I don’t know about not offering much aid, they are supposedly giving out 100 full scholarships through this Presidential Scholarship program. And their most recent new $80 million building was paid for in cash. At least that’s what they claim.
Was the Presidential Scholars Weekend as selective as they made it sound? My D was invited but we didn’t go because she couldn’t leave the state due to her hs sport season being in full swing. I also thought that everyone received an invitation the way they said it was first come, first serve. Just wondering if we made the right call?
Hard to say, though I’d guess that was more likely just a good sales/marketing job. There were certainly A LOT of kids there. And that was one of 4 Presidential weekends. They said the number of kids invited at one point but I can’t remember…a few thousand I think. My daughter met a number of students there for the weekend and she said most were both impressive and down to earth. Most of the HPU students we met were impressive as well. They had a young alumni panel of 3 recent grads speak to the parents and they were impressive. Obviously it’s not hard to find 3 successful grads, but these were people 8-10 years into their careers and all very successful and they gave up a Saturday to travel to HPU (and spoke glowingly of the impact the school made in their lives).
I’ll tell you honestly that regardless of how things turn out, I’m happy we went and that my daughter heard the message delivered there. This is our 2nd and between the two we have visited more than a dozen colleges, and this visit was unlike any other.
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This is #2 for us, too, and I’ve never had such a yes/no ping pong with a school before. One minute, I love the idea of life skills, and the next minute I think it’s all a big rich kids clique that D won’t fit into. A few weeks go by, and I start thinking about it again! LOL Their marketing definitely got into my head! If they just had a football team…
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This is me! I feel exactly the same way!!! Will be visiting both HPU and Elon next weekend…
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I have a friend who attends. He’s definitely not a rich kid but did go to a high school with a lot of wealthy kids so it’s not new to him. At that school, which is large and sends a lot of students to Stanford, Yale, etc., he was an average student. He was highly recruited by all types of schools, but while Yale or Princeton might have wanted him for his sport, he wouldn’t have fit within the academic requirements. He’s also an URM, so schools really wanted him.
He was a popular kid in high school and is a BMOC at High Point too. I think he very much enjoys NOT being in a cut throat environment as he had that in high school. He had the opportunity to transfer to a higher rated (sports and academic) school but turned down several offers. He likes it a HPU.
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We too have been going back and forth about this school. One minute I think it’s great all that they teach them and that it’s a gated campus. Then I think, hmmmm why is it gated, does it NEED to be gated? And will my son fit in. We are a small town in southern VT. He drives a used VW Jetta that he saved for and bought on his own. He’s a hard worker that participates in sports, music, theatre, takes dance, and works part-time all while getting great grades. He can be shy until he gets to know you unless he’s on stage. I even joined the parent group, but that just freaked me out more with stores of sex trafficking in the area and today’s post about her daughter being a junior and trying to sign up for classes next year and now most classes have a max of 24 and that the 17:1 ratio was not the case this year and does not appear to be next year. They do seem to be sending out a lot of scholarship opportunities. We can not visit yet due to covid restrictions here. We wanted to attend the innovation summit, but can’t so they allowed him and many others to send in a video about what Innovation means to them to double their original scholarship.
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I joined the parent group, too! Couldn’t decide if it’s creepy that the prez comes on and scolds parents for having a negative opinion or not;) I think he came on to that discussion about the class size and defended the school’s position…something about they were doing their best in a pandemic and if they added a few seats to a class so be it. There was a lot of parents kissing up, but maybe they are just that happy with the school and their child’s experience there? Or anyone with an opposite opinion gets deleted (which I did see someone mention that if you say co vid you get deleted!). The entire parent forum seemed weird as opposed to others I belong too. It sounded like if anyone has a problem about something they start a whole new FB page just for that so negative opinions don’t crowd the main board!!! And I didn’t see the sex trafficking post yet…I will have to go look for that!
