84%
Permanent residents 5%
Non-resident aliens 11%
Women 51% / Men 49%
First-generation college 24%
Carolina Covenant Scholars 12%
Non-traditionally aged 26%
From North Carolina community colleges 25%
Carolina Transfer Student Excellence Program (C-STEP) 5%

Native American 2%
Asian/Asian American 16%
Black/African American 8%
Hispanic/Latino/Latina 9%
Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander Less than 1%

On the Road This Week

Fall is travel time for our recruiters and this week many of them will be out on the road talking with students around the state, country, and world. Here are some highlights of our travels this week. For the full list, visit Tar Heels in Your Town.

• CHARLOTTE: Sat, Sept. 24: Assistant Director Patty Baum will be at the Charlotte Hispanic College Fair at Garinger High School. 
• NEW YORK: Sun, Sept 25: Sr Assistant Director Damon Toone will be at the Fall College EXPO at SUNY College at Old Westbury.
• LONDON: Week of 9/25: Associate Director Andrea Felder will be visiting schools in and around London, and will be representing UNC at the USA College Day Fair at Kensington Town Hall on Sunday, Oct. 1. 
• NEW ORLEANS: Mon, Sept. 26: Assistant Director Melissa Kotacka will be at the NACAC New Orleans National College Fair.
• GREENVILLE, NC: Thurs, Sept. 29: Admissions Representative Mollie Throneburg will be at the CACRAO College Fair at Greenville Convention Center 6:30-8:30 pm.

Come out and meet us!

What Your GPA Doesn't Tell Us

GPA is a tricky number. When a student tells me what her high-school GPA is, I respond with a blank stare. I usually just make a non-committal noise in my throat and say, “OK. Now tell me what kind of courses you’re taking and what kind of grades you’re getting.” As a college admissions counselor, GPA tells me almost nothing because GPAs vary wildly from school to school. Some schools use a 4.0 scale; others use a 100-point scale. Some schools weight both Honors and AP courses; others don’t weight any courses at all. Some schools offer every AP and IB course ever invented; others offer none. So GPA is, from our point of view, pretty much useless.

When we review your application for admission, we don’t look at your GPA. And we don’t try to re-calculate it or do any kind of crazy mathematical voodoo to it. Instead we look carefully at your transcript. We look at the courses you have taken over your four years of high school, while also considering what kinds of courses your school offers. We look at the grades you’ve gotten, taking note of any trends. Maybe math is your downfall and all of your math grades are slightly lower than your other grades. Well, I can certainly sympathize with that. Math was never my strong suit either. Maybe you have one blip of a C in World Geography. Not the end of the world. Maybe you had a rocky start to high school but your grades have steadily improved over the last couple years. We love to see that.

Your transcript tells us so much more than your GPA ever could. And, as we’re doing with the rest of your application, we’re trying to see beyond the numbers to have as full an understanding as possible of your past accomplishments and your future potential. The big picture of who you are and who you’re going to become, that’s what we're trying to understand. And one number can’t even begin to tell us that.

Prof Kevin Guskiewicz Wins "Genius Grant"

Kevin Guskiewicz, the chair of the department of Exercise and Sports Sciences, has been awarded one of this year's 22 MacArthur fellowships, informally known as "Genius Grants." The $500,000 grant is intended to give recipients "unprecedented freedom and opportunity to reflect, create, and explore." Guskiewicz's research focuses on the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of sports-related brain injuries. CNN has a great story about Dr. Guskiewicz's research, including how he came to specialize in the study of concussions and other sports-related injuries.

Update: Watch Dr. Guskiewicz discuss his work in a video from the MacArthur Foundation.

Poll: What Would You Like to See on Campus?

We’re always brainstorming new ways to connect prospective students to the community here at Carolina. We know how hard it can be to get a good feel for a college and figure out whether it might be the right fit for you. Many students only get to come to campus for a brief visit, often during a whirlwind summer tour of colleges. And it’s really hard to squeeze everything we’d like to show you into a 3-hour visit. We do our best, though, and our daily tour and information session aims to give you a good overview of the school. Most importantly, you get to spend time touring campus with a current student who can give you a first-hand perspective of Carolina.

But there really is so much more to see. So this fall, we’re piloting some special visit programs that combine our information session and tour with a more in-depth look at one specific aspect of Carolina:

• Internship and Career Planning Visit: Meet with University Career Services to learn where our graduates find jobs and graduate study, and how the University helps them get there. 
• Science Visit: Tour campus laboratories and learn about some of the science and entrepreneurship opportunities here. 
• Business Visit: Tour the Kenan-Flagler Business School, including state-of-the-art facilities such as the capital markets lab. 

All of these visit programs also include our admissions information session and student-led tour.

Even if you can’t visit this fall, we’d still love to know if these are the types of programs that you would find interesting. So, give us your opinion!



