UNC Homepages Will Be Down July 1 until August

The Office of Undergraduate Admissions will be migrating to a new information system between July 1 and early August. As a result, students’ personal UNC homepages will be unavailable during this time.

We expect to post our new online application once the migration is completed. In the meantime, if you’d like to get an early start, please see our essay prompts.

During the migration, if you’d like to register for a campus tour, please see our Visit page. If you registered for a campus tour before July 1, you do not need to register again.

Thank you for your patience as we bring up our new system. As always, if we may help you in any way, please do not hesitate to contact us.

--Stephen Farmer

Choosing Senior Year Courses

Now that we've wrapped up our work on the class that will enter this fall, we're turning our attention in earnest to the classes that will follow. If you're thinking about applying next year, I hope you've already seen our essay questions, and I wish you luck with them. And if you're still debating which classes you should take, I hope what follows will be helpful.

We generally like to see students take at least one course in each of the five core academic disciplines--English, math, foreign language, lab science, and social science--right through to the end of their senior year. We also like to see students taking the top course offered in most of these disciplines--say, at least four out of the five--by the time they're seniors.

We think this way not because this is a formula that every student must rigidly follow, but because this kind of curriculum comes closer than any other to the kind our students pursue in their first two years at Carolina. And since one purpose of admission is to make a good match between student and school, it makes sense to us to take into account the courses our candidates are taking in high school, and whether those courses match well with the courses we expect students to take at Carolina.

Again, this is general guidance--not a formula, and not a guarantee of any particular outcome, good or bad. Great students may have good and thoughtful reasons for doing something different--and if that's the case, we'd love to hear about those reasons through the applications these students eventually submit.

Good luck this summer, and beyond. And please let us know if we may help you in any way.

--Stephen Farmer

Transfer Waitlist

Thanks for everyone's patience as we've finalized the transfer waiting list. As I shared earlier this week, we had a very strong response from our admitted students, so unfortunately there have been very few spaces to offer to our waitlisted candidates.

We plan to post final decisions on your homepages by the end of the day tomorrow (Thursday, 6/4). Your official letters will arrive within a day or two after that. In all, we were only able to admit about 15 students from the waitlist. We are keeping about 10 students on the waitlist in the case that additional spaces open up in the next couple weeks. All students will have a decision no later than June 30.

Again, I'm sorry that we've had to disappoint so many of you. We had every hope of having space in the class for you, but we've just had so many talented students interested in Carolina this year. Please let us know how we can help as you move forward with your college careers, and let me know what questions you have.

Thanks,
Julie

Final 2010 Essay Questions

Thanks to everyone who voted for their favorite essay questions. We've now finalized the seven essay prompts for the 2010 First-Year Application. So now you can spend your entire summer vacation crafting your essays if you like. The rest of the application will be available by mid-August.

Below are the new essay prompts. You'll respond to two of the prompts below. One of your essays should be short (about 250 words), and one essay should be longer(about 500 words).

1. People find many ways to express their inner world. Some write novels; others paint, perform, or debate; still others design elegant solutions to complex mathematical problems. How do you express your inner world, and how does the world around you respond?
2. It’s easy to identify with the hero—the literary or historical figure who saves the day. Have you ever identified with a figure who wasn’t a hero—a villain or a scapegoat, a bench-warmer or a bit player? If so, tell us why this figure appealed to you—and if your opinion changed over time, tell us about that, too.
3. Carolina students conduct original research and work to solve problems in almost every imaginable field. If you could spend a semester researching a specific topic or problem, what would you choose and why?
4. After your long and happy life, your family must choose no more than a dozen words to adorn your headstone. What do you hope they choose, and why?
5. We tend to spend our time doing the things we know we do well—running because we’re good runners or painting because we’re talented artists. Tell us about a time when you tried something for which you had no talent. How did it go?
6. What’s the best advice you’ve ever received? What’s the best you’ve ever given?
7. If you have written an essay for another school’s application that you really like, feel free to use it as your short or long essay for us. Please be sure to tell us (a) what essay you are answering and (b) why you think this essay represents you well (your explanation will not be included in the essay word count).

