Much info on this site is 2 years old. Would like more current feedback from parents whose children attend now or just recently graduated as there has been huge changes in the school. Academic rigor? Safety? Drug concerns? Greek life? Would you send your child there again?
Daughter is there now… likes the school, feels safe. She’s in a sorority (likes it). There’s a party scene there (what college is different) but she says it’s more about alcohol. Her feeling is that there are quite a few kids there that don’t work hard in school and live for the weekend. She’s looking at transferring to a different school for tougher academics. Apps are out to other schools but not the worst thing if she stays. We parents like the school, no complaints (except “why don’t they have housing for adults?”)
By daughter had two friends that started there in 2015, they both transferred out for their second year.
Freshmen here - I have also sent out an app to transfer. The school is for a very specific type of student. The name is not quite established compared to a larger school and I’d rather be somewhere with a track record of students who secure good jobs after graduating.
Hi @1609mom I’m a graduate of HPU and so is my younger sister! We LOVED our experience at HPU! The faculty and staff were certainly what made it feel like home for us- we, like 80% of the undergraduates, are from out of state. At HPU, we offer a wide range of majors (48 total! Plus 51 minors and 13 graduate programs)! It’s a medium sized school with a tight knit community- a place where you feel at home because folks know your name (and the President teaches a class for freshman and another one for seniors!), but always have a change to meet and work with new people too (talk about learning to network!). HPU focuses just as much on the “soft skills” as we call them as they do the stellar academics. For instance, we believe that it’s just as important to know how to look someone in the eye and shake their hand, network and communicate effectively, as it is to be an expert at your chosen field. Also, I should mention that 95% of the classes of 2015 and 2016 were employed or in one of their top choices of graduate school within 6 months of graduation!
Stop by campus for a tour- you’re welcome any time! Check this out too, if you have a minute >> https://youtu.be/creFkZW9O_k
As a parent, I have mixed feelings. I personally did not see the rigor. I found the president to be extremely responsible and I believe in him and his mission. I also know how hard it is to get a school to where he wants it to be. Rather than beat around the bush, I will just say this - this is a beautiful campus and at this time, not as competitive as it will eventually be. When it is, higher quality students will be vying to get in and that will change the culture of the college and the “country club” stereotype about it. President Quebein’s vision and reasoning behind having such a nice physical environment is to inspire students. But compared to my undergraduate experience at a religiously-affiliated institution in the Midwest, I am wary of the “type” of student referenced above by bbe267. The Greek life, as described by my child, sounds like something out of a bad 80s film. Granted, my child probably didn’t make some great decisions - in fact, I know he didn’t but I also know he felt a great deal of pressure within the greek system to be promiscuous and drink to excess. Because of so many things ( including, I’m sure, my mistakes in parenting), he was very drawn to all the “shiny” things HPU has to offer. Many of the issues with partying are epidemic regardless of the college in the world today. Binge drinking because the legal drinking age is 21 and “pre-gaming” are the norm at most colleges. I am just wondering if this school attracts a less mature or “deep” kind of student because of all the amenities, and then things spiral from there. I wish my child had gone somewhere else where he would have grown more in terms of character and community. I think he made party friends, but not the true, deep friendships I expected him to develop in college. Maybe it’s a “dude” thing - the guys make fun of each other a lot and are competitive about sex and drinking. The frats are competitive with each other, too. Sounds kind of clicky in that way…
I don’t think he was centered enough to carve out his own way and avoid the less savory stuff. You have to have a certain level of maturity and know yourself and know what you want in order to be able to resist all the partying or at least BALANCE it with growing as a human being. I know two other graduates who met there, fell in love, got great internships, are married and had a very different experience than my son - because I think they sought out the right people and found each other early on. Having the security of being a couple there would impact your social experience especially in the wild world of “hooking up.” There is no doubt in my mind the administration is aware of this and working on it - it’s tricky but at a very small school, you have to have seriously promote other options and outlets to draw students away from the stereotypical party life - HPU is still growing.
