What stats are needed to receive an invite to Honors Carolina? Is it worth sending in a reconsideration email or should I wait until after my first semester?
Lastly, what are the pros/cons of being in the Honors program? Any comments would be appreciated!
@UNCCH2022 Admission to Honors Carolina is wholly holistic. People with high stats have been rejected while those with lower have been accpeted. Really just depends on what they’re looking for in an applicant. So, there’s no magic “stats” that will get you in. It’s really just who you are altogether as an applicant. Also, I would say compared to other schools, Honors Carolina is not all that. Anyone who is a UNC student is a UNC student. Honors Students don’t really have an edge over those to be honest.
I agree that the process is holistic and is not entirely stats based.
My OOS daughter did not make honors and never even thought about applying. She is already taking full advantage of everything that the school has to offer. Her friends in honors don’t seem to have any advantages that she can’t get as a non-honors student.
I applied for reconsideration as a point of personal pride; honestly, I was quite offended that I didn’t initially receive an invitation! Upon further inspection, I believe that it is a marketing tool used to keep relatively high-achieving IS students at UNC instead of another university.
That being said, I was accepted into the program after a week. I’ve heard of others not receiving an acceptance though. I did spend a bit of time crafting my four sentences for the reconsideration form.
@Lesjubilants Thank you for your response! I was looking at the reconsideration form and am completely stuck on how to convince them in just four sentences. Any tips on how you handled it? I’m not expecting to get in, but nevertheless want to take a shot at it.
I understand wanting to get in as a point of personal pride. As an OOS student whose school only accepts 1 student every other year ( that seems to be the pattern), my D was just happy to get in. Cornell actually takes more of our students each year than UNC.
I agree that UNC offers honors to high achieving instate students as a way to keep them from going elsewhere.
For me personally, I tried to include information that wasn’t in my UNC application. I mentioned my childhood, which was spent in museums, bookstores, foreign countries, and watching the news, and briefly explained that it fostered a strong interdisciplinary interest in the social sciences. I mentioned the research that I have done in the social sciences (something I completely didn’t mention in my UNC application, whoops). I believe I also touched upon my informal interests, briefly name-dropping my favorite book, artist, etc. My last sentence tied it together, saying how all that affected my desire to be in HC and what I would specifically take advantage of as an HC student (basically, I named a couple programs).
Just try to answer why you want to be in Honors Carolina. For me, it extended to my childhood. For you, you might want to be an intellectual in college and feel like the small classes will help you with that. Also, I used a couple semicolons and colons to help me add more information without going over the 4 sentence limit.
For my daughter I think that the biggest advantage of Honors Carolina, if she attends UNC, would be the Honors housing first year because I think it’d help her find an affinity group of friends quickly. Otherwise, it does seem like a lot of the Honors programming is open to non-Honors students who want it – the courses, applying for opportunities, etc. I’m okay with that, personally, b/c UNC has so many highly qualified students. It really wouldn’t make sense to ‘lock folks out’ of opportunities based on their application to the university – lots of growth and change happens in college. In fact, that’s kinda the whole point, lol. Going back to housing, I know some seniors at UNC now – Moreheads and such – who all found each other as first-years in the Honors dorm and they are tearing it up at UNC doing amazing things so I think that’s pretty cool. Just my two cents!
My son is the same- he’s hoping that the Honors dorms will house quieter students who like to turn in early, inspire/ egg each other to do their very best, shared interests, etc.
The non-honors dorms that my OOS daughter lived in for 2 years were both very quiet- she never had to go to the library unless she wanted a change of scenery. You will find that many/some of the honors students actually live in the non-honors dorms because they find very similar students … who are not in honors …who they connect and choose to live with. I am not trying to influence anybody against living in honors… I am trying to make people aware that many studious kids who go to sleep early, study and work hard etc… live in the non-honors dorms and never have any issues with noise, parties, etc.
My daughter lived with Morehead and honors students… not in the honors dorms.
I think what I am trying to say is that overall, the campus does not have a party atmosphere ( parties are typically off campus) and from my daughter’s experience, the dorms are quiet. As with everything, there will always be exceptions… but those exceptions will be in both honors and non-honors dorms.
My D connected so well with her roommate ( in honors) that she ( roommate) gave up living in honors in order to live with my D. That probably happens more often than not.
Congrats to those who made honors!
The experience of my OOS daughter is pretty much the same as what @twogirls has described for hers.
@twogirls and @gandall778 – tks for your input – it’s helpful!
If accepted into Honors are you guarunteed honors dorms & roommate?
@ParentOf2022 You can request honors housing and thus you would room with another Honors Carolina student. My daughter has chosen to live in Granville for the first year.
@MayBIvyMomma, I know your daughter had some wonderful options. Sounds like she will be a Tar Heel? 
@crimsonmom2019 Thank you. She is waiting for Ivy Day to make the final decision but UNC is sure making it hard to turn them down. Best of luck to you as well.
@MayBIvyMomma I visited my S this past weekend while Visitas was taking place. Loved looking at all the students and parents, remembering our own excitement. Did your daughter like it and has she made her decision yet?