<p>I just got an Honors invitation to UNC. But, when I was reading the admissions blog, I saw that scholarship day invitations already went out. Has anyone heard?</p>
<p>Yes, we received the Scholarship Day invite a week ago.</p>
<p>collegej2 – not to worry, with your stats! Go to UNC Admissions blog: They explain there that some scholarships are being awarded apart from Scholarship Day, via snail-mail. Notification will go out (again, via snail-mail) within the next week or two.</p>
<p>No word here re either scholarships or Honors. Honors not a big deal to us; $$$ more important. Still hoping for one of those scholarships-in-the-mail thingies mentioned at the UNC Admissions blog. DS does not have collegej2’s SAT I stats – only 2100 (we should have had him retake, waaaah) – but he did really well on SAT IIs. And today we found out that he has made National Merit Finalist. (woohoo!) And we’re in-state. So, crossing fingers and praying a lot…</p>
<p>Was the invite to scholarship day sent via email or snail mail? Also, does it change on your unc events portal thingie?</p>
<p>^For me, the scholarship day showed up first on my unc portal and then by snail mail soon after. I didn’t receive an email.</p>
<p>Scholarship Day invitees and Honors admittees…can y’all share your stats? My in-state DS just found out that he’s a National Merit Finalist, but apparently that’s not enough to warrant either a scholarship or an Honors invite. Even the fact that he excels in a super-rigorous curriculum apparently cuts no ice. And the fact that he lives in a very under-represented NC county seems to matter not one whit. Yes, I know, I know; scholarships are few and far between, and only the best and brightest qualify, yahda-yahda-yahda. But NMFs are in the top 1-2% in the country and certainly in the top 1% in North Carolina. Guess I still can’t figure out what gives.</p>
<p>(Yes, I’ll have some cheese with that whine! ;-))</p>
<p>scholarships depend on more than just a PSAT score</p>
<p>Lady Di,
If it’s any consolation to you at all, I totally get where you’re coming from. (Obviously your student has far more going on than just a PSAT) The whole scholarship invite thing is as bewildering as the the acceptances in my mind. I saw stats posted that if accurately stated, begs the wonder of how some were chosen above others who apparently had better (albeit marginally) stats. Hard to say what other criteria played a role in selection. Eeny-meeny-miny-mo? Clearly some offers & scholarship invites were extended only to end up in file 13, & again, that’s a shame. As I’ve said before, I am positive that some applied out of curiosity w/no actual intent to accept, regardless of decision or other offers. You can’t really blame the Admissions office. I’m sure that combing over 14K+ applications is a daunting task, one I’m equally sure They take seriously. But they’re human& even the most astute are fallible. Maybe they pared the list several times & in the end, used a lottery system…who knows! But don’t clean out the wine cellar just yet! Additional scholarships will be awarded & you might need something to celebrate with! Cheers!</p>
<p>I don’t know how UNC picks students for scholarships and honors. The admissions’ office must pull top students and interesting students, but after that I believe there are separate committees that choose who to invite to honors and offer scholarships. Last year, 29 students from my son’s school were accepted to UNC. Of those 29 students, 2 received scholarships, my son being one of them. Our school doesn’t rank, but if they did, there were several of those students who would have been ranked higher than my son. I have to believe that UNC really does consider more than just a student’s stats. There was something about his application that caught their eye…recommendations, ec’s, course rigor, his essays? I have no idea. My son was also invited to be a First Year Fellow and a Research Scholar, but not invited into the Honors Program. I gave up trying to figure it out.</p>
<p>Lady Di
It is time to move on! Accept the fact that UNC is not able to give all kids with good stats meirt scholarships. Maybe he will get one of the later scholarships ,maybe not. If meirt money is needed, consider one of the schools that “buy” NMF.</p>
