<p>I got in on the fun a little late. Every college serves a purpose and it is the attitude of the student and level of comfort they have in an environment that determines their success. My son is currently leaning toward the lowest “ranked” of the schools he got into (10 in all). As he pointed out to me, “What you wanted from college and the people you wanted to be with is not the same thing I want”. The OP can do anything she desires with her HPU degree. It is up tp her to determine what that is and go after it.</p>
<p>Off on a tangent but here’s a link to the Greensboro College fiasco:
[Charity</a> Governance: APPALLING: GREENSBORO COLLEGE PLEDGES CAMPUS AND ENDOWMENT TO BANK OF AMERICA](<a href=“http://www.charitygovernance.com/charity_governance/2009/07/appalling-greensboro-college-pledges-campus-and-endowment-to-bank-of-america.html]Charity”>http://www.charitygovernance.com/charity_governance/2009/07/appalling-greensboro-college-pledges-campus-and-endowment-to-bank-of-america.html)</p>
<p>Still talking about me hahaaa can’t you parents just get over it?</p>
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<p>Amen! 
:)</p>
<p>This is an interesting thread. I’ve been lurking for awhile now. I have a D who is a senior and HPU is her top choice. She’s been admitted at HPU as well as other small LAC’s in PA, VA as well as one of our state u’s. We’ve toured almost all of the campuses where she’s been admitted and yes, HPU blew us away. We toured there in the summer so we missed the 1984ish atmosphere (piped music, etc), so I don’t have that sense about it. D is graduating from a small private school and when she started looking at colleges, she looked for smaller colleges. She is my reserved child who thrives better in smaller, more intimate settings. When we visited last summer and met with the admissions counselor, one of the things that I was impressed with was that the AC knew my daughter’s school and current HPU students that were attending by name. This year alone there is almost 10% of her class attending HPU in the fall (her class is less than 100). The kids from her class that are going range come from varying backgrounds, as do the kids from her school that are already there. From her talking with students that are there now…they LOVE it at HPU. In fact, the older sister of one of them is transferring there this fall because of her sibling’s experience there. </p>
<p>That said, when her dad and I talked about where she would be going (after financial considerations), the bottom line is she needs to be where she feels comfortable. When we toured the campus, looked at the dorms, etc., D was very comfortable with her surroundings. We’ve talked to other parents of students that are attending HPU and they have nothing but good things to say. Their kids are being challenged, thriving and HAPPY. Someone mentioned the religious overtones. Now that may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it appealed to D, as her faith is very important to her. The fact that they have chapel on Wednesday evenings is a plus. They do require students to take one religion and one ethics course before graduation, as well as signing the honor code at the beginning of the year. That’s something that D’s HS does already and she takes seriously. She’s very grounded and sees beyond the fluff, knowing that she also has to put forth the effort to get the grades. Needless to say, if the financial piece works out, she will be attending there in the fall. We’re still waiting on that. Otherwise, her plan is to suck it up at our CC for 2 years and then transfer to HPU for her junior year. Either way, she wants to land at HPU.</p>
<p>Bottom line, as long as she is happy, excelling in her academics and isn’t calling home complaining, then I’m ok with it. Someone told me once that for 18 years we have chosen their paths, it’s now time for them to have some say in it. If it’s their choice, they have to make it work. It’s our job to encourage them to do their best, praise them when they do well and support them when things don’t go as planned. So, while HPU may not be the right fit for some, it is for others.</p>
<p>Sounds to me like your family knows what it is doing. Not sure why High Point gets some posters so worked up. Good luck to your D.</p>
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<p>nido qubein raised ~$66 million in his first four years as president of high point. while a lot of money–perhaps $50 million more than high point would have raised otherwise–its not an extraordinary sum within the larger small college landscape. regardless, there is no question that because of this fundraising high point is a better place now than it was before qubein arrived.</p>
<p>but at the end of the day that net of $50 million over four years doesnt really go that far, either. so as an institutional leader you have to make decisions on where that money is going to be invested. high point has chosen to invest heavily in facilities. in doing so, high point has not been able to make commensurate investments in faculty and staff.</p>
<p>annual real (adjusted for inflation) spending on administration, faculty and staff increased a cumulative $2.1 million (12%) during the first four years of qubeins presidency, from $16.9 million at the end of academic year 2004 to an adjusted $18.9 million at the end of 2008. further, enrollment grew by more than 8% during this period, cutting significantly into that 12% growth (you can decide for yourself how much additional efficiency was achieved). </p>
<p>compare those numbers to queens in charlotte, which was asked about earlier. real annual investment in faculty and staff rose an adjusted $5.3 million (49%) with a 7% increase in enrollment over the time frame presented above. annual investment at my lac alma mater was up an adjusted $6.3 million.</p>
<p>[the numbers are worse if you cut out 2005, the year of the presidential transition.]</p>
<p>in short, recent compensation figures for high points faculty and staff are pretty similar to the compensation figures for high points faculty and staff before the school became a ‘fast-rising’ baccalaureate college. and thats where i start to get bothered. </p>
<p>thats not to say i feel students at high point are getting a terrible education. but when a school is investing in faculty at the level high point is (total spending is about 50% that of sienas despite having a cost of living 80% as high. and its 20% that of wellesleys despite wellesley being a considerably smaller school), there are going to be real issues attracting and retaining great teacher-scholars. and theres not going to be a ton of room in the budget for the myriad of support positions found at many other schools, either.</p>
