High Point University scholarship interviews

<p>Is anyone attending the High Point Univ. Presidential Scholarship interviews in February? I have read on previous posts from last year that some people felt the interviews were not as important as your SAT/ACT, class rank, and gpa.(as if your scholarship level was already previously determined) If anyone has interviewed in the past, any advice for preparing? How formal is this for my D? Sport coat and tie is always easy for the guys. Thanks for any insight!</p>

<p>Please let me know how your interview went, and if you end up attending High Point. The campus is so nice, and I like the size. The admissions office suggested I also persue the Presidential Scholarship and mentioned the February interviews. Please let me know your thoughts about HPU, the interview, and any other admissions insight. I’d also love to chat if you are attending HPU. Where else did you apply?
Tori.</p>

<p>My daughter and I attended the scholarship weekend last Feb. She is now a freshman at High Point. If you have any questions, I will try to answer.</p>

<p>My D got accepted to High Point…she sent in her Presidential scholarship application but we have not heard back, does that mean that she is not in the running for a scholarship, would we have heard by now? Not sure if she will be attending HPU - still waiting on decisions of our SUNY schools (where the prices are more reasonable).</p>

<p>It may still be a little early to hear. What was the deadline for submitting the application? I am not sure when my D received her invite. I am sure they will send a letter either way. Does your D’s stats fall into the scholarships listed? If they do, I am sure she will get an invite.</p>

<p>My daugher has been invited to the Presidential Scholarship Weekend for 2010. Any advice you can offer her?</p>

<p>Congratulations! You will have a great weekend. High Point really goes all out for the scholarship weekends. They really show how much they want these kids to attend the school. The first night is a very nice dinner with great entertainment, both from students and acts brought in. Also several speakers including the President. Each student also received a gift! (It rained the weekend we were there and everyone also received a High Point umbrella.)
Saturday was a full day. Each student had two interviews and several other meetings. Parents also had several different sessions to attend including an introduction to the president, financial aid session, etc. Sunday was a brunch and church if you chose to attend. There where tours throughout the weekend also.
As far as the interviews, my daughter thought the first was harder than the second. They had the students application with them and asked about their choice in a major, why they wanted to attend High Point, questions about High School, questions about the students essay, etc. There were current students, professors, and admissions conducting the interviews. Just tell your kids to be themselves and not to worry.
We attended the second weekend and my daughter received her “package” (I will not spoil the surprise) about a week later. So, if you attend the first session you have a longer wait. My daughter received exactly what we thought she would be awarded according to the website. But heard that other kids did not!
Not sure if everything will be the same this year or not with the University Center open now. Maybe you will all get a prime rib dinner at the steakhouse after a movie with free popcorn, soda, and candy! Save room for the ice cream man because he will be around all weekend too!</p>

<p>My daughter is also invited to one of the scholarship weekends</p>

<p>nastynick - I don’t know if you heard back yet or not, but our experience - my daughter received an email with no mention of High Point in the title - Scholarship Competition Update on Tuesday 1/5. Have your daughter look carefully. Her email contained the weekend she is invited and said that a formal weekend package would be arriving in the mail in the next few days. My D had contacted her area rep a few days after the 20th deadline because it was not indicated on the website that she had submitted the application. The rep said they were having problems with the checkmarks on the website and she searched their systems and said that indeed her app was received. She also mentioned that the entire school staff was on vacation until 1/4 and notifications would start going out on the 5th. She said everyone would hear one way or another by the 15th.</p>

<p>bfraz - could you possibly elaborate a little on the dress code for the weekend. The email mentioned business professional (blouse and dress slacks or skirt). Does this apply to the whole weekend? or just the interview day? How dressed up did everyone actually get - we’re going to have to go out and search for dress pants soon and it’s not easy with her long legs!! Plenty of business casual (chinos, cardigans, etc), but not business professional.</p>

<p>Also you mentioned that your daughter received the scholarship she expected based on the website (although others did not). My daughters GPA (almost 4.0) and class rank (14 and top 6%) put her in one tier while her SAT grades might put her down a tier. Based on your experience was one set of stats dominate over the other?</p>

<p>One more question if I may - since we live in NY - the entire family including her high school freshman sister would be attending - were there many siblings present??</p>