Any other ideas about how we can help you get to know Carolina? Let us know in the comments!

Meet Us Out West!

We're heading west! Together with the University of Virginia and Emory University, we'll be hosting receptions this week in five western cities: Phoenix, Tuscon, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, and Denver. You'll have a chance to speak with admissions counselors from all three schools and learn more about us.

Learn more and register online.

Want to know where else we're traveling this fall? Check out Tar Heels in Your Town. We hope to see you soon in your hometown!

You’re Not Just Applying for Admission…

When you apply to Carolina, we’re not just reviewing your application for admission. We also use the information you submit in your application to consider you for a number of exciting opportunities, including merit scholarships, the Honors Program, summer fellowships, assured admission to the Business and Journalism Schools, and more. Some of these opportunities involve scholarship money, some don’t. But all of them connect you to an exciting aspect of the intellectual life at Carolina from the first day you step on campus. The great news is that you don’t have to submit any additional applications or information to be considered for all these great opportunities:

Merit Scholarships 
Last year, Carolina awarded $2.8 million in merit scholarships. We encourage first-year students to apply by the Early Action deadline of October 15 for fullest consideration for merit scholarships. Learn more about the different scholarships we offer.

Honors Program 
About 260 first-year students are invited to join the Honors Program each year. Honors students have priority registration for Honors courses, which are seminar-style classes that emphasize discussion, debate, and interaction between students and professor. The Honors program also sponsors lecture series as well as Honors study abroad and research fellowship programs.

Summer Fellowships
Last year, we started two new programs that provide students with a $5,000 award for summer study during their time at Carolina. Summer Study Abroad Fellowships allow students to use the award toward one of 81 study abroad programs in 37 countries. Carolina Summer Research Fellowships award $5,000 to students for use toward a research project of their own design.

Carolina Research Scholars Program 
Carolina Research Scholars brings together students from across the academic disciplines who are engaged in undergraduate research. First-year students who are chosen for entry into the program receive special advising that helps them navigate the research community at Carolina and network with fellow researchers.

First Year Fellows Program 
First Year Fellows connects students with the exciting opportunities and resources available at Carolina through special lectures, discussions, and excursions. Fellows are also guaranteed a seat in one of their top-choice First Year Seminars.

Assured Admission Programs 
Most students apply to the Business School or the School of Journalism and Mass Communication during their sophomore year at Carolina. Each year, though, we offer a group of new first-year students assured admission to each of these programs. Assured admission students also benefit from special coursework and advising in their first two years, allowing them to begin pursuing journalism or business study from their first semester.Learn more about assured admission to the School of Journalism and the Business School.

So how do we select students for these opportunities? As the admissions committee reads your application, they'll also be considering you for all of the above programs. They'll be looking for the same things we look for in all of our candidates: intellect, curiosity, creativity, leadership, kindness, courage, and diversity of background and experience. Your essays and letters of recommendation are important as they help us understand who you are as a person and how you will contribute here. We want students who will not only take advantage of the opportunities here at Carolina, but who will also make new opportunities both for themselves and their fellow students.

Faculty committees make the final selection of merit scholarship and Honors candidates. For the remaining programs listed above, we survey finalists to find out which programs are of most interest to them, and then match students to one of their top choices. So if you're chosen as a finalist, you'll be able to tell us which program is the best match for you.

Ready to apply? Get started!

500 Awesome Things About Carolina

Tar Heel Blogger Julia has started a new blog project called "500 Awesome Things About Carolina." Above is a photo of her Awesome Thing #496: the Sunset Serenade, which is a yearly concert given by the a cappella groups during Week of Welcome. Julia is a sophomore here, and plans to count down 500 of her favorite things about Carolina by the time she graduates. So head on over and check it out. Julia, along with the rest of our student bloggers, loves hearing from prospective students in the comments or through email, so be sure to reach out to them if you have any questions about life at Carolina.

2011 UNC Graduate Selected as State Policy Fellow

2011 Carolina graduate Francinia McKeithan has been selected to serve as a 2011 State Policy Fellow along with four other top graduates from around the country.

The highly competitive State Policy Fellowship Program aims to analyze the impact of budget and policy choices on low-income people. The program has received more than 600 applicants in its first two years.

McKeithan will work as a research and policy analyst at an independent think tank in the program’s second year.

Read more.

Transfer Application FAQs

I posted some information for first-year applicants last week, so I wanted to follow up with some information for prospective transfer students today. Here are some questions we've been getting lately--please just let us know in the comments if you have additional questions.

Which application should I submit?
Most transfer students may submit either the Common Application or the College Foundation of North Carolina (CFNC) application. We don't have a preference for one of these applications over the other. Both provide us with the exact same information about candidates, so you can choose whichever application you prefer.

