<p>Now that the school year has started, can anyone comment on how the school is doing? Are current students happy? Any recommendations for current high school seniors?</p>
<p>At this point, it’s too early to tell. The students do seem to be happy at this stage. If you’re in-state, you may want to schedule a tour and check it out. If nothing else, seeing them build the school from nothing is pretty impressive. :)</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/article1981378.html”>http://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/article1981378.html</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://www.theledger.com/article/20140917/NEWS/140919279”>http://www.theledger.com/article/20140917/NEWS/140919279</a></p>
<p>It is impressive. </p>
<p>Is the one building the entire school? Where is the dorm? It looks like an Epcot building. </p>
<p>We stopped and looked at the school after a trip home from Disney. It is beautiful inside and my daughter was so excited. I am a teacher and I had never heard of this school. I was very impressed with what we could see. It was not an official tour, but my daughter went right home and filled out her application. She is also interested in UF and UCF. She wants to do something in the science/ tech field and loved what she saw. My only concerns is that it is really small. So, I am interested in seeing the plans for the future. We are signed up for an informative movie session at our local movie theater in November. </p>
<p>My son applied and was admitted to both UCF and Florida Polytechnic, so we drove to Lakeland to check it out this past weekend (not on a tour but you don’t really need one to see 4 buildings). The school is in the middle of nowhere. There is that big elliptical feather building and a completed (and populated) dormitory building located 1500 feet away. There’s a separate admissions building that looks like an old gas station with rollup doors and there’s a police/“safety” department building. Except for the food on campus, there is NOTHING (and I mean NOTHING but pasture land) around for miles (p.s., the coffee shop and cafe were both closed but there are vending machines for drinks). The campus itself has extensive roads and streetlights and lots of room to grow – which it doubtless will. The place reeks of pesticide and the “moat” around the feather building has bubblers to aerate the water to prevent mosquito larvae. We overheard a faculty member saying, “yeah, we need to get the whole building pressure washed every month since mosquitoes seem attracted to the bright white color”. Looking closely at the building, there are millions of bodies of dead insects stuck to the powder coated metal. Saturday at 4 p.m. the 50,000 square foot (or so it seems) feather building had 5 people in it… 2 kids in the upstairs computer lounge/study area and said faculty member showing a couple around. Because it’s STEM-focused, it will probably become a highly-competitive school; however, at present, this school is not sufficiently established and lacks surrounding community infrastructure for us to consider it further. I wish them good luck but sincerely hope my son doesn’t want to go there. I read that this school was rammed through the legislature by a corrupt politician who owns a lot of land out near Lakeland… don’t know whether its true or not, but it certainly would explain this museum of modern art in the middle of nowhere. In 20 years, this college will probably be fantastic; for now, the reality is that this school is too small, too isolated, and too new for me to support my son going there. If your kid plans to attend FPU, do yourelf a favor and be sure to visit and make up your mind for yourself rather than spending too much time on their admittedly slick website. Don’t let the high-tech website lull you into thinking that it’s the next MIT. It’s not - and won’t be – at least not for another quarter century’s worth of growth.</p>
I don’t think it is as bad as Orlandodad says it is, but I think some of what he says is true. It is in the middle of no where, and from what I understand, that was on purpose for room to grow. I can’t say too much about it yet, other than what friends who live nearby have said about the school. My daughter and I are planning a visit next week. I think for some kids, this definitely would not be the school for them, but for some kids who don’t want to be part of the giant institutions in Florida, this would be great for them. My oldest daughter went to UCF for a year and hated it. Since she was a commuter, having to deal with parking alone is a nightmare, and it is like that every day. But UCF is a great school, and both of my kids have friends in engineering at UCF, and it is the place to be for engineering. But most of the people that I have asked agree, UCF is great, the place to be, but they hate it. Florida Poly interests my youngest daughter, who is a senior in high school, because it is small. She is shy, not into partying and sororities, so the size of this school is very appealing to her. She knows that it is a risk with it being new, but she’s very excited about things that she has heard from a few of her close friends who have toured the school and were impressed. One of her friends is already certain that he is going here. We will see when we take our visit. My husband is not so sure either, and I’m sure he will see all of the negative things that I don’t see, but who knows until we visit.