<p>Thanks in advance</p>

<p>D hasn’t heard about scholarship weekend yet…pretty sure she’ll be invited. I appreciate all the insight!<br>
Curious - do parents have to attend? Does the school offer accommodations for the prospective students? We’ve already spent money traveling to High Point from Boston to visit the campus and interview in the fall. I know it’s short money compared to the scholarship dollars involved…but I’m wondering if they are just questioning your commitment?</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

<p>This is taken from the link in my daughter’s email …</p>

<p>‘We encourage you and two guests to attend the Presidential Scholarship Program. The opening program and scholarship dinner will take place at 6:00pm on Friday of scholarship weekend. The scholarship interviews begin at 7:30am on Saturday.’</p>

<p>Still haven’t received the packet yet so I can’t tell you what other events are planned.</p>

<p>Also looked up my daughter’s email from her admissions counselor and this is exactly what it said ‘All of our Presidential Scholars will know if they are invited by mid January.’</p>

<p>We’re definitely going down with our daughter - we held off on visiting until the scholarship weekend because of the distance (planning on driving down). There were always conflicts with all of the organized open houses since she plays sports all year. Also, from what I’ve heard the High Point campus ruins a lot of other campuses (especially dorms) for freshman searching for a school - so we wanted to keep her away as long as possible!! She’s spoken in person many times to our area rep over the past 2 years when she comes up north - extremely nice young woman.</p>

<p>Do you mind if I ask out of curiousity where else your daughter applied?</p>

<p>Ours did …
High Point - EA - accepted
Siena - Fast Track - accepted, scholarship weekend coming up
Loyola Maryland - EA - accepted (waiting to hear about merit in mid-Feb - no way she goes here unless she gets merit aid)
Univeristy of Scranton - EA - accepted with dean’s scholarship
James Madison - regular decision
Union College - regular decision
Stonehill - regular decision
And finally our SUNY schools - Binghamton, StonyBrook, and a couple of others</p>

<p>We put out a wide net since final cost is going to be a major factor in where she goes.</p>

<p>Good luck and I hope you hear good news.</p>

<p>blmom14- </p>

<p>OK, for the dinner Friday night my daughter wore black dress pants and a nice dressy shirt with a light weight dress coat. You will only be outside from your car or bus to the gym (if that is where the dinner is this year.) Saturday she wore a black pencil skirt with another nice dressy shirt with a black dress coat. There is alot of walking on Saturday. Interviews and meetings are all over campus. Wear comfy shoes! I do not remember what she wore on Sunday.
I am not sure how it will work bringing more than 2 guests. You will have to talk to the school. This could be a problem for the dinner and the other meals thruout the weekend.</p>

<p>I will pm you about my daughters GPA and SAT scores.</p>

<p>Wait until you see the campus! Hopefully you will have better weather than we did! It is true about this campus ruining other campus. This was the first school my daughter toured and she compared very school to it.</p>

<p>To the other poster about sending your student alone. Yes, you can do it. They have transportation to and from the campus from the airport and hotels. We did meet a girl who was alone. I would try very hard for at least one person to go with your student. There is alot to do during the weekend, but there is also alot of waiting around for the interviews and the info sessions. Some kids had an interview at 9am and not another until 2pm. The meals will be very lonely with all the kids meeting up with their parents. i beleive my daughter would have been miserable. I do agree that they use this weekend to get their top students back to the campus and they do a great job making everything very special for them!</p>

<p>My daughter is attending, but I am getting concerned that these interviews are more a marketing tool than real interviews. Admissions told me that 300 students are interviews each weekend. If they have 3 weekends, that means they are brining in 900 students for the interviews. Am trying to find out how may scholarships they actually give out.</p>

<p>Has anyone actually received the invitation to the Scholarship Interview via snail mail? We were hoping to have it this weekend so we could begin to make travel plans (Air Reservations, Hotel, etc.) We did not see an agenda for the Scholarship Weekend in the email that our son received, so we are not sure if we should make departure plans for late Saturday or some time on Sunday. Will the invitation also include the scheduled interview times for each student on Saturday? If any of you are familar with what the agenda will be, can you share with the others who are reading this thread? Thanks, in advance, for any information that you can share.</p>