However, if you are a junior transfer applicant for one of the professional schools, you should apply using the UNC Online Application through MyUNC. These programs include Nursing, Radiologic Sciences, Dental Hygiene, Clinical Laboratory Sciences, Public Health, and Education. You can visit the program websites for more information, deadlines, and application instructions.

Do you require essays?
We ask transfer students to submit one essay. Here is the prompt: Please provide a statement of 250 – 500 words that addresses your reasons for transferring and the objectives you hope to achieve.

You'll also have the option to submit an additional statement if you feel there is any other information you'd like to provide that hasn't already been covered in other parts of the application.

Do I need to send a letter of recommendation?
We don't require letters of recommendation for transfer applicants. However, if you'd like to submit one, you can have your teacher/professor email it to us at uncsubmit@admissions.unc.edu.

**If you are applying to one of the professional schools mentioned above, you'll want to check their application instructions for any additional requirements.**

Check out more information about applying as a transfer student on our website. And please just let us know what other questions you have!

Reese News Asks "Why Carolina?"

UNC Class of 2015 Survey from reesenews on Vimeo.

In this video from Reese News, student multimedia journalists Jacki Huntington and Andrew Dye set out to discover what attracted the students of the class of 2015 to Carolina. Reese News is a digital news publication that's entirely student-run -- from reporting and editing to programming and design. Check it out!

360-Degree View of the Pit

Every year when the fall semester starts up, it's exciting to feel how much energy the students bring to campus. And nowhere is this more evident than in the Pit. The "Pit" is the charming term for the sunken courtyard in the center of campus. It's bordered by Lenoir Dining Hall, the Undergraduate Library, Student Stores, and the Student Union. Sit here at lunchtime and it seems as if the whole student body will walk by you. Student organizations set up interest booths and hold fundraisers, friends meet for lunch, dance and musical groups hold mini-performances. My coworker Erin Breese captured a bit of the view from the Pit today on video. Enjoy!

A New Year...and Common App FAQs

It’s the first week of classes and campus is bustling. I walked by the Old Well on my way back from lunch yesterday and there was a whole line of students getting ready to take their lucky first sip from the fountain. (It’s a tradition on the first day of classes: drink from the Old Well for good luck all year. I went ahead and took a sip too. It couldn’t hurt, right?)

Here in the admissions office, with our new first-year class settled onto campus, we’re turning our attention toward the prospective students of the class of 2016. If you’re a rising senior getting ready to apply to Carolina, hello! We’re excited to work with you this year and we’re looking forward to receiving your application and learning more about you.

For those of you who are new to the blog, let me introduce myself. I’m Julie Tucker, an Assistant Director here in the Admissions Office. I, with the help of several of my fellow admissions counselors, have the great pleasure of posting what we hope is helpful information here on the blog, and we do our best to respond to all of the questions and comments that you post. I don’t always know the answers to your questions but I have gotten pretty good at scouting them out. This usually involves me pestering my coworkers. Luckily they are quite patient with me.

We’re already getting a number of questions from students who have started working on their applications, so I thought I’d share some FAQs. If you have additional questions, please let us know in the comments. (Please do read through all the FAQs and comments before you post your question though. You can also look for the answer to your question in Ask Admissions. You may well find the answer is already online!)

Should I apply through the Common Application or through the College Foundation of North Carolina (CFNC)?
You can choose whichever is more convenient for you. The questions and requirements are the same, so it does not matter to us which you choose. You’ll want to find out whether the other colleges you’re planning to apply to accept either of these applications, as that may help you decide which application to complete.

(If you’re a transfer applicant, check out our Transfer page to find out which application you should use.)

What are the deadlines?
Our deadlines have changed a bit this year, so view our deadlines here. Not sure which deadline to choose? Check out this post, where I wrote about the difference between our two deadlines.

How do I submit my supplemental materials?
When you complete either the Common Application or the CFNC application online, the instructions will give you full details on how to submit your counselor statement, teacher recommendation, and transcript.

If you’re applying through the Common Application, you’ll indicate on the application which teacher(s) and counselor will submit materials on your behalf. You’ll enter their email contact information, and the Common App will send them instructions on how to submit the materials. They’ll submit the information directly to the Common App, so they’ll only have to upload it once no matter how many schools you apply to. You’ll want to touch base with your teacher and counselor to make sure they’ve gotten the email from the Common App, and they are all set to submit the materials.

If you’re submitting a CFNC application, you’ll need to ask your teacher and counselor to submit these materials directly to us. Your teacher may submit the letter of recommendation by email (uncsubmit@admissions.unc.edu) or by mail. Your counselor may submit your Counselor Statement and official transcript through a secure electronic delivery service (Docufide or Naviance), or they may be mailed to us. Talk to your counselor to find out which method he/she prefers.

How many letters of recommendation should I send?
We only require one letter and generally find one letter to be sufficient. However, if you’d like to submit additional letters, you’re welcome to do so.