If your kid knows who he or she is, and is able to blow off peer pressure and wants HPU because of the program or major and takes the initiative to seek out the opportunities, he or she will be fine. If you have a people-pleaser kind of kid, who has always indicated a need to “fit in” and likes the “material world,” it might not be the right place. Sorry - I wanted to love it…I really did – but in terms of college developing “the whole person” - we probably should have pushed my son in a different direction. When he pulled up to visit and his name was lit up on a screen in visitor parking, it was just too much to resist. Excellent marketing of prospective students, but be careful.
Hi. I just wrote a review. The alcohol issue has been problematic for us - we have a boy. His grades are good but I don’t feel confident about his job prospects. Not everyone gets to “love” college - he liked it well enough but I’m on the fence about it. Don’t know if your daughter decided to stay - good luck!
As parents we liked it a lot and the profile of the average student is improving every year. Not quite fast enough for my daughter, she just got accepted to a much larger Boston area school and is entering their business school as a junior. I don’t think the ratio of mature/immature students is much different than most schools that are similar.
From my daughter, most of the faculty cares and is in touch with their students. Many of the students aren’t striving for excellence (like they should) and the stereotype is that rich kids get away with poor behavior after intervention from their parents. By no means should the school develop any sort of “zero tolerance” policy, but they also need to give more than a slap on the wrist. There’s a good percentage of the student body that still is not fully vested in the academic environment… they probably need to give out some more C’s and D’s to those deserving.
CAcatDad…the profile of the average student, if you are using average SAT scores and average GPA as the measures, isn’t really improving every year. In fact, the students now, in those respects, are little different from the students at the school when President Qubein arrived.
In 2005, for example, the average SAT score for the incoming freshmen was 1023. In April of 2012, a Businessweek article reported that the average SAT score had improved to 1100. The article also pointed out, however, that the student population was by that point significantly less diverse than when Qubein arrived. African-American enrollment, for example, had declined from 24% in 2005 to 5.8% in the 2011/2012 school year. As the author observed, that alone could have accounted for the increase from 1023 to 1100 (google High Point University and the article will pop up mid-way down the page). The most recently reported average SAT score stands at 1108–just eight points higher than in the 2011/2012 school year. You will also find that the average GPA score hovers around the level that Qubein found when he arrived.
A shocking thing, in fact, if the students are now coming from families who are as wealthy as advertised, is that the stats on the incoming students haven’t really changed much. There is a very strong correlation between family income and SAT scores and GPA. One would have expected the stats to go up, but they haven’t.
Given the history, it is hard to share gimjam’s optimism about the school soon vying for more academically invested students.
Gimjan, our son was accepted at High Point in 2014 and did not enroll. It was his decision but to be honest I was very relieved, because we learned there had been a fraternity hazing death some months earlier. The most shocking part was, the fraternity pledge master was the president’s son, and while the boy was dying, he took his cellphone away and deleted his text messages so no one would be incriminated. The university didn’t take any action at all, they covered it up and the only thing that happened was the national fraternity shut down the chapter. There is a thread further down on this site where I and some other parents of accepted students talked about it.
It does seem like there is a very high tolerance for mis-behavior on that campus, sorry to say my son sounds a bit like yours and I’m afraid he could have made some bad decisions also.
Would some of recent lack of progress be related to the increase in the size of the student body? They’d need to increase their acceptances to increase the student body. Our son was accepted into the honors program and received a Presidential scholarship but in the end chose to go elsewhere. He’s not a party kid, but just didn’t feel that the academics fit his interests (computer science). Still a fan of the school, but I’d suggest a little tougher discipline is needed (and needs to be applied fairly to all students).
Qubein brought the business model to the school and the student is the customer. I think what a lot of people are sensing is that Qubein’s approach has compromised his faculty and staff’s relationship with the students.
I listened to Qubein tell a group of business people about receiving a letter from campus police/security about his son’s misbehavior. Ultimately, he and his wife concluded that the letter was not caring enough. Given that his son’s misbehavior was the stuff of legend on campus (see reporting on the alleged hazing incident), I was appalled that they could gloss over their son’s misdeeds in favor of a customer service sort of appraisal of the letter.
In the same meeting, Qubein spoke about his admiration for the customer service on cruise ships. He said that he felt that he should get his entire staff on board so that they could ask themselves what was being done on the cruise ship that was not being done at HPU.
HPU is simply ridiculous in a lot of ways.