<p>to all the people who read The Gatekeepers, have any of you had the strange experience of coming up with information about Julianna Bentes or have read an article she wrote for the Yale Daily News? I think its so funny/weird when I hear about her every now and then, becuase she was treated like a mythic character in the book - The Girl No College Turned Down... Raised in the amazon! Spoke English as a second language! She was the applicant every other applicant fears, including myself. And now she's apparently active at Yale... interesting.</p>
<p>Bentes was in the class of 2004, according to this article.</p>
<p>Looks like she was the victim of a related harassing email:
<a href="http://www.crime-research.org/news/11.01.2005/890/%5B/url%5D">http://www.crime-research.org/news/11.01.2005/890/</a></p>
<p>"The Girl No College Turned Down"</p>
<p>She applied for the Morehead at UNC, and was turned down. Just goes to show how selective that program is.</p>
<p>Is the Morehead similar to the Jefferson Scholarships at UVa?</p>
<p>Yes, the Morehead is similar to the Jefferson Scholars program. It's a full scholarship that comes with perks. Study abroad is included, and there are enrichment programs for the students.</p>
<p>I just finished the book last night. Wow! I'm so jealous of her.</p>
<p>It is my understanding, from reading The Gatekeepers, that the scholarship is, for all practical purposes, limited to N.C. residents. As Bentes did not live in N.C., the odds were stacked something like 95-5 against her.</p>
<p>Oh my gosh, I just read the gatekeepers two days ago! Did she write for the YDN? It didn't occur to me that she was real..haha I sort of hate her</p>
<p>Just for some clarification:</p>
<p>First off, it is not the Morehead State scholarship; Morehead State is a university.</p>
<p>The Morehead Scholarship was founded in 1951 as the first non-athletic scholarship ever offered in the US. John Motley Morehead, a UNC alum and the founder of Union Carbide, created the Morehead Foundation to bring scholars and students who displayed outstanding scholarship and leadership who otherwise might not have considered UNC to the school. </p>
<p>Several year ago through the generous donation of over $100 million dollars by the Cain family who in fact had no ties to UNC, it became known as the Morehead-Cain Scholarship.</p>
<p>Any student who is a resident of NC can self nominate/apply, every HS in NC has a number of students it can nominate, and there are more than 150 OOS nominating schools across the US with more in Canada and across the UK which can each nominate one student per year. From an initial pool of over 15,000 they select approximately 150 finalists who are them invited to UNC for Finalist weekend where the winners are determined.</p>
<p>Historically the winners break down in an almost even split between in-state and OOS students so the odds are not stacked against OOS students. The Jefferson at UVA was actually modeled after the Morehead and in fact, its first executive director came from within the Morehead Foundation staff.</p>
<p>The Scholarship pays for four years tuition, a laptop, room, board, and books and includes a generous living stipend. There are four fully paid experiential living components that begin the summer after your senior year of HS; Outdoor Leadership, Service, Travel Study and an Internship. Other than the Outdoor leadership portion which is 3-5 weeks in length, the other summers are 9-12 weeks long and can be whatever and wherever you can imagine.</p>
<p>My S turned down Yale in 2004 to accept the Morehead and spent his Service summer in a small fishing village in Senegal 90 km south of Dakar working in a clinic in the mornings and with an NGO in the afternoons, his Travel Study summer was based in Paris traveling Europe and attending music festivals to study the culture of those attending them and he did his internship doing research at a hospital affiliated with a top ten medical school. He is currently an MS1 (first year med student) at another top ten med school.</p>
<p>The great majority of those who win the award have been accepted to HYPMS. In his incoming class of scholars alone five others also turned down Yale, three turned down H and P and several including a double legacy turned down S.</p>
<p>His roommate at Finalist weekend turned down the award (which not many do) to attend P and through the years told him that he had some regrets about doing so.</p>
<p>It is an incredible opportunity for those fortunate enough to have the chance to be considered for it.</p>