Can I submit additional materials (resume, etc?)
You’re welcome to submit additional materials by sending them directly to us by email (uncsubmit@admissions.unc.edu) or by mail. Keep in mind these materials can’t be returned and we can’t view any multimedia materials submitted by mail (CDs, DVDs, bulky portfolios, etc). If you’d like to share artwork or multimedia work, the best method is to display it online through a website, blog, or online portfolio. You can then include the URL in your application.

Whenever you submit materials to us by mail or email, it’s very helpful if you include your full name and date of birth, so we can easily match it to your application.

How many essays are required?
Check out this post for a full listing of our essay prompts. You’ll choose one prompt from the Common App, and one prompt from our supplemental form. (If you are applying through CFNC, all of these prompts are listed on the main CFNC application, and you’ll choose two.)

When will you receive my application?
Whether you apply through the Common App or CFNC, we won’t receive any of your application information until 1-2 weeks after you submit your application online. After we receive your application, we’ll send you an email with instructions on how to set up your MyUNC account. You’ll be able to track the status of your application and, when the time comes, view your decision through MyUNC.

What do I do if I have technical problems as I complete the Common App?
The Common App has a huge online help database called the Knowledge Base. It is full of helpful information. If you don’t find the answer to your question there, you can contact them online for more help.

What other questions do you have? Please let us know!

Telephone Service -- Update

Update: While we were able to re-establish service to 919-966-3621, please note that this was a temporary fix and our full phone services are not yet available. This means that if you call our office, you may receive a busy signal. We apologize; please continue to call. We hope to have our full phone service restored as soon as possible.

If you attempted to call our office earlier today, you may not have been able to reach us. We have just learned that a cable connecting our phone service was damaged today in a highway construction project. However, we were able to shortly re-establish service to 919-966-3621 through a local line, so please feel free to call back if you need to reach us. We're sorry for any inconvenience.

Alum Ryan Allis Named a Top Tech Power Player

Ryan Allis, a 2006 Economics major, has been ranked #6 on PeekYou's latest list of the nation's most influential young technology executives under the age of 30. Ryan is co-founder and CEO of iContact, an email and social media marketing platform. Ryan took the company from his dorm room at UNC to nearby Research Triangle Park, where he now leads over 200 employees. Last year the company had $38 million in annual sales.

Ryan is committed to socially responsible entrepreneurship and iContact utilizes the 4-1s Corporate Social Responsibility Model in which they give 1% of payroll, 1% of employee time, 1% of equity, and 1% of product as part of its social mission. Ryan is also the Board Chairman for Nourish International, a non-profit organization which teaches entrepreneurial skills to college students and uses the net profits from student ventures to invest in social entrepreneurs and community-based organizations in the developing world.

Read the full story about the PeekYou ranking and visit Ryan's website to learn more about him.

2012 Essay Questions for First-Year Applicants

Although the first-year application for Fall 2012 admission isn't ready just yet, we have finalized the essay prompts we'll provide for applicants. So if you want to get a jump-start on your application, you can begin thinking about your essays over the summer.

On the application, we'll ask you to provide two essays:

Essay 1. Choose one of the prompts below and respond in an essay of 250-500 words. (These are the essay prompts provided by the Common Application.)

1. Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you.
2. Discuss some issue of personal, local, national, or international concern and its importance to you.
3. Indicate a person who has had a significant influence on you, and describe that influence.
4. Describe a character in fiction, a historical figure, or a creative work (as in art, music,science, etc.) that has had an influence on you, and explain that influence.
5. A range of academic interests, personal perspectives, and life experiences adds much to the educational mix. Given your personal background, describe an experience that illustrates what you would bring to the diversity in a college community or an encounter that demonstrated the importance of diversity to you.
6. Topic of your choice.

Essay 2. Choose one of the prompts below and respond in approximately 500 words.

1. What’s your latest discovery? What do you hope to learn next?
2. Tell us about a time when you failed. How did you react? What if anything did you learn?
3. Tell us about a time when you struggled to convince someone of something you believed to be right. How did the process go? What was the end result?

We hope these prompts will inspire you to write an essay that expresses your unique voice and helps us understand your personality and passions. (And what do we think makes a good essay? We've posted some advice about essays on the blog in past years, so check it out here and here.)

You may have noticed that some of the prompts above come from the Common Application. Yes, that's right, this year we'll be accepting the Common Application. We'll also continue accepting applications through the College Foundation of North Carolina (CFNC). You can choose to submit either the Common Application or the CFNC application--whichever is more convenient for you. We'll have more details on our website in the coming weeks and the first-year application will be available in early August.

In the meantime, good luck on your essays!

