What's the Real Story of High Point University

Parents Forum
121

<p>As for the finest furniture HP offers – that could be a very smart business decision, in terms of showing their support for the North Carolina fine furniture industry. </p>

<p>Plenty of things offered by top schools aren’t “academic” in nature. Mt Holyoke has an equestrian center. NU, on a lakefront setting, has extensive sailing facilities and a beach for student use. Davidson offers laundry service to students. Those are three that come to mind, but I am sure there are plenty more. Those are all top schools; is the contention here that only students at certain academic levels should have nice perks in their college settings and that students at lower academic levels should just have to settle for the basics? Are students at Davidson more “worthy” of laundry service than students at HPU because their SAT’s are a couple of hundred points higher?</p>

<p>Frankly, when I think of all the spending at many large state schools that goes towards coddling the handful of students on the football or basketball teams – all the steak dinners for them and their families that it takes to get them there in the first place, fancy workout facilities only for them, special tutors – I’d rather see that money going towards something that all the students can take advantage of, such as the ice cream truck or the pool.</p>

<p>And honestly, an outdoor pool with hammocks seems like a great idea! Is it really any different, conceptually, from the rooms with foosball and ping pong tables and card tables and big-screen TV’s that you’ll find at any standard student center?</p>

122

<p>This discussion of High Point has been fascinating. Still unsure myself if S2 will apply there as a safety school or not - but really a lot of info and opinions.</p>

<p>I want to make a comparison between High Point today and Elon 20-30 years ago. George Keller has written an interesting book, “Transforming a College” about Elon’s transformation over the past 30 years or so. Back in the 1970s and earlier - Elon was a mediocre regional college. The president and trustees made a plan and a concerted effort to completely change the school. They borrowed tremendous amounts and built more facilities, improved the grounds and landscaping, hired more and better faculty, acquired more land for future expansion, stepped up recruiting efforts, added and revised majors, and became a university. Elon today is completely different from Elon 30 years ago. And it just makes me wonder if High Point is doing the same type of transition and they have parts of it in place and parts of it will take a few more years to fully develop. I’m keeping an open mind.</p>

123

<p>@Pizzagirl:</p>

<p>Both Wellesley and Bryn Mawr are both pretty much as good as it gets, you can’t compare High Point to them in any way.
The issue I have with the OP choosing High Point is that she was good enough to get into Penn State as an out-of-state applicant, which would indicate to me that she could have also gotten into many other small LACs which would have made her happy but ALSO provided a quality education. </p>

<p>When “talking up” High Point all anybody seems to mention is the physical facilities and the amenities. When it comes to academics there is very little detail mentioned besides “it’s small” and “the professors know your name.”</p>

<p>Again, I’ve pointed out in earlier posts that I’m not seeing lots of facts to back this up. The entire chemistry department consists of three faculty members. I’m not so sure how much personal attention can be given to 3,000 undergrads by three professors. When I pointed this out, another poster countered that High Point really specializes in business. I countered that its business program is not AACSB-accredited. </p>

<p>Also, as I pointed out in another post, it would seem to me that this school is on shaky ground financially. They have a 43MM endowment, this is less than 1/10 the endowment of other schools of comparable size.</p>

<p>I find it very suspicious that their faculty directory does not include CVs of faculty members. This is the only school that I’ve seen that omits this information. The faculty have “Mr.” or “Dr.” in front of their names, but that’s all you know. You don’t know where they received their degrees or even in what subject.</p>

<p>I would not say that I’m upset about this, I just don’t like seeing people being swept up by a marketing machine, which it looks to me is what’s happening here.</p>

124

<p>Soze – You mean information like this?:</p>

<p>[Communication</a> Faculty](<a href=“http://communication.highpoint.edu/about-nqsc/faculty]Communication”>http://communication.highpoint.edu/about-nqsc/faculty)</p>

<p>I think you need to go to the web-site for the individual academic departments to find CVs of faculty members.</p>