Update for Waitlisted Transfers

I wanted to post a quick update for our waitlisted transfers before leaving for the weekend, though I'm afraid that I don't have specific numbers, or much further information than I have already posted in some previous comments.

Right now, it's looking like we will take only a very small number of students off the transfer waiting list (I know this raises questions, and I wish I could give you a specific number, but the truth is we just don't know yet.) The response from our admitted transfer students, like our first-year students, has been very strong and there just will not be a lot of space in the class.

We hope to resolve the majority of the transfer waitlist within the next week so that as many of you as possible will have a final decision. Most likely, though, we will not be able to post these decisions online or print letters before the end of next week at the earliest.

I will post more information as I have it. Hope you all have a great weekend.

Welcome to our new website!

If you’ve visited the Admissions website before today, you might notice that it's been completely revamped. This work has been an exciting endeavor for us, and we hope that you like our “new look.” Many of you helped shape our new site by responding to a special poll we posted on this blog earlier in the year asking for your opinions. We thank you for your input, and we hope that you'll continue to help us refine it over the next year.

While the site includes many new features—such as improved navigation for prospective and admitted students and the “Ask Admissions” tool—the most prominent change is the spotlight we’ve placed on Carolina’s strongest asset: our talented and diverse student body. From the homepage to the interior pages, you’ll have the opportunity to experience Carolina through the faces and words of our students themselves. We encourage you to visit our new and improved “Life” section for a firsthand glimpse at some of Carolina’s most accomplished and passionate students. And stay tuned for more because we hope to add video clips of these same students over the summer.

And whether you like to “scroll” or “click,” you’ll also be able to continue to check up on some familiar faces, specifically the students who post on Tar Heel Blog, from any of the main pages. (For example, select “Tar Heel Blog” from the prospective or admitted student scroll-down menus). We also hope you will continue to visit us for the latest news from our office, which we’ll continue to post on the Admissions Blog.

While our look may have changed, please know that our commitment to you remains the same. In all that we do, we want to continue to serve you. We want to help you get to know us by telling you the truth about Carolina and answering any questions you may have, no matter where you are in your college journey. Please continue to post on the blog, or email or call us with your questions.

We hope you enjoy our new look, and that you continue to keep in touch with us.

First-Year Waitlist Update

Many of you who were waiting patiently on our waiting list have now received a final answer, and I wanted to provide some context and a little more information. First off, thanks so much to all of you who have waited patiently on the waiting list. We truly appreciate how you have stuck with us through the spring, and I'm so sorry that we can't give you better news.

The response from the students we admitted this year has been extremely strong, so I am sorry to share the news that we have admitted very, very few students from the waiting list. I know this is disappointing news for all of you, and I am so sorry to have to give it.

Please know that the very fact that we placed you on our waiting list is evidence of our high regard for your abilities and potential, and also of our wish that we had room in the class for every single one of you. Unfortunately we have a limited number of spaces, and we believe we have filled them.

The majority of our waitlisted students now have a final decision on their homepage (as of late Tuesday afternoon). We wanted to go ahead and release the bulk of our waitlist as we anticipate having so little space in the class this year. We want you all to have the closure that you need as soon as possible.

We are keeping a small group of students on the waitlist in the event that additional spaces open up over the next month, though there will probably be very few spaces given how tight the class is this year. If a waitlist letter reappeared on your homepage, you are in this group of students. We promise to let you know your final decision by June 30, if not before.

I wish you all the very best as you embark on your college careers. If you still have your heart set on Carolina, please feel free to contact us about how you might prepare yourself for transfer admission next year. We are here to help. I also apologize for the lack of information lately on the blog. Waiting lists are such difficult things to predict, and I wanted to be sure I had reliable information. I wanted to be able to provide some definitive answers for you. I'm sorry for any extra anxiety it may have caused.

Please let me know what questions you have.

-Julie

P.S. For those of you who are waiting patiently on the transfer waiting list, I’ll have to ask a little more patience from you. I’ll update you as soon as I have some reliable information, probably by the end of the week. Thanks.