Final Waitlist Update

Today we released final decisions for the remainder of the first-year waiting list, so all students should now be able to view these decisions on their MyUNC. In all, we offered admission to about 200 students from the first-year waiting list this year, most of whom were North Carolina students. Unfortunately, we just didn’t have many extra spaces for out-of-state students.

For those of you we were not able to admit, we wish you the very best of luck at your chosen schools. You are outstanding students and we wish that we had room for you here. But we know that you will do extraordinary things wherever you go.

For the third year now, we are offering a small group of our waitlisted first-year students the chance to participate in a sophomore-guarantee program. If you are chosen for this program, you will receive a letter in the mail this week. Read the letter carefully as it explains the program and tells you what you need to do to accept a position. If you do choose to join the program, you will be guaranteed transfer admission for Fall 2012, given you meet the program requirements. Your decision to join this program is not binding, so if you decide you are happy at your chosen school, you are under no obligation whatsoever to transfer to Carolina.

And even if we weren't able to offer you a sophomore guarantee, we hope you'll keep in touch with us if you are interested in transferring to Carolina in the future.

Thank you all for remaining on our waiting list. We are honored by your interest in Carolina, and we wish you a wonderful summer and an exciting first year of college. Please just let us know if you have any questions.

Advice for Enrolling Students

If you're part of the new class of students joining us this fall, you probably have a lot of questions about getting ready for Carolina. Your Orientation session will hopefully answer most of them, but there are also some great resources online that can help you connect with fellow students and ask your specific questions.

Carolina Advice is a site created by current students to answer new students' questions. "First hand advice from former first-year students who have stood in your shoes."

And you may well have already found the UNC Chapel Hill Class of 2015 Facebook page, but if not, join the conversation!

Any other online resources for new students that you all have found? Let us know in the comments!

Waiting List Update

To all of the students who have remained on our waiting list, thank you for your patience. We know how difficult it is to wait, and we are working hard to finalize decisions as soon as possible.

Transfers: We have now made final decisions for all transfer applicants. If you were on the waiting list, you may now log into your MyUNC to view your final decision. Letters will follow within the next few days. Because we had such a strong response from our admitted students, we unfortunately ended up having almost no space for waitlisted transfer students.

First-Years: We have not taken any further action on the first-year waiting list, though we hope to have more news soon. We promise to have final decisions to you by June 30, if not sooner.

Resolving the waiting list is difficult, particularly because every student on the waiting list is a student that we would love to have here. Again, we thank you for hanging in there with us. Please let me know if you have questions.

A Second National Championship in Collegiate Journalism

For the second year in a row, Carolina has finished first overall in the Intercollegiate Competition of the Hearst Journalism Awards, often called the Pulitzers of college journalism.

December 2010 graduate Arkasha Stevenson won the individual national championship in photojournalism, and senior Margaret Cheatham Williams of Charlotte won the individual national championship in multimedia.

Read more on the Journalism School's website.

Photo by senior Margaret Cheatham Williams, who won the individual national championship in multimedia. See more of her work.

Plan Your Perfect Visit to Carolina

Summer is college tour time! We get the chance to meet so many outstanding students during the summer--students who travel from near and far to tour our campus and learn about our community.

If you're planning to visit colleges this summer, we hope Carolina is on your list. The very best way to find out if Carolina might be the right fit for you is to step onto our campus, talk to current students, and picture yourself here.

Our office offers student-led tours and information sessions daily during the week. You can also sign up to attend a class on the day you visit.

But what else should you see and do during your trip to campus? You could spend days here exploring our campus and the surrounding communities of Chapel Hill, Carrboro, and Durham. Since you probably don't have days (and possibly only a few hours) to get to know our campus, we want to be sure you get to see the things that interest you most.

We asked our Admissions Ambassadors (the friendly students who lead our campus tours) for their ideas about what prospective students should see and do during a trip to campus. We compiled their recommendations online to help you plan your own Perfect Carolina Visit. Check it out.

If you need any help as you plan your visit, please just ask. We hope to see you in Chapel Hill soon!

UNC Senior Chosen for History Research Program

Kristen Maye, a rising Carolina senior, has been chosen for a five-week history research program in New York City this summer.

A 2008 graduate of Independence High School in Mint Hill, Maye will be among 10 Gilder Lehrman History Scholars selected in a national competition.

The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, a nonprofit organization seeking to improve and enrich American history education, chooses top undergraduate American history majors for the program. The scholarship covers travel to and from New York and five weeks of living expenses.

Read more.

Update on First-Year Waiting List

We write to let you know that we have just released offers of admission to a small number of students from North Carolina. These students will see their decisions on their MyUNC and will receive admission packets next week. At this time, we have not denied admission to anyone on the waiting list, and we will continue to monitor the responses we receive to ensure that every available space is filled.

If an admitted student applied for financial aid by March 1, the Office of Student Aid will be providing financial aid awards as soon as possible on MyUNC.