125

<p>We toured HPU in Nov’09-we went to Chem and Math info sessions and were more impressed by the apparent investment in academics than larger schools.</p>

<p>I’ll be interested in the stats of this year’s acepted students-I do believe they will get a lot more competitive and other schools will copy them.</p>

126

<p>@hudsonvalley51:</p>

<p>You are right, some of the departments do have this level of detail on their individual department web pages.</p>

<p>But… did you take a look at the link you just provided me?</p>

<p>Some of the faculty looked like they had reasonable credentials, but it looked like (for this department anyway) that at least 1/3 of them did not have the highest possible degrees in their field (which is a widely-used metric).</p>

<p>One of the communications professors has a PhD. from an on-line diploma mill. Draw your own conclusions from that.</p>

127

<p>If you’re not going there, what do you care soze? Why don’t you stop already? Were you bullied by wealthy, country club kids at one time?</p>

128

<p>I didn’t pay a particularly close look as I have no real interest in HPU one way or another (although I do find this thread peculiarly addictive). Without checking back, I would suggest that communications departments frequently include faculty with a lot of practical work experience who may not have sought the highest academic degree possible. Some of these folks are among the stars of their department. </p>

<p>Anyway, my point was, the information is there if you seek it out. I’ll leave it up to those looking into HPU to determine whether or not faculty credentials in the departments they are interested in studying in are cause for alarm or not.</p>

129

<p>My mother in law went to High Point College in the 1940s and was amazed by the change. She was the baby of the family and not the academic in a family that sent kids to Davidson, UNC and Duke. She played tennis for four years at HP, keeps up with her dwindling number of classmates and earned her Mrs. She has had a pleasant middle class life with a super husband. For her generation, I consider the outcome good and typical. </p>

<p>Until recently, HP was a regional fallback school for nice kids who were not academic but wanted/needed a degree. Who knows what direction it is heading toward? We had a friend whose daughter went there for a year, hated it and is now at UNCG and very happy (she is artsy and would have been a better match for Guilford in terms of NC private schools). One of my co-worker’s daughters graduated from HP and loved it. She was very social, pretty and active in Greek life. She is now a successful real estate agent (though maybe not now with the economic downturn).</p>

<p>I have one big concern about both High Point and Elon- with all of the beautifying and other upgrades, they sure have tiny endowments (High Point $43,078,347, Elon- $88,800,000). Compare this to Davidson, a much smaller LAC $506,000,000 or Berry College in Georgia $686,000,000. Guilford College is much more conservative with its money and has an endowment $68,000,000-similar to that of Elon. </p>

<p>If you Google Greensboro College, it is another NC school that spent down a lot of its endowment and got into trouble, so much so it was in danger of loosing SACS accreditation. I’m not saying that either High Point or Elon would end up like Greensboro College (nothing suggests that so far). However, endowment is important in terms of the quality of students/faculty the college can attract and maintain. My older child attends Grinnell College (1.5 billion endowment) and although Grinnell has done a lot of upgrading, physically it is not a palace like HP or Elon. Their resources have been placed into hiring top notch faculty and providing students with amazing experiences for no additional charge (and nice financial aid/scholarships). Some of their money is also spent on attracting internationals and smart US kids to the cornfields of Iowa!</p>

<p>Packmom makes a good point-The mission of High Point is to attract a certain type of student. I see nothing wrong with that. Its just not the kind of school that would appeal to my kids (kind of like flavors of ice cream) :). </p>

<p>I am sure the schools my kids chose and attend would make some folks uncomfortable (folks are always shocked my daughter chose barren cold over UNC and Davidson). The school needs to feel right to the student and it sounds like it does for the young woman who posted.</p>

130

<p>

</p>

<p>OMG, that’s right!
I haven’t thought about this in decades, but you’ve just back all those horrible repressed memories from my childhood. </p>

<p>All those hours spent in the hot sun caddying for those wealthy kids. Carrying their great big golf bags around.</p>