<p>so that is to say that investing in a larger and stronger faculty and staff to improve the student educational experience does not appear to have been a real goal of qubeins early presidency. thats a bitter pill to swallow for many who place great value in learning from the best possible faculty and thus believe that institutions of higher education should make hiring the best possible faculty a major priority.</p>
<p>for the cynic (and realist) in me, its also a brilliant marketing move. anyone who has spent time investigating colleges understands that it is virtually impossible to gather quality information on the relative strength of colleges undergraduate academic programs. heck, the primary proxy for academic strength at liberal arts colleges is selectivity. so you make the school more desirable by investing in the things that students do see and can make conclusions about on their college visits: facilities. selectivity goes up. perceived academic quality and reputation go up. and not a single cent has been spent on a stronger faculty.</p>
<p>and thats why wellesley and bryn mawr and a whole host of other schools with great facilities are different. wellesley spent $107 million on faculty and staff in 2008, more than FIVE TIMES that of high point. there are no questions about whether the school is attracting great teacher-scholars; its the highest paying liberal arts college in the country. its a wealthy school that has invested heavily in its faculty and has also chosen to also invest in non-academic ‘aesthetic excess.’ high point is not a wealthy school that has not invested strongly in its faculty that has chosen instead to invest in non-academic ‘aesthetic excess.’ and its not that stronger students are somehow entitled or worthy of this excess. its that the schools with the means to provide this excess after having invested heavily in their faculties (putting the horse before the cart instead of the other way around) are desirable and thus in a position to choose the students they want. for some reason they like to pick the academically stronger ones.</p>
<p>Out of curiosity re: the faculty debate, I took a look at the profiles of High Point’s psychology faculty (my field, obviously). The faculty seemed a little “light” on publication/presentation history, but that’s not uncommon at LACs, smaller universities, or even universities with more clinically focused psych grad programs. The faculty didn’t come from “top” programs, but they did come from ones with fairly reputations in the field. Of interests, they have no applied (clinical/counseling/school faculty), only faculty with experimental psych backgrounds–somewhat odd, but then again, not horribly unusual for a LAC or smaller U.</p>
<p>Does it strike anyone else as creepy that the admissions office had the names of 150 Jewish admits and applicants…? I don’t remember anywhere on my son’s college applications where it asked his religion… INTERRUPTION: I just went out and looked at several schools with online applications. Secular schools seemed to avoid the question, while schools which had a religious affiliation of some kind (Notre Dame, etc) DID ask the question. But it’s still creepy to have a handy list of all those who self-identified as Jewish. Am I being too sensitive?</p>
<p>Well, maybe. I’m sure students demographic data is probably sorted out in a database. They should be able to have a list of students by religion within seconds if they can readily do that.</p>
<p>If I’m wrong, then yes, it’s probably okay to be paranoid.</p>
<p>WE haven’t even looked at HPU but if my dd had a choice of Penn State or HPU, she would definitely choose HPU. WHy? Because she doesn’t want to choose a party school, doesn’t want a large university, and does want not frigid weather. Why would those be stupid things to consider? Now she isn’t applying to Penn State at all and HPU has never come up on her radar and probably is below her level- 3.93UW/4.08w, so far 27ACT on a bad test day, Honor Society, great community service, good ECs, but I think it is wise to let students and parents decide what is important.</p>
<p>dig: the only thing I could think of is the following: Many small Hillels are given the mandate to actively recruit Jewish students; often this is done in coordination with the admissions department…</p>
<p>Was this in response to a question asked by a prospective student/parent or was this odd info given out voluntarily?</p>
<p>If this question was not asked on the application, it may have been reflected by other things on a particular student’s application…i.e. synagogue youth group, NFTY, BBG/AZA, etc…</p>
<p>I think the creepy aspect is that the admissions office would “tell” people that they could actually see it…what would be the purpose of that?</p>
<p>HPU is obviously marketing itself to the mid-atlantic/northeast sector. Maybe their offering info. about the number of Jewish students was an effort to show it’s diversity to those from northern regions who might be interested in those numbers at a small southern university. I saw a stat that stated 61% of HPU students are from outside N.C. Trivia…In scanning the sports page of our newspaper this a.m. I noticed that basketball coach Tubby Smith is a HPU alum. It was called High Point College back then.</p>
<p>The pres of Vanderbilt made a public statement a few years ago about wanting to explicitly recruit Jewish students. And it appears to have worked.</p>
<p>I agree that HPU looks a little “soft” academically, but is it really all that different from any number of baccalaureate colleges around the country? If it’s not, then I don’t see the problem. It appears to deliver what it promises, no? I don’t think they market themselves as being, say, Davidson.</p>
<p>I’m not too bothered by admissions having info on Jewish students and admits - those of us who are Jewish know that we ask that question - so - they have the info readily available. When I spoke with Paul Ringel - the Hillel advisor - he mentioned that Jewish life on campus was not very active. If they are trying to address this issue by encouraging Jewish students to apply/enroll - I don’t see a downside. Incidentally, I’m pretty sure the common app. has a space for you to indicate religious preference - you can fill it in or skip it.</p>
<p>Rockvillemom is correct on the application. I check my son’s application (he is a freshman at HPU) and you can answer the religious affiliation question or you can state that you prefer not to answer. My son does not find the university overly religious.</p>
<p>“Bryn Mawr are both pretty much as good as it gets, you can’t compare High Point to them in any way.”</p>
<p>It is me again.