<p>I truly believe that every parent/child on this board is a great, conscientious student worthy of admittance and scholarship. It is all a numbers game. I have another son who plans on going to the Univ. of Miami. Those posts are going crazy about who received scholarships and who didn’t. Someone there suggested that the schools might put students in buckets and choose the top students in those buckets, ex. west coast students, east coast, in-state, URM, majors, etc. The thinking being that all the scholarship money wouldn’t end up in one academic/regional area. That would mean a student in-state in the engineering dept. w/o a scholarship might have better grades than some URM from Nebraska who got a scholarship. It may not seem fair but does make some sense to keep the campus diverse. My S who plans on attending UNC received the University Scholarship (24K/yr) there and others with higher SATs did not get any. It doesn’t make sense and to make it worse my son who plans on going to UM didn’t get any. Too bad I can’t transfer his brother’s scholarship! I truly feel everyone will end up where they belong and somehow the numbers will work. Good luck to everyone.</p>
<p>Thank you, mommydeerest and BUandBC! And mabel and saturnine…I don’t need this right now; sorry. And yes, thank you very much, DS had a TON more going for him than just his PSATs. </p>
<p>Yes, DS will probably end up going to Bama, which does indeed buy NMFs. But yes, he would also prefer to stay in-state, if possible. Seems to me that UNC-system schools are really short-sighted in allowing this brain-drain.</p>
<p>Take Appalachian State, for instance. They went out of their way to invite DS to apply for a Chancellor’s Scholarship because of his National Merit standing. So, he did. Found out today that he didn’t make the cut for Scholarship Day interviews. Ohhhh, they said, they had so many talented applicants – with average SATs of 1330! DS’s SAT scores were higher than that, but I guess AppState must be using the New Math. 
</p>
<p>Sometimes I cannot help suspecting that DS is being penalized, in part, for being home-schooled. It’s interesting: The nation’s top universities (Harvard, DH’s alma mater, springs to mind) have had lots of experience with home-schooled kids and know how academically advanced they can be. But other schools seem not to be able to handle the unconventionality of home schooling. If it doesn’t fit their grid, their little matrix of AP courses and weighted GPAs, then they can’t wrap their minds around it. </p>
<p>I just got back from a doctor’s appointment. During the long wait in the waiting room, several of us struck up a conversation. One guy observed, “I wonder why Modern Chervrolet chose to relocate in another land-locked location.” The lady sitting next to him, who had been a teacher in the NC school system for over 30 years, did not know what “land-locked” means. I am not making this up. These are the people teaching the students who attend the conventional schools and fit the conventional template. (NOTE: No, I am not knocking NC teachers in general–and it’s certainly not the students’ fault that public school teachers aren’t always rocket scientists. My point will become clearer in the next paragraph. [Just trying to deflect the Stuff before it hits.])</p>
<p>Yet people think we’re weird for home-schooling. Well, I’ll tell ya – maybe we don’t fit into the APs-and-Weighted-GPAs grid, but at least we know what “land-locked” means. (And the difference between “your” and “you’re,” too, I might add.)</p>
<p>Sorry if I sound bitter. Let’s just say that there’s a lot behind it, not just the UNC situation. And no, I don’t need to be told that it’s time to move on. I doubt that there’s any rule against venting one’s disappointment on this board, as long as we’re not rude to each other in the process.</p>
<p>rio–I get the diversity thing. Apparently it does not extend to poorer, rural NC counties, though, which surprises me. One would think that NC already has more than enough scholarship kids from Wake and Mecklenburg…but apparently not. :p</p>
<p>DS had a fantastic teacher rec and stellar essays (his strong suit), and his curriculum could scarcely be more rigorous. His ECs were weak, though…he hasn’t saved the world lately. I guess maybe that’s what did it.</p>
<p>Lady Di
I was not being rude- that was my heartfelt advise to you. Many of our kids have had disappointments in college admissions and at scholarship days.</p>
<p>I hope your bitterness does not impact your S has he makes his college choice.</p>
<p>I do not think it weird to home-school. I think it takes an enormous commitment and I applaude families that make that commitment.</p>
<p>Mabel, I was not accusing you of rudeness at all! I was just saying that I think it’s OK for me to vent and whine at CC as long as I’m not being rude to *you<a href=“or%20anyone%20else”>/i</a>. </p>
