<p>So I saw you need some athletic activities for the Moorehead. I have none, in fact, i'm kinda fat, weighing at about 150 pounds. Are my chances gone because I eat a few too many cheetos? Btw im a junior now.</p>
<p>First of all, you need to spell it correctly…it’s Morehead…</p>
<p>Secondly,“athletic vigor” is indeed one of the four cornerstones of the program. That said, you don’t have to play a team sport but they expect candidates to have some degree of physical activity as a part of their lives…hiking, rowing, cycling. running, etc…</p>
<p>FWIW, I don’t recall ever seeing a Morehead who was seriously overweight…they might exist but I haven’t seen one in the over 8 years that I have been observing the program.</p>
<p>The current student-body president is a Morehead scholar and, no offense to him, but he is a little chubby. So there’s hope for you. </p>
<p>[Membership</a> list - Board of Trustees](<a href=“http://www.unc.edu/depts/trustees/]Membership”>Trustees adopt comprehensive approach to curating and teaching campus history - The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)</p>
<p>150 pounds is fat? For a guy???</p>
<p>^ agreed, I’m 165 and run a 4:25 mile, I wouldn’t consider myself out of shape but maybe you have no muscle which would suck for you.</p>
<p>Ok maybe im not like obese but I am definitely not competent for athletics… So do you think I should just ride my bike everyday from now on? Would that count? I also do skiing occasionally but very few times.</p>
<p>I am currently in contention for the Morehead (had semifinalist interviews on Wednesday)and worried about my chances as well since I do not play any school sports because I did not have time. However, I began to work out last year every other day and run almost daily to gear up for the selection process. The interviewers gave me no questions about physical prowess since they could see from my application and from my figure that I paid at least some sort of attention to athleticism. I was asked on the application 5 ways that I stay physically active and was relieved to be able to actually come up with 5 different ways, which included helping set up tables at community service events and playing pick up games with siblings and neighbors. My assumption is that your chances will not be deducted if you do not play sports as long as you show dedication, so my advice to you if you want to be considered for the Morehead-Cain is to begin to devote yourself to a healthy lifestyle. 150 pounds is certainly not fat by any means, unless you’re the height of an eight year old, so consider yourself lucky that you don’t have a tremendous amount of work to do to lose excess weight. The scholarship process is so competitive that someone who does not show physical dedication will not stand a chance- they are looking for people who exemplify their ideals and then reach for more. My advice to you is to find ways that you can work out without hating it; I thought I would despise it and actually began to love it. You cannot fool a Morehead interviewer, so if you are truly aspiring to become a part of the program then it is up to you to show it. Good luck, and remember to keep up the grades and community service as you begin to tone up!</p>
<p>Lol, I’m about 5 foot 7 inches so the height of a 9 year old would be about me… But yeah, I guess I should start exercising… Btw do you have any other tips on the Morehead? 2 girls at my school are seminalists. I was really surprised because their SATs were not superb. One was about 1800 I think. Do they really not care too much about standardized tests?</p>
<p>They do not place too much emphasis on test scores, but you should have a reasonable score comparable to the top competitors in your demographic. If your score is not the best, your grades should be. From my impression, what they are looking for are the most well-rounded students in NC and in the country. The interviews are not challenging if you are confident with your experience as a leader. Also, most students have one particular thing that make them stand out- for example, I won a grant from the Pepsi Refresh Project to start an anti-violence movement when my community became plagued with murders and was later featured beatboxing in a commercial for the Refresh Project. If you have not already found that unique thing that hardly in other student in the state or country can boast, you should do so. This could be range from winning difficult competitions in a particular field to starting an organization to leading a meaningful service project. However, this one thing alone will not gain you acceptance. On top of this, you must make sure to maintain a high standing in academics, focus heavily on community involvement, and begin to establish dedication to physical health. It is an intense process and you will likely be sleep deprived at some point or another, if not all the time, but the rewards are unmatched and can literally change the direction of your life entirely.</p>
<p>This reply is not directed at any single poster. I hope this will help.</p>
<p>As the parent of a former Morehead Scholar one thing I can tell you with absolute certainty is that no one can really “prepare” themselves to be a candidate because being a Morehead is really not about any one academic accomplishment, activity, resume line item or EC. It’s about ** who you really are as a person, not what you appear to be. ** By now, for the most part, that has already been determined.</p>
<p>Sure there are the four cornerstones (leadership, scholarship, moral force of character and athletic vigor) but they really are more of a guideline that is designed for the selection process without which there would be many thousand more applications submitted. </p>
<p>Being a Morehead is not about how many “skins you have on the wall” as you try to build the perfect resume but rather about why you have the interests and most importantly the passions that shape who you are…it’s about your heart, your character and your vision for the future…these things cannot be manufactured for a competition and those that try to are easily sniffed out. They (the M-C Foundation) are VERY good at what they do…they can “see” what a potential M-C Scholar looks like because they have a fifty year old template that has been refined and updated regularly. </p>
<p>Its about being the kind of person you want to be, and being it to the fullest without regard to personal recognition…i.e. doing what you do because it really matters not because it looks good on your college application or will impress your teachers, parents and friends.</p>
<p>The many Morehead Scholars that I know were not shaped or crafted but rather born to the role…their values, principles and passions are what makes them who they are and they are an exceptional group of young adults. They are still the same driven, passionate, caring people today, now three and four years post graduation from UNC that they were before they got there…their lives were certainly enriched by the experiences but the experiences were also enriched by them.</p>