<p>The horror…</p>

<p>The horror…</p>

131

<p>

</p>

<p>I wasn’t comparing. I was making a point about facilities. Is it OK for my reasonably smart D, looking at LAC’s, to put W/BM near the top because their facilities are head and shoulders above many other colleges, from a purely visual / aesthetic standpoint? If so, why is that not OK for a more average student to do so?</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>HP isn’t pretending to be a top LAC, though. It is what it is. A decent regional school offering a baccalaureate education. Given that’s what it is, why should it not have nice facilities? </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Not all 3,000 are going to take chemistry and/or need personal attention. How many chemistry majors are there? That’s what’s relevant - not the size of the school overall.</p>

132

<p>

Therapy can really help with issues like that so you won’t need to continue harassing and insulting young girls for amusement.</p>

133

<p>Soze - you do seem rather invested, though. </p>

<p>Look, lots of kids choose their college on criteria that I don’t particularly find relevant to me or mine. I have a friend whose D, a senior, has been accepted to a number of top schools - Emory, USC, Notre Dame, Tufts among them. Part of her decision-making criteria is whether there is an active spectator-sports culture and rah-rah school spirit - which pushes USC and Notre Dame ahead of Emory and Tufts in that regard. Personally, I can’t fathom using that as part of a college decision criteria – that seems about as relevant as what the school colors are. But – different strokes for different folks. If that’s what she chooses, what’s it to me?</p>

<p>Would this conversation be different if the OP’s other schools had been other small LAC’s of the same general selectivity caliber as HPU?</p>

134

<p>@zoosermom:</p>

<p>Sorry, I guess I wasn’t being clear enough:</p>

<p>Please refer to this: [Sarcasm</a> - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcasm]Sarcasm”>Sarcasm - Wikipedia)</p>

135

<p>No Soze, I was just pointing out, again, that you’ve taken your attacks to a level beyond what is decent here. I get sarcasm. Clearly, it’s you who doesn’t. I was giving you a way to back off and you just won’t take it. You are the one who doesn’t get it. Several people have told you in various ways that you’ve gone to far and should step back. You’re dealing with a young girl here (and God bless her for being so sane about it) and your behavior is ugly and reaching the point of being disturbing.</p>

136

<p>

</p>

<p>Sounds like any number of regional baccalaureate colleges. Most kids will go to work, some will go on to a graduate school, and they’ll all stay fairly local. Oh well! This isn’t Lake Wobegon – not everyone can be above average and head for HYPS!</p>

137

<p>

</p>

<p>Forget about Penn State. The OP also posted a list of smaller private LAC’s that she had gotten into upthread. None of them are what I’d term “name” schools with the exception of Rutgers. They are mostly the types of schools that likely attract reasonably average to good students from the local areas, as opposed to top scholars from all over the country. Given that – is there any reason she shouldn’t pick HPU over those schools? Is HPU necessarily any worse than those other schools?</p>

138

<p>Since the poster in question didn’t ask for opinions, but simply provided her perspective in response to the OP, soze’s issues and concerns are downright creepy.</p>

139

<p>What about the many students who do choose Penn State but chose it for “messed up Monday”, “Thirsty Thursday” or “State Patty’s Day” (which was being held the weekend of our visit much to the dismay of the residents of the town!). Are their choices more reasoned or valid than the OP?</p>

140

<p>I agree with hudsonvalley - for some reason this thread is addicting even though, like Pizzagirl, I have no dog in this fight. But I was curious about the quality of the faculty and it didn’t take me long to find this: <a href=“http://www.highpoint.edu/documents/HPU%202009.2010%20Undergraduate%20Bulletin.pdf[/url]”>http://www.highpoint.edu/documents/HPU%202009.2010%20Undergraduate%20Bulletin.pdf&lt;/a&gt; (list of faculty begins on p 199)</p>

<p>I must admit that I was pleasantly surprised to see graduates of some pretty fine institutions teaching at HPU - a very cursory look and I came up with Swarthmore, Carnegie Mellon, Vanderbilt, Smith, etc.</p>