The Daily Tar Heel's UNC Bucket List

The Daily Tar Heel has put together a list of 100 things that every student should do in their four years at Carolina. The list ranges from the scholarly (3. Explore Wilson Library's Rare Book Collection) to the exuberant (41. Dance in a library flash mob). It's a great compilation of UNC culture and traditions, and a fun read.

Check it out.

Update on Merit Scholarships, the Honors Program, and other Special Opportunities

After releasing decisions for our first-deadline applicants, we have been following up with students about special opportunities and scholarship awards. Many students have had questions about the timing of these notifications, so below are some notes about these opportunities:

Merit-Based Scholarships. First-deadline applicants who are being considered for a merit-based scholarship have been invited to campus for Scholarship Day in late March. At Scholarship Day, students take part in discussion sessions with faculty members and other scholars. After the event, final scholarship selections are decided. This year, we were able to invite about 100 first-deadline admitted students to Scholarship Day, and these invitations were mailed on January 26. Invited students are also able to view information about Scholarship Day in the Events section of their MyUNC. We will mail Scholarship Day invitations to a select group of our second-deadline candidates by mid-March.

Almost all of the merit-based scholarships offered by Carolina are awarded to the students who attend Scholarship Day. A small number of additional scholarships are awarded outside of this event; these scholarships are smaller in amount and for North Carolina residents. First-deadline recipients of these scholarships will be notified by early March; second-deadline recipients will be notified in late March.

The Honors Program. Invitations to Honors are sent directly from the Honors Program. This year, the program emailed their invitations for first-deadline admitted students the week of February 7. Mailed letters were also sent the same week.

If you did not receive an invitation to the Honors Program, you will still find several ways to benefit from Honors. You can apply to join the program after your first semester here, and any new first-year student, or any returning student with a 3.0 or better GPA, may take Honors courses; in fact, nearly a third of all the students who take Honors courses at Carolina aren't formal members of the program. Even if you choose not to apply to the program or take Honors courses, you may still write an honors thesis and graduate with honors. Honors opportunities at Carolina are incredibly broad and inclusive, and we want any motivated student to be able to take advantage of them.

Other Special Opportunities. We also offer a number of other special opportunities to roughly a quarter of the entering first-year class. These opportunities include assured admission to the Business and Journalism Schools, a special program to connect new students to our research community, fellowships for summer research and study abroad, and more. If you were admitted by our first deadline, and if we are able to offer you any of these opportunities, we will contact you by email by March 1. Admitted second-deadline students will be contacted by email in late March.

We hope this information is helpful. Please let us know what questions you have.

Update: Connect Carolina Will Be Down Tonight Feb. 21

We wanted to let you know that our online system, Connect Carolina, will be taken down briefly for maintenance tonight Monday, February 21, between the hours of 6 a.m. and noon. This means that our online application and certain functions of the MyUNC portal system will also be unavailable.

We apologize for the inconvenience, and as always, we appreciate your patience.

First Generation Student Wins Scholarship to Cambridge

Christopher Carter, born and raised in the small town of Elkin, N.C. bagged groceries as a teenager. Before college, he’d never ventured more than 400 miles from home. Then he won a life-changing Morehead-Cain Scholarship to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. And next year, he'll be going to Cambridge.

Carter, a UNC senior and first-generation college student, has received a Gates Cambridge Scholarship, a merit award covering all expenses for one to three years of graduate studies at the University of Cambridge in England.

More from UNC News Services.

Update on Student Center Access Issue

We write with an update on the student center access issue for admitted students. We're still working to correct this issue, and we have fixed it in many cases.

However, if you are an admitted student and you are still unable to access your Student Center, please email us. In your email, please be sure to provide your full name. We will then work with our technical team to correct the issue within the same business day.

Also, we need to report a minor bug in the Enrollment Portlet. If you are an admitted student and you need to access links to orientation and more, you will need to login to MyUNC and then select "Apply for Admission" to access your portlet.

