UNC-Chapel Hill Special Opportunities - Your Reply Needed‏

<p>My D has not received a notification for one of the special opportunities, so I asked about it on the UNC Admission Blog. For those of you that have not heard anything about the special opportunities, Julie on the UNC Admissions Blog says they are continuing to send out email notifications this week and that notifications will be followed by a paper letter.</p>

<p>unc1957: how do you ask a specific question on the admissions blog…i don’t see anything there re special opportunities, nor do i see a place to ask a specific question directly to Julie. please share?</p>

<p>Look at the comments on the post for orientation. My question and her response is at the end.</p>

<p>Son got email inviting him to join the Research Scholars Program. Anyone know anything about this program?</p>

<p>D also got the email inviting her to join the Research Scholars Program. She is disappointed because she wanted the summer abroad option. She is still deciding whether she is going to attend UNC and the summer abroad option would have tipped the scale towards UNC. She did get a $2500 merit scholarship, so as her mom I am happy about that.</p>

<p>I also got the Research Scholars Program…not too excited about it. As a possible IR and History double major, research is not something I’m that interested in at the moment although it will be nice to make some connections. I was also hoping for the summer abroad option but I’m just glad I got any money from them.</p>

<p>I am a parent and daughter not here to ask so I am a little confused. You have to be invited to apply to first years fellows or study abroad? I know you can’t apply for honors program or scholarships but these other opportunities seem like something that would you would apply for separate from application???</p>

<p>CarolMerrill -</p>

<p>Well, technically speaking, you do apply for scholarships and the honors program. It’s just the same exact application you use to apply to UNC in the first place. But still, your daughter should be able to apply for the Honors College at the end of her first semester or second semester, presuming she didn’t get in. UNC’s honors program is extremely accessible, and if she keeps her grades up and gets involved, there’s no reason she wouldn’t get in (if she hasn’t already). </p>

<p>And no, you get to apply separately for studying abroad (though I don’t know much about first year fellows, so I can’t speak for that)! The opportunity that the other members are discussing is the chance to get a 5,000 grant to study abroad over the summer, offered as a choice to a select number of students in an email we all got about a month ago. But you can still study abroad no matter what! :)</p>

<p>Got the Research Scholars Program, pretty pumped!</p>

<p>What I am understanding is that all the special opportunities - study abroad, first year fellows, honors program, scholarships, etc. ARE decided upon from your general application to the school. There is not a separate application that you need to know about and apply. Right?</p>

<p>CarolMerrill, that is my experience. My son did not apply to anything extra but was invited to the Honor’s Program, got the special opportunities invite, and Scholarship Day.</p>

<p>Got it. I am assuming that the students receiving invitations to scholarship day, etc. had perfect scores on SAT or some other criteria that would place them above the other high achieving, super smart UNC kids. Now let me ask this…will all the opportunities that are supposedly available to UNC students be available only to a select secret group or is there an open application where a normal UNC student can apply?</p>

<p>I honestly don’t know. They told us at Scholarship Day that is wasn’t scores that got them invited there. For every one student invited, there were plenty more woith the same scores. They said they chose them based on the Teacher Recommendations and Essay sections of the application. Not sure if that is how all these special opportunities work though. They did say 300 are chosen for the HOnors program and the 140 at Scholarship Day are part of that 300. I know you can apply for the Honor program later, so I imagine it is the same for all of them.</p>

<p>Yeah, as far as I know, no one who got the email (with the enclosed “special opportunities” like the first year fellows or the study abroad/research grants) applied for it – it was just determined by the general application. </p>

<p>And I’ve had the opportunity to talk with the admissions counselors on numerous occasions, and, like NC Mom said, they really stress the importance of essays and teacher recommendations. I mean, I got an invite to Scholarship Day, and I definitely didn’t have a perfect score on the SAT, so… it’s holistic.</p>

<p>Anyway, the opportunities available to UNC students are going to be available to all UNC students. You can still apply separately for the Honors Program, studying abroad, research grants, what-have-you.</p>

<p>It’s way more than just test scores. I can honestly say this because I got a 36 (act) and wasn’t invited to the honors program.
To answer an earlier question, I do believe you can apply for honors once you get to UNC. You don’t even need to be in the program to graduate with honors.
As for criteria that they look for, I would say that grades, test scores, and even extracurriculars aren’t as important as your essays. It’s a strange way to determine academic performance, but somewhat refreshing.</p>

<p>On a completely different note, has anyone else been accepted to multiple programs out of the five options?</p>

<p>The special opportunities email helps match a small group of admitted students with a number of awesome programs and resources at UNC-Chapel Hill before they enroll.</p>

<p>That said, once enrolled at UNC-Chapel Hill, any student can indeed also apply for similar opportunities.</p>

<p>Grants/Funding: There are a number of study abroad fellowships, summer research fellowships, research grants, etc. that all students can apply for ([see</a> a list of some of the internationally-focused awards](<a href=“Home - UNC Global”>Home - UNC Global)).</p>

<p>Programs: The Honors Program, Research Scholars Program, business school, and journalism school all accept applications from current students. And there are a number of similar programs that only accept applications from current students.</p>

<p>Merit Aid: While it selects most students while they are seniors in high school, the Robertson scholarship also [allows</a> first-year UNC and Duke students to apply](<a href=“http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/2011/03/robertson11.html]allows”>http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/2011/03/robertson11.html). And UNC juniors are eligible for the [Eve</a> Carson Scholarship](<a href=“http://evecarsonscholarship.unc.edu/]Eve”>http://evecarsonscholarship.unc.edu/).</p>

<p>Yes, upon admission, UNC-Chapel Hill matches a select group of admitted students with special opportunities that they might be interested in. Yet tons of awesome opportunities still await every UNC-Chapel Hill student.</p>

<p>Out of curiosity, has anyone else received the Summer Study Abroad Fellowship? I know one person mentioned that they’d received it, but… I haven’t heard anything yet, so I’d just like to know if I can stop hoping for an invitation every time I get an email, haha.</p>

<p>is the summer research fellowship of $5000 truly beneficial? does it lead to better research opportunities later down the road?</p>

<p>Yeah, they already sent out the summer study abroad notifications. Not that many people on here posted about it but I haven’t heard about any second batches of emails for the same opportunity. The only one I don’t remember hearing about is the journalism school. I was really disappointed about that as well…I should’ve written something but as an IR major I would’ve thought that study abroad would make sense.</p>

<p>Sorry for bumping this, but did anyone ever hear about assured enrollment in J-School?</p>