We thank you for your patience and your continued interest in us. All students who accepted a position on our waiting list will receive their final decision no later than June 30. For the latest information from our office, please continue to visit this blog.

Transfer Enrollment Deadline Extended Until Monday, May 16.

We recently sent an email to admitted transfer students reminding them of the transfer enrollment reply deadline. If you’ve already enrolled, welcome to the Tar Heel family.

Please note that MyUNC will be down for routine maintenance beginning at 5 p.m. on Friday, May 13 until 8 a.m. on Monday, May 16. For this reason, we are extending the reply deadline until Monday, May 16, 2011 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time (10:59 p.m. Central Time, 9:59 p.m. Mountain Time, or 8:59 p.m. Pacific Time). We strongly encourage you to enroll online. Click here for further enrollment instructions.

If you have any questions, or if we may assist you in any way, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Learn More About Undergraduate Research at Carolina

Want to learn more about how undergraduates participate in life-changing research at Carolina?

In this multimedia slide show, you will hear six undergraduates describe their own experiences in a variety of disciplines, from nursing to geology to economics.

These students are just a few of the thousands of undergraduates who take on intensive research each year. Sixty-two percent of students who graduated from the College of Arts and Sciences in 2009-10 had received academic credit for at least one research-intensive course. College faculty reported that same year that they mentored 1,459 undergraduate research projects, including 319 senior honors theses.

Update on Transfer Credit Evaluation

We write to give you an update on credit evaluations for our admitted transfer students. Last week, we emailed credit evaluations to more than 800 students, and we hope to email the remainder by this Friday, May 6. We hope that this post and our Transfer Credit Guide will answer any questions you may have. If anything should change, we promise to update this blog as soon as possible.

If you have received your evaluation and you believe that we made an error or that something needs to be adjusted, please note that you will be able to resolve this issue once you arrive on campus in the fall either by petitioning our office or the appropriate academic department. Please simply send an email to transfercredit@admissions.unc.edu in the fall.

Please also note that we're currently concentrating on credit evaluations for admitted transfer students. We will start on credit evaluations for first-year students within the next few weeks, with a goal of finalizing this work by July 31.

Enrolling Students: How to Access the Enrollment Portlet

If you're an enrolling first-year or transfer student, you'll find many of the next steps for enrollment on your MyUNC account. By going to your enrollment portlet, you can access information about housing, orientation, required health forms and more.

Only students who have indicated that they will be enrolling at Carolina and paid their enrollment deposit will have access to the enrollment portlet. Keep in mind that it can take 24-48 hours for an online payment to clear, and a bit longer for check payments sent by mail.

To access your enrollment portlet, log in with your Onyen and password. Click the "About" link at top left. You enrollment portlet should then appear. Please let us know if you have any questions!

Senior Wins Fiction Writing Contest

Senior Adam Price has been selected as a fiction winner in the Intro Journals Project for his story, "D-League." Price, an English major with a minor in creative writing, developed the work during a year-long Honors in Fiction Writing class. "D-League," which tells the story of a point guard trying to make his way to the NBA, will be published in the Mid-American Review. Read more.

Transfer Waiting List Update

We apologize for the inconvenience but we've learned that some candidates have received an error message when attempting to accept a place on our transfer waiting list. If this happens to you, please try again later. If you experience this error again, please contact the UNC Help Desk at (919) 962-HELP.

As a reminder, the deadline to accept a position on our waiting list is May 5, 2011. For more information, please see Questions About the Transfer Waiting List.

Update on Transfer Decisions

Thank you for your patience as we finalize our decisions for transfer applicants. We plan to post decisions for applicants whose applications are complete sometime on Friday, April 15. We're sorry, but we do not know an exact time.

Below are the steps to view your decision when they are available.

To view your decision:

1. Log into MyUNC.
2. Under the link to your 2011 Fall application, select “View Official Test Scores, Outstanding Items, and Application Status.”
3. Your Student Center will appear. Under Admissions, select “Click here to view your decision.

In order to view your decision, please note that, if applicable, the pop-up blocker feature on your computer must be disabled.

Internet Explorer

1. In the menu bar, go to Tools and navigate down to “Pop-up Blocker Settings.”
2. Click on “Turn-Off Pop-up Blocker.”

Google Toolbar

1. Click the Google Pop-up Blocker toolbar icon.
2. The Pop-up Blocker icon should read “Popups are okay.”

Mozilla Firefox

1. In the menu bar, go to Tools and navigate down to Options.
2. Select “Content” tab or icon.
3. Uncheck box labeled “Block pop-up windows.”

AOL

1. Click on “Blocking Pop-ups” at the bottom right corner of the AOL window.
2. Uncheck box labeled “Suppress pop-ups from websites I visit.”
3. Click “Save” button.