<p>Things may be different this year, but there were activities on Sunday morning last year. You may want to wait or just give them a call and ask about Sunday’s schedule. </p>

<p>Last year the students received a package Saturday morning at their first info session with their schedule.</p>

<p>amazonmom -</p>

<p>There are only 2 scholarship weekends the 5th and the 19th - so that would mean 600 prospective students.</p>

<p>These weekends are certainly a marketing tool. The university is owned by one of the leading businessmen in the country and he runs it like a business model. It seems very important to High Point to get prospective students on the campus - from what I’ve heard the campus and the culture it sells are extremely enticing to students and parents and HPU knows it.
The scholarships range from $25,000 all the way down to $2000. I’m sure they don’t offer too many at the highest $25,000 and $20,000 level. I think there may only be 2 at $25k. I would think it would be in HPU’s financial ability to offer everyone who attends the weekend at least $2k and even many, many of the midrange $5k, $7k, and $9k awards. They realize that many of the scholarships will go unclaimed when students elect to go elsewhere.
HPU is run like a business (you have to spend money to make money, etc) and I’m sure they can conjecture what kind of merit money each prospective student might be offered by the other institutions to which they have been accepted. I would therefore expect them to provide a similar ‘counter offer’ to each student after the weekend. They are a school that is trying to continue their rise up the ranks in college ratings and are looking to get more top students in. So offering a student $2k to High Point would not necessarily be a selling point to have them select it over $10k from a school with a more established reputation and a similar final cost basis. So, the campus and the amenities experienced over the weekend give them a ‘selling’ edge. However, I would think they realize that they still need to bring the final cost to a competitive, but not necessarily equal, level of other comparable colleges from which a student has to choose. I would use the presidential scholarship page with a listing of the levels and last year’s average statistics as a general guide to what your daughter might expect to be offered. But, I am sure the interviews and other non-statistical data from the application contribute to the determination.</p>

<p>Just my 2 cents and ‘thinking out loud’ - I may be totally off base.</p>

<p>There are also many other colleges that use the ‘scholarship weekend’ model. Siena being one of them - my daughter will be attending that one. But, the one plus with Siena’s marketing of that weekend is that the invitation says that each attendee WILL receive a scholarship worth at LEAST $8k per year. Siena’s costs are very similar to High Point’s.</p>

<p>Does anyone know if students are assigned a certain interview weekend (5th .vs. 19th) based on a certain criteria or if it is a random assignment?</p>

<p>Thank you for all of the additional insight that has been provided since my last post. From a historical perspective, does anyone know what percentage of the students, that attend the scholarship weekend, are actually awarded any of the available scholarships?</p>

<p>My D thinks she saw somewhere that only 50 presidential scholarships are awarded. That sounds awfully low to me given the fact that 600 students are invited (acutally mandated) to attend the weekend. We are still deciding whether it is worth it, given her other acceptances at less expensive state schools. We have already visited and yes, it is a lovely school. I am sure she will get a good education wherever she goes.</p>

<p>Google was my friend this evening … substantiated my suspicions …</p>

<p>I found a college visit questionnaire that was filled out by an admissions rep from High Point. The document was dated September 30th, 2009 so the information is current (although I am not sure whether the number quoted refers to what was offered for the 09-10 year or what is in the plans for the upcoming 10-11 year).</p>

<p>Copied from the doc …</p>

<ol>
<li>Does the school have merit based scholarships? How do students apply?
Presidential Scholarship, 550 offered, several tiers that vary in monetary award</li>
</ol>

<p>550 vs the aforementioned 600 (if that is an exact figure or just rounding provided by the admissions office?) would probably account for the number of people who they expect will not attend and their policy of ‘if you don’t come, you don’t get’.</p>

<p>Rdy2sendhimaway - I don’t know if you received the invitation in the mail yet or not - but it was in our mailbox this afternoon.</p>

<p>Registration is at 6:00 pm on Friday. There are no activities on Sunday - the last planned activity on Saturday is a president’s reception at 3. Interviews take place on Saturday from 9:00 to 3:00 - student’s must be on campus for breakfast and to pick up their individual schedule at 7:30. Various activities and meetings for parents (along with breakfast) on Saturday.</p>