The housing is separate from the rest of the building, and very impressive. They have already finished Phase II and are beginning work on the next phase. We have heard that there is a Publix grocery store five minutes away, so at least you can get a sub for lunch if you get sick of the school food.
It could be at the very least, another year for the school to receive accreditation. The average is 4 years and the paperwork was just submitted this summer. For out of state students, this could be problematic since they will not be eligible for federal student loans. In state students have lower in state tuition as well as Florida BrightFutures. It may also impact students ability to secure certain interships, jobs and attend grad. and professional schools. The school must show a 10 yr. growth plan to accomodate 5,000 students with labs, classrooms and dorms. This is entirely dependent upon securing funding from Tallahasse. As a Floridian and watching how this has been a highly contentious political football, I would hesitate in seriously considering attending until the school receives accreditation.
I’m so glad to see this thread! For awhile I was combing CC for recent info on FL Poly (in fact, think that’s how I found CC).
Our son went to an info session last year and was very interested. My husband has the same concerns as @ECmotherx2 . It’s tough because our son has other opportunities with scholarships from ABET accredited institutions. Son has been accepted (it was his first acceptance which was neat). We would probably want to see some scholarship money come in (besides Bright Futures).
I love how the dorm is right next to the main building, and I think they are all suite style. Sometimes it’s tough for me to imagine our son at a large, spread-out school. He also does not care about college sports.
I had heard that internet connectivity was spotty in the dorm (don’t know if that’s still the case). Seems a bit ironic at a tech university.
I was really hoping to hear from current parents/students on how this last year went.
My husband and I took our daughter for a scheduled tour yesterday. I was very impressed. The campus has gone from 523 students, as it states on the website, to over 900. They had to turn some of the single dorms into doubles…which they were set up for anyway, they are quite spacious, because they had more kids than they anticipated. They do have 4 bedrooms, each room being it’s own room, but those are now for upperclassmen. The new housing will be done by this summer, and it is freshmen housing, which all of those will be like the traditional dorm rooms with 2 bedrooms on each side with a shared bathroom in the middle. As awesome as the building looks from the outside, it is even more amazing on the inside. It looks like something out of a sci-fi movie. They now have 63 3-d printers, more than any other college in the nation, I was told. The dorms are right next to the Wellness Center, which has the dining area. There is a Barnes and Noble book store and a Starbucks.
My daughter just loved the small feel of the school. I think she would be much happier at a smaller school like this. I am not so worried about accreditation as some others are. I know it will happen. This is a state school, I just keep thinking there is no way the state would have put all of this money into this school, for it to not get it’s accreditation. It will happen. If Gulf Coast got theirs, this one surely will as well.
My husband, who is not so easy to impress, was impressed. Very much so. My daughter has already been accepted, but she is waiting to see if she is accepted to the other Florida schools. I think she is leaning towards this school though. It is less than an hour from home. She likes that she can come home on the weekends if she likes, and she is a bit nervous about being too far from home. We are only 20 minutes away from UCF, which is the other school that is a strong possibility, but there are so many things about the school that she doesn’t like, the size, the parking, which is terrible, and not being able to sign up for the classes that you need because they are instantly full 15 seconds after registration opens, hence the nickname, U can’t finish. My oldest daughter went to UCF for a year, hated it, transferred out to a smaller school. UCF is a great school, I don’t mean to bad mouth it, at all, it is just a complicated school to deal with.
I think anyone that saw this school a year ago would be very impressed with how far it has come in the year that it has been open.
My friend was interested in this school for her son and was told it is not eligible to use Florida pre-paid (neither tuition, fees and housing) and/or Bright Futures. Does anyone know if this is still the case?
Florida Polytechnic Is the new Harvard
They do allow Florida pre-paid and bright futures.