I just sent you a message, with another parent group 
I’d like to see that parent group too. I also go back and forth about my feelings about HPU for my accepted son. I was very impressed and began to “buy in” after our Presidential Scholars visit, but the cars in the parking lot are making us nervous! I appreciate that the campus is nice and has nice dorms and eating areas because these kids really are on campus for 4 years. There isn’t a college town so I believe that HPU has to make up for that with some perks on campus. There is a reason for everything that they do and it really does teach the soft skills that kids need to succeed. However, I would love to see some comments that I haven’t seen on the main parents facebook page that may raise some of the issues of concern to me.
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I would love to ask those of you who (as the student or parent) who went to the scholars weekend, how was the initial amount of merit aid offered? I understand that more should come after the scholars weekend, but I was reading another thread from last year and it seemed that many TOP students were only offered about $15,000 a year total after the weekend. My son is a junior and loved the school. His grades, test scores and activities should put him in the top group, but I am now worried that the cost will be too high. Especially when we have UNC Chapel Hill at in-state tuition. Thank you for any input you can provide.
My son got $10,000 with his initial acceptance.
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We went 2 weekends ago and were told that 1000 kids total are invited for Presidential Scholars weekend. Seemed like a lot of kids were there, given that it was just 1 of 6 dates, but maybe looked like more due to siblings?
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Ha! The football team isn’t an issue for us, but their marketing had the opposite effect on me. We almost ruled them out early on b/c the daily email barrage was so annoying. For being a marketing-minded organization it honestly surprises me - they send so much that you just start to gloss over and ignore them all, almost missing the occasional email that actually has something important or valuable.
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I’d actually like to see this too. Could you post a link perhaps?
Well, honestly, that’s how we missed the Presidential Scholarship Invitation. Just too much mail, too many emails, etc. The books, the huge mail packets, the AO emails, ugh. Just too much of a push, so I agree. Too much marketing is not a good thing. However, no matter how many times I ignore all that mixed media, the life skills message always brings me back to considering it. Something about it makes so much sense. My S goes to a Top 50 nat’l university with a ton of professional/career opportunities, but they aren’t forcing anyone to participate and so he doesn’t. Drives me crazy! Knowing my D won’t be able to avoid it at HPU is a huge plus!
My D also got 10k to start. They provide a pretty detailed breakdown of the 3 tiers offered in the Presidential Scholarship program. Our 10k was initially from the 2nd tier, and yes all who attended one of these weekends will get some additional money. For most I would expect it to be a small additional amount, so the 15k total isn’t surprising. The top tier that offers between 30k/yr and a full ride has a ridiculous average grades/scores range. 4.0 unweighted GPA, 1550 average SAT (34 ACT), and top 5% in their class. Once again, it’s hard for me to reconcile them supposedly giving out 100 full scholarships (with these kinds of academic profiles) and yet this being a poor academic school. I realize schools on the rise use this to bring in stronger students and raise their school’s profile, but 100 full rides? In a school this size?
I’ve got to look into these parent groups. If that was in one of the many emails they sent me, I missed it. Little surprising the president would be on these in general, much less scolding parents, but I will say you could see a bit of an edge come out during his talk a couple of times. Not necessarily bad, but it stood out considering everything else I’d seen was so upbeat and positive. The parents at his talk were giving him one ovation after another too. And I admit, I actually like their “we’re a God/family/country school” component. While I’m somewhat conservative I’m really more of a centrist, so I’m not looking for anything over the top, but I feel like we’ve gone way too far in the other direction at most schools. I’ll leave it there as I don’t want this to turn political, but I think they certainly see this as an area they can stand out from the pack and create their own niche somewhat.
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@AeroEngParent where did you get 100 full ride scholarships? Did they say that during the weekend?
This is the one school he pays attention to every time they send something. The marketing worked on him. I will say that my older son goes to UNC-CH and as much as we love that school, I think the HPU may be a great fit for my younger son. He hasn’t gotten to tour any larger schools yet, so things may change when that happens.
Thanks for the info!
One of the early emails they sent @ Pres. Scholars Weekend.
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Thank you…