<p>Thanks…sorry for being so unclear!!</p>
<p>For context: It’s been a bad week. UNC Asheville did not even deem DS worthy of applying for a crummy little scholarship worth as little as $1,000. (At UNCA, you have to qualify to even apply for these scholarships. Talk about bizarre.) Then UNC…then AppState. I was starting to feel like we had cooties or something, LOL. </p>
<p>Bama’s still there for us, thankfully. I am so grateful to mom2collegekids for alerting me to the Bama full ride for NMFs!</p>
<p>Lady D. What rubs a little is the way you sometimes lash out at the universities that don’t reward your son with scholarships. As I said once before, and will say again, UNCs advantage for your son may be that in Chapel Hill he would be one bright fish in a sea of many, many bright fish. In other words, the fact that he does not stand out enough to receive merit award at UNC may ironically be the very reason to send him there. He’s had a fantastic education. Now maybe it’s time for him to be around and learn alongside other kids who have also worked hard and accomplished much in their lives.</p>
<p>I can’t resist relating this: Many years ago, I worked in a pathology lab w/ 2 Carolina grads ( both w</p>
<p>Sorry- posted too soon-- anyway the 2 grads had BS in Biology. NEITHER knew what the term, “necrosis” meant. I was astounded & figured at that time that Carolina was, well, not all it was cracked up to be.</p>
<p>smbsmom–I don’t think you get what I’m saying. My fault, no doubt, for not making myself clear enough. (Also my fault for venting in such an emotional heart-on-sleeve way. It was pure unprocessed regurgitated disappointment. I’m just feeling low at the moment. If you cannot understand why, that’s fine, but please…in the immprtal words of Bob Dylan, “don’t criticize what you can’t understand.”)</p>
<p>OK, full disclosure time. I really don’t think UNC Chapel Hill is all that. Heck, I don’t even think Harvard is all that. In fact, IMHO, nothing is all that in this postlapsarian world. The hype always outstrips the reality, as numerous student reviews at students review dot com will testify. </p>
<p>Back in the '70s, I attended the Divinity School at Harvard, where I met my future husband, who was earning his PhD in “The Yard” (a/k/a the Real Harvard…we Div Schoolers were just poor stepchildren!). Through DH, I spent many years in close connection with Harvard, and both DH and I agree: Harvard is NOT all that. And neither is Chapel Hill, or anywhere else for that matter. Not every Chapel Hill student is a genius. Not every UNC program lives up to the hype. I’m sorry if I’m not completely intimidated, but I’m not. I’ve spent too much time in academia to be intimidated.</p>
<p>It reminds me a bit of my very first job in my current profession, advertising. The job was at Little, Brown, the prestigious Boston publishing house. The general attitude at Little, Brown was: “You should pay us for the awesome privilege of working at the august and venerable Little, Brown, publisher of Emily Dickinson, first American publisher of Keats, etc. etc.” Translation: The pay was pathetic–not enough to live on in Boston, even in those days–and the workload was insane.</p>
<p>At a certain point, you realize that you can’t eat prestige. Little, Brown was 90% hype, and so are the in-state universities who treat some of their best and brightest with airy dismissiveness. Hence the “brain-drain” to Alabama and other NMF-buying schools. At some point, it has to hurt the state of North Carolina!</p>
<p>When I interviewed at D.C. Heath (my next job after Little, Brown), my prospective boss asked me what I was making at Little, Brown. I told her, truthfully. She replied: “That’s appalling!” (I will never forget her expression as she said this, LOL.) D.C. Heath did not have the hoity-toity Boston-Brahmin-Beacon-Hill prestige of Little, Brown, but it paid a heck of a lot better, and it was far less pretentious. (It was also much more professionally run.) </p>
<p>What’s my point here? Simply this: Just as I couldn’t eat prestige at Little, Brown, I can’t eat prestige at UNC. DS will go where he’s wanted – and where his excellent home-school education will be appreciated and rewarded.</p>
<p>I think of Bama as in some sense the equivalent of D.C. Heath: less presitgious than the snooty Little, Brown, but a heck of a lot more profitable.</p>
<p>mommydeerest–I agree!</p>
<p>I am sorry for dissing the poor teacher-lady I met today…I posted in haste and with too much raw emption. I was just regurgitating my bad mood, I guess. Sorry!</p>