<p>If you think this sounds like you then by all means apply, but understand that there is no magic pill or faking it in this well oiled process.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>Surprisingly enough, I broadly agree with eadad, even if I do think he’s laying it on a bit thick. </p>
<p>The selection people are looking for a certain kind of person, and it’s not clear that you could make yourself into that kind of person. Or even whether you’d want to: for people like me who have no interest at all in ‘leadership’, trying to fake it would be horribly uncomfortable and difficult, and they’d probably be able to spot me a mile off.</p>
<p>That said, there are things you can do to prepare, especially if you have a couple of years. As mentioned, there are four broad themes the committee claims to care about. This means that they aren’t necessarily looking for the smartest or brightest people – you’re not trying to get into MIT here – so if you’ve focussed so far on your grades and academics to the exclusion of all else, now might be the time to change that.</p>
<p>But yeah… you know those obnoxious kids at your school with good (if not quite top) grades who go around starting charities to help underprivileged kids? That’s really the sort of person they are looking for, and you can’t fake that.</p>
<p>Well, we missed the Morehead deadline (didn’t even know about it), but now I think it was just as well. Like keepittoyourself, DS is not particularly interested in “leadership.” He is passionately interested in music, history, and politics, and he is physically fit (he loves to hike), but he has never shown the slightest inclination to “lead” anything or anyone, except his kid brother. :)</p>
<p>In general, and not just with reference to the Morehead, this emphasis on “leadership” puzzles me. If we’re all supposed to be leaders, then whom do we lead? Other leaders? Somehow, I can’t see that working out, LOL.</p>
<p>LadyD</p>
<p>…The emphasis on leadership came from the founder of the program, John Motley Morehead, when he created the scholarship 50 or so years ago…he wanted to find a way to bring “leaders” to UNC who might otherwise not have considered the school and he used the Rhodes Scholarship process as his template. </p>
<p>Honestly, leadership is shown in many ways not always overtly…many are “quiet leaders” whose character and personality empower them to lead…and they are not necessarily the “founder of this or president of that”…that’s the one mistake I tried to allude to in my other post…students can’t “position” themselves to be a good candidate by filling a resume full of “leadership” positions…they just are good candidates…your son actually sounds a lot like many M-Cs that I have known. </p>
<p>I think the New M-C website desscribes the process and the “mission” better than they ever have before:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>keepittoyourself</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You’re right and wrong here…right about the fact that you can’t fake selflessness when kids devote their time trying to help others but but very wrong categorizing them as “obnoxious with good but not great grades.”</p>
<p>One trait that every Morehead I have ever met has is humility…they don’t wear their award on their sleeves and most people never know they are Moreheads because it’s just not something they talk about. While scholarship is only one of the four cornerstones, look at the extraordinarily high percentage of M-Cs who are Phi Beta Kappa each year, on the Dean’s List throughout their college career and at how many have won the Rhodes Scholarship.</p>
<p>From UNC website:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>eadad,</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You put my words in quote marks but that’s not what I wrote! I wrote ‘good (if not quite top)’ and what I meant is that the Moreheads will all be academically smart, with good grades, but they won’t necessarily have the best academic achievements in their county or whatever. They might be all rounders, but not all of them would have been able to get into MIT. No insult meant at all.</p>
<p>I didn’t mean to describe them all as obnoxious, what I meant is that if you don’t get into the whole ‘leadership’ deal, then a lot of it does look obnoxious. So there’s no point faking it if you’re not that kind of person. It won’t be fun and the selection people will see right through you.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Hah! Totally disagree with you on the humility point. True, I do know a few Moreheads I’d describe as humble, but one person in particular I know is famous amongst our circle for droning on and on about themself and their (relatively pedestrian) achievements. They’re not all humble.</p>
<p>Just want to point out that the rhodes uses many of the same criteria as the morehead (no surprise- the morehead is a copy of it), so them getting rhodes is – whilst very impressive – not a sign that they are academcially brilliant.</p>
<p>I feel like I should just defend myself a bit by saying that I wrote all of this to give the poster a better idea of the profile of a Morehead-Cain scholar, and to help him understand the program better. I was not encouraging him to fake it whatsoever- it was more so that he could determine whether he would be the type of student that the program would be interested in. By telling him one of my major accomplishments I was merely trying to give him an example of the types of things that candidates might pursue. Sorry if I gave the wrong impression, but I was certainly not trying to toot my own horn or give any indication that I had “faked” my way into contention. Everything, except for the physical aspect, has come naturally, and I never thought I would have had even the slightest chance at the program until after I reviewed my time in high school. Leadership cannot be faked, and anyone with the ambition to start a charitable program or found a group would need the qualities and passion of a leader to guide them through the process.</p>
<p>adhalbert</p>
<p>I never meant to imply that you had…if you took it that way, I apologize…my response came as a result of other posts I’ve seen not only this year but through the years as well as a number of PMs that I have gotten this year…</p>
<p>I was mainly trying to let people know that unlike most other scholarships, this one really isn’t one that you can “package” yourself for…and btw, you sound like an excellent candidate…if I can answer any specific questions for you feel free to PM me.</p>
<p>Good luck in the process…winning the M-C is an amazing and life altering experience…</p>
<p>I understand completely, glad to see that we’re on the same page! While looking through old posts about the program I’ve also noticed several misinterpretations and posts that could have possibly misled potential candidates, so it’s good to see someone who wants to get out the correct information. My apologies if my last post sounded too defensive- it was merely to clarify my intentions. Thanks, and I’ll certainly be in touch if any questions come to mind!</p>