Yahoo Toolbar

1. Click on the Yahoo Toolbar's popup blocker icon option arrow. This arrow is pointing down beside of the popup blocker icon.
2. Click on “Enable Pop-up Blocker” to uncheck.

Chrome

1. To allow blocked pop-ups when you're already on a site, follow these steps:
2. Click the “Pop-ups Blocked” alert at the bottom right-hand corner of the browser tab.
3. Select the pop-up that you'd like to allow.
4. If you'd like, select “Always show pop-ups” from (site).

If you're using Google Chrome Beta for Windows, the site is added to the exceptions list, which you can manage in the Content Settings dialog (go to Tools menu > Options > Under the Hood to open the dialog box).

If you're using Google Chrome Beta for Windows, you can also disable the pop-up blocker completely. Follow these steps:

1. Click the “Tools” menu.
2. Select “Options.”
3. Click the “Under the Hood” tab.
4. Click Content settings in the "Privacy" section.
5. Click the “Pop-ups” tab.
6. Select "Allow all sites to show pop-ups." You can make exceptions for specific websites by clicking Exceptions.
7. Click “Close” to save your setting.

Safari

1. Open the Safari menu and select the “Preferences” option.
2. In the window that displays, click on the “Security” option.
3. Remove the checkmark from the “Block pop-up” windows option.
4. Close the window.

Or, for an older version of Safari, try

1. Open Safari
2. Click on the Safari Menu
3. Uncheck “Block Pop-Up Windows”

Thank you for your interest in Carolina. For the latest information from our office, please continue to visit this blog.

Celebrating Undergraduate Research

The annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research is underway today in the Student Union. The event showcases the broad range of original research being performed by undergraduates at Carolina. Browse the 105 poster presentations and 35 platform presentations online to learn more about students' research projects.

The symposium is also a great opportunity for current students to learn about how they can get involved in research and network with fellow students and faculty who have projects underway.

On a related note, the DTH has an interesting story today about the state of undergraduate research. Despite some recent budget cuts, the Office of Undergraduate Research has actually seen an increase in the percentage of students participating in research-intensive coursework. Last year, 62% of graduating seniors had been involved in undergraduate research across the disciplines. Read more.

Carolina Students Win Fulbrights, Burch Research Fellowships

Eight UNC students will have the opportunity to travel around the world in pursuit of research and service:

• Seniors Hogan Medlin and Emma Din have been awarded Fulbright grants to teach English overseas after graduation. Hogan Medlin, the 2010-2011 student body president, will be teaching in South Korea, where he also hopes to start a project to develop leadership in young people. Emma Din will teach in Colombia, where she plans to get involved in a project related to public health. Read more.
  
• Five juniors and one sophomore have been selected as Burch Research Fellows and will undertake independent research projects around the globe this summer. Read more about their projects.
  

New First Years: Don't forget to sign up for New Student Orientation!

If you're an enrolling first-year student, we encourage you to sign up for Orientation as soon as possible. The Orientation program is designed to help you make a smooth transition to Carolina, and all first-year students are required to attend a two-day orientation program. Learn more about New Student Orientation.

Carolina Sophomore Wins Peace Award

Yu Zhou, a Carolina sophomore, has been named a winner of the 2011 Davis Projects for Peace.

Zhou is the creator of Young Scholars International, a project that helps UNC students studying abroad enrich their international experience by implementing self-designed seminars in local high schools. Young Scholars International will receive $10,000 in funding for project implementation for the summer of 2011.

“Each UNC participant will have an opportunity to facilitate a discussion about an area of knowledge that they have studied and are passionate about with Chinese high school students in Beijing this summer,” Zhou said.

Read more about Zhou and the Davis Projects for Peace Award.

Student-Written Play Premieres Tonight

Have you ever dreamed of writing and producing a play?

After a 2009 performance of Tennessee Williams’ “The Glass Menagerie” by the Playmakers Repertory Company, senior Catya McMullen was inspired to try her own hand at writing a play.

And now, after a little help from UNC staff and the Department of English and Comparative Literature -- and a producer who has become a good friend -- "The Collective" will premiere tonight in the Center for Dramatic Arts.

Read more from the Daily Tar Heel.

Carolina Ranks Third In Peace Corps Volunteers

According to the 2011 Peace Corps Report, Carolina ranks third among colleges and universities for the number of students recruited as Peace Corps volunteers in 2010.

Read the 2011 Peace Corps Report.

Carolina also ranks 9th nationally in placement of interns with the U.S. State Department.

Read more interesting facts at UNC Global.

Steps to View Decisions

As a reminder, if you applied by our first deadline and your decision was deferred, or if you applied second deadline and your application is complete, we plan to post your decision on MyUNC on or around March 18, 2011. We expect letters to arrive by mail at around the same time or shortly thereafter.