I tried to stay out of the thread as best as you could, but this statement made me come back.
I went to HPU and my sister, the doctor that I was discussing in the other thread went to Bryn Mawr. Yes, she went to Mayo for medical school, Mass Gen. for residency, she will do her fellowship in Gastroenterology at Univ of Penn and will make $500,000 a year after completion but she is still no better than me because we came from the same freaking womb. She deserves to make every dime because she DID work hard.
We are African-American and although my parents did give us the choice, our mother wanted us to go to Howard or North Carolina A&T because she said wealthy blacks in the north sent their children to Howard and in the south the wealthy sent their children to A&T. Like I said in the last thread of parents did not have much money as some of the other parents, but all of us went to college and all of us had teeth in our mouths.
My sister said how prejudice Pennsylvania was or at least that area. She would write ads to tutor high school and middle school students and sometimes the parents would be surprised that she was 6 ft tall and at college on an academic scholarship and not a athletic scholarship. If she mentioned that we lived in Baltimore she would be corrected with people saying, “You mean Baltimore County.” No, we live in the city.
While she was at Bryn Mawr she had a psycho roommate that would leave her messages in her drawer saying, “Get out.”
While I was at HP I was standing on the bus stop waiting for the bus to take me into the city to get my hair done and their was a nice lady and her granddaughter. The woman told me to please come over on Sundays and have some supper with them because the food over at the school could not be that good and she was right.
College is what you make it. People that graduated with my sister found work at a temporary agency and some found work at Goldman Sachs. I do not know anyone that has talked about a negative experience at HPU or said that they wished that they never attended the college, then again, I do not socialize with people that I graduated with and I have not been back to the college in years.</p>
<p>Our oldest son is going to HPU this fall. He’s also going to Summer Experience in June. He couldn’t be more excited about learning than he is right now. He is a 4.1GPA student, 1920 SATs student.</p>
<p>I have visited HPU with him on 3 different occasions before we made the decision. As a business person in high tech for over 20 years, I have no concern over what he’s getting into. Besides ‘fit’ for our son, what HPU teaches, through it’s perhaps unconventional approach?</p>
<ul>
<li>The steakhouse? It’s a learning lab, where the students learn how to dress, attend, and eat at a business meal. In the business world, and especially with the de-emphasis on direct personal communication in society, this is a valuable skill to know and master.</li>
<li>Live music at lunch? The school did a study and found the students were spending about 11 minutes at mealtime. Wanting them to spend more time getting to know each other and eating casually rather than stuffing it in, they brought in music. Now students spend 30+ minutes at mealtime. This is important for overall health and well being.</li>
<li>The nice furniture? It’s a Furniture market, so many of the students are in programs where they need to know furniture. No big deal here that there is a partnership between the local industry and the school.</li>
<li>Dr. Qubein - arguably a person who made a life choice to return to education when didn’t have to, spends a semester with all freshman teaching them fundamental life skills in business. Communication. Time management. Public Speaking. I want this for my son because I want him to be able to communicate. It’s a great seminar.</li>
<li>HPU might be unconventional. But they’re doing things that look forward rather than look back. Many of the subject/classes at large universities aren’t even taught by the professors, they’re taught by students or assistants. HPU staffs full professors in every class. Class size is 12-20. Not 200-400 in a auditorium. Classroom discussions are vibrant, personal, challenging dialogues vs. lectures.</li>
<li>starting in Fall 2010 they’ve moved to a 4-hour core curriculum vs. 3, and are adding Doctorate programs in Therapy and… so they are pursuing and implementing change toward higher academic standing, but they are starting from a base of much respect, as referenced by the US News rankings.
-They have new innovative majors in communication and gaming, reflecting the direction of society, learning styles, and innovation. Gaming? Ha! Not so fast. The same disciplines used for creating vide games are now being used in medical, military, social, media, design, etc. - pretty neat way to evolve toward future needs.</li>
</ul>
<p>In summary, they are an up and coming school, and coming fast. Being part of change is exciting.</p>
<p>HPU may just be one of the more UNDER-rated schools around, based on what I’ve seen there, not OVER-rated.</p>
<p>‘beautiful’ students in the HPU context means students who dress well, speak well, respect others (men respecting women, holding doors open, etc.), respect their environment (the campus is spotless and beautiful), etc.</p>
<p>So yes, the President wants ‘beautiful’ students.</p>