We apologize for any inconvenience. Please don't hesitate to email or call us if you have any questions.

Find Out What's Happening Around Campus

If you're planning a visit to Carolina this spring, we hope you'll schedule in some time to check out some of the exciting events that are happening around campus. In any given week, our community gets to enjoy everything from improv comedy shows to academic lectures, student art exhibitions, world-class theatrical productions, Tar Heel athletics, and more.

To help our prospective students find out what events are happening on the day they're planning a visit, we've started a new blog called UNC Calendar in Context. Updated weekly by a current UNC student named Cary, we hope the blog will help you all get a glimpse into what's happening around campus. And if you haven't yet planned a trip to visit our campus, we hope this will inspire you to get planning!

Student Center Access Issue for Admitted Students

Update: Thursday, February 10: We're sorry to report that we're still working on the ONYEN bug and unfortunately, admitted students who have created their ONYEN are still unable to access their MyUNC accounts. As always, we promise to keep you updated, so please stay tuned to this blog.

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We've just learned that admitted students who have recently created their ONYEN are temporarily unable to access their MyUNC Student Center. We're very sorry for the inconvenience.

Please know we're working to resolve this issue as soon as possible, and we're hopeful that this will be fixed by tomorrow. If you are experiencing this problem, again, we apologize, but it's not necessary for you to call or email us to report this issue. We hope to have it resolved very soon, and we promise to update this blog as soon as it is fixed.

Thank you for your patience.

Online Application Will Be Down Briefly Saturday, 2/5

We apologize for the inconvenience but our online application will be down briefly on Saturday, February 5, from 9 a.m. - 3 p.m. During this time, you won't be able to start a new application or access an application you've already started.

All other functions of MyUNC will remain available during this time. We thank you for your patience.

Spring Events for Admitted Students

Congratulations to all our first-deadline admitted students. Now comes the hard part – choosing a school. We know how difficult this time can be and we want to provide you with all the information you need to make a decision about your future at Carolina. Our spring programs for admitted students are a great way to get to know our campus and our community.

I can’t always promise you good weather at our programs, but I can promise you that we will do our best to show you the place we know so well—a place filled with smart, inquisitive people who have good hearts and want you to succeed. On behalf of the entire Admissions staff, let me invite you to visit us and see if Carolina might be a good fit for you.

With your letter of admission, you received an invitation to a program called Explore Carolina. This invitation contains directions on how to view this invitation (and other invitations you may have received) on your MyUNC account.

Our main program for admitted students is Explore Carolina. This program is exactly what it sounds like – an opportunity to explore all that Carolina has to offer. Most of our academic departments and professional schools are hosting open houses or panel discussions with current students and faculty to allow you to learn more about the opportunities they offer. Additionally, campus offices like Housing and Residential Education, Scholarships and Student Aid, Public Safety and Campus Health Services will be available to talk with you and your parents and answer any questions you may have.

If you visit the link to the resource page found in the program description, you can download the full agenda and plan out your day in advance. Even if you think you know everything about Carolina, I’m willing to bet you’ll learn something new at Explore Carolina.

We offer two other programs as add-on experiences to Explore Carolina. These programs are designed to help specific populations start making connections and get their questions answered. Carolina Firsts is a program for first-generation college (FGC) students. This program is designed to answer parent and student questions about academic advising and student life at Carolina; to explain how Carolina supports FGC students; and to allow students to meet faculty and staff that will be instrumental to their success if they choose to attend UNC-Chapel Hill. Students who attend Carolina Firsts should also register for Explore Carolina on February 14.

Connect Carolina is designed for students from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Students attending this program will have the opportunity to meet with Carolina faculty, staff and current students to learn about their experiences and begin making connections. Connect Carolina is scheduled for February 25 and follows the Explore Carolina program scheduled for that same day. Students attending this event should also register for Explore Carolina on February 25.

Please let me know if I can answer any questions you have about these events. We look forward to welcoming you to campus.

Dave Meredith