Below are the steps to view your decision when it's available:

1. Log into MyUNC.
2. Under “AS Bachelor, 2011 Fall," select “View Official Test Scores, Outstanding Items, and Application Status.”Your Student Center will appear. Under Admissions, select “Click here to view your decision."
3. In order to view your decision, please note that, if applicable, the pop-up blocker feature on your computer must be disabled.

Internet Explorer

1. In the menu bar, go to Tools and navigate down to “Pop-up Blocker Settings.”
2. Click on “Turn-Off Pop-up Blocker.”

Google Toolbar

1. Click the Google Pop-up Blocker toolbar icon.
2. The Pop-up Blocker icon should read “Popups are okay.”

Mozilla Firefox

1. In the menu bar, go to Tools and navigate down to Options.
2. Select “Content” tab or icon.
3. Uncheck box labeled “Block pop-up windows.”

AOL

1. Click on “Blocking Pop-ups” at the bottom right corner of the AOL window.
2. Uncheck box labeled “Suppress pop-ups from websites I visit.”
3. Click “Save” button.

Yahoo Toolbar

1. Click on the Yahoo Toolbar's popup blocker icon option arrow. This arrow is pointing down beside of the popup blocker icon.
2. Click on “Enable Pop-up Blocker” to uncheck.

Chrome

1. To allow blocked pop-ups when you're already on a site, follow these steps:
2. Click the “Pop-ups Blocked” alert at the bottom right-hand corner of the browser tab.
3. Select the pop-up that you'd like to allow.
4. If you'd like, select “Always show pop-ups” from (site).

If you're using Google Chrome Beta for Windows, the site is added to the exceptions list, which you can manage in the Content Settings dialog (go to Tools menu > Options > Under the Hood to open the dialog box).

If you're using Google Chrome Beta for Windows, you can also disable the pop-up blocker completely. Follow these steps:

1. Click the “Tools” menu
2. Select “Options."
3. Click the “Under the Hood” tab.
4. Click Content settings in the "Privacy" section.
5. Click the “Pop-ups” tab.
6. Select "Allow all sites to show pop-ups." You can make exceptions for specific websites by clicking Exceptions.
7. Click “Close” to save your setting.

Safari

1. Open the Safari menu and select the “Preferences” option.
2. In the window that displays, click on the “Security” option.
3. Remove the checkmark from the “Block pop-up” windows option.
4. Close the window.

Or, for an older version of Safari, try

1. Open Safari
2. Click on the Safari Menu
3. Uncheck “Block Pop-Up Windows”

Thank you for your interest in Carolina. For the latest information from our office, please continue to visit this blog.

Carolina Junior's Research Goes Global

Junior physics major Susan Clark traveled halfway around the world last summer hunting tiny super-heroes who can withstand extreme conditions. These microscopic animals--known as tardigrades--can survive boiling, freezing, radiation, exposure to the vacuum of space and very long periods of dehydration. According to Clark, “Carolina is an unbelievable place for undergrads who want to do research.”

Read more about Clark's adventure and other creative collaborations in Carolina Arts & Sciences magazine.

Update on Decisions

With just days to go before our final notification date, we write to thank all of our candidates who honored Carolina by applying for admission. Over the last several months, as we’ve read your applications one by one and over and over again, we’ve been continually impressed by your achievements and your potential. We have also been humbled by your patience. You have borne this long wait with grace and good humor, and we are grateful.

We expect to finish on time our evaluations of first-deadline candidates whose decisions were deferred and second-deadline candidates whose applications are complete. If you applied by our first deadline and your decision was deferred, or if you applied second deadline and your application is complete, we plan to post your decision on MyUNC on or around March 18, 2011. We expect letters to arrive by mail at around the same time or shortly thereafter.

For further updates, including detailed instructions about how candidates may view their applications through MyUNC, please visit this blog again later this week. If you wish to be notified whenever we update the blog, please subscribe by entering your email address at right. Please note that, if you choose to subscribe, you will continue to receive notifications until you unsubscribe, regardless of the status of your application.

Again, thanks to all who’ve applied – not only for your interest, but also for your patience.

Orientation Website Will Be Down Briefly

Please be advised that on Tuesday, March 8 from 6:30am to 7:30am (EST) and on Wednesday, March 9 from 8:00am to 1:00pm (EST), the New Student Orientation Registration System will be unavailable due to server maintenance. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Carolina Senior Wins the Luce Scholarship

Cross-cultural communication and innovation are needed now to solve the world’s critical environmental problems.

So says Michael Mian, a Carolina senior whose dedication to helping people and the Earth live in harmony has earned him a 2011-2012 scholarship from the Henry Luce Foundation in New York City.

The Luce funds a year of living and learning in Asia for recent college graduates and young professionals who have had only limited exposure to the continent. With 31 Luce Scholars since the program began in 1974, Carolina leads the nation in its number of Luce recipients.

Read more from UNC News.