Jessica and Sawyer were both fortunate enough to be offered spots on two recent counselor fly-in programs at High Point University. Both traveled separately due to scheduling conflicts but came away with valuable insights into the unique higher education institution.
Disclaimer: The highlights of our college visit below are by no means exhaustive or all-encompassing. These are just some thoughts and notes about our experiences on the particular days of our visit and some facts we feel stand out. Information is based on admissions presentations, discussions with student tour guides, and basic research from an institution's website.
Jessica's High Point Fly-In Thoughts:
Nestled in a little suburban enclave in North Carolina known as the Furniture Capital of the World, about an hour and a half from Raleigh and 30 minutes from Greensboro, sits a gated community called High Point University (HPU). As you approach from any surrounding street, you’re likely to be immediately taken by the lush greenery, meticulous landscaping, and beautiful red brick and white column architecture, a stark contrast to the vibe of the general area.
HPU is unlike any school I’ve visited (of which there have been hundreds). It has a reputation for being a glorified country club, and the reputation is not without merit. The school boasts incredible facilities: seven pools (“one for every day of the week”), three unique five-star restaurants that are part of the meal plans (more on this later), dorms with full sized beds and memory foam mattresses (and full-size gyms and theaters!), snack stations all around campus, 38 fountains, and more chandeliers than you can count on two hands.
The campus culture errs on the more conservative side of the political and religious spectrums. In the opening session at the counselor open house event I attended, the provost remarked that it’s “not a Christian university, but we want students who have beliefs and who can respect the beliefs of others”. However, their motto is “A God, Family, and Country School”, so take that as you will.
It can’t be denied that the school is built on a foundation of wealth—they recently funneled over $500 million into their programs and facilities, including a new basketball arena, new dining and living spaces, and that seventh pool (when I visited a few years ago, they explained that there were six pools: one for each day of the week plus a day of rest). You’ll also find the school’s president’s name throughout the campus and surrounding community (he helped fund the local children’s museum and the minor league baseball stadium down the road from campus).
With around 5000 undergraduate students (representing over 1400 high schools!), HPU offers 73 majors, 70 minors, and 14 academic schools. They also have 17 D1 athletic teams, with an 18th (women’s field hockey) joining next year. I had the pleasure of eating several meals on campus and can attest that they have truly earned their #1 food ranking from the Aramark Annual Student Survey of Food Options (the only ranking that is worth considering, in my professional opinion).
HPU is home to more than the typical traditional academic offerings, including an interior design major that is both creative and rigorous, a 6-year PharmD program for first-year applicants (and any scholarships earned from HPU can be used for the first four years), and esports and video game design programs that are fascinating even to someone who has zero interest in that arena. In the realm of academics, HPU is built on four primary pillars of education: Academic Excellence, Experiential Learning in Every Major, 4-Year Development of Life Skills, and Model Values and Build Character. Essentially, they want every HPU graduate to problem solve effectively and focus more on who the student becomes rather than what the student becomes. They also want students to thrive in a world of constant change, which is why there is such a heavy emphasis on learning life skills like networking and applicability of classroom learning.
There are several things that set HPU apart from other institutions of higher education:
They call themselves a premier life skills university, because they emphasize experiential learning opportunities and make efforts to engrain in their students an air of professionalism and motivation. Each course is four credits because they believe every course, regardless of field, should have some sort of lab component (which is the experiential real-world application piece), and the president of the school teaches a seminar class to every first-year student.
As mentioned above, HPU has three five-star restaurants on their campus that students can elect to dine at once per week as part of their meal plan. There’s a steakhouse, a Mediterranean restaurant, and a Hibachi style restaurant. Students have to reserve their table a week in advance, and are expected to dress in business casual attire. Staff members of each restaurant are trained to teach students appropriate manners and dining etiquette, and pulling out your phone during your meal will result in a 30-day ban.
Every student who graduates from HPU can complete a fifth year masters program entirely tuition free (if they live on campus).
Despite the presentation of wealth on campus, 19% of the class of 2028 are Pell Grant recipients.
Every student is assigned an academic success coach for the first one or two years on campus (depending on major) and that person helps ensure the school maintains their 4-year graduation guarantee.
There’s an emphasis on growing their graduate programming more than undergraduate, with streamlined pathways and guaranteed interviews for current HPU students. They recently developed their law and dental programs, and ophthalmology is next on the radar.
HPU boasts a 100% NCLEX pass rate from their first batch of nursing graduates last year
They also take great pride in a 99% job or graduate school placement rate six-months post graduation and are so confident that they can maintain that number that it is sand blasted into a glass door of the career preparation center.
In addition to offering significant merit scholarships to admitted students, they also provide grant opportunities for studying abroad to ensure every student can access that programming.
The planetarium and greenhouse conservatory are genuinely stunning, and both spaces are used for both academic and extracurricular engagement.
They offer students free transportation to and from all local airports, including Raleigh/Durham, Greensboro, and Charlotte.
Security guards are required at parties, not to police the students for underage drinking, rather to ensure the safety and wellbeing of their students.
If students require more academic support than their academic success coach can provide, they can access additional services through the Learning Excellent Program (for a fee).
At High Point University, it’s obvious that opportunities and resources are abundant, and the support systems in place ensure every student’s success throughout their college experience.
Sawyer's High Point Fly-In Thoughts:
“Choose to be Extraordinary,” “The Premier Life Skills University,” “Ecosystem of Support and Mentorship,” “Learning Excellence,” “Dream Big.”
Regardless of your opinion on High Point University (HPU), I don’t believe you can deny the efficacy of its marketing. It is a university with quick-witted quotes and taglines from view books to presenters for just about any occasion or topic. Much like Jess, this was my second visit to HPU and I left the counselor fly-in with a deeper understanding of how the university views itself, its relationship with students, and the future in education that it is attempting to create. HPU is divisive, but that is not an entirely bad thing. HPU highlights a lack of innovation in a sea of academic institutions dogmatically dragging their feet in an ever-changing world. HPU is a trailblazer in the higher education world, and I don’t think that can be denied or should be ignored, even if you might not be a fan of the trail their blazing. Jess has already done a phenomenal job of highlighting many aspects of High Point, so my thoughts will take a slightly different approach. I will present my experiences and thoughts, in a very HPU fashion, through quotes and marketing lines that I wrote down during my time at the fly-in program.
While many colleges might try to appeal to every student in the market, that is not HPU’s goal. HPU is fairly clear with which students they are attempting to serve and what their vision of success is. HPU is educating students for “the world as it is going to be, not as it is” and emphasizes the concept that students are now on “a global stage of competition and not just continental [one].” At HPU, the “results rule” and outcomes of a student’s education are prioritized over almost all other aspects of the college experience. As one member of the HPU community put it, “faculty are not sages on the stage” and there is a very intentional focus on professors bringing professional career experience to the classroom to help students learn how to “develop successful solutions to complex problems in a group setting.” It’s the kind of academic atmosphere where faculty make a distinction between “creativity” and “innovation,” the former being “different” and the latter being “better.” An atmosphere that channels the academic passions and career ambitions of students, resulting in analyzing traditional education ideas through a lens that consistently reminds students that “to sell is human.” It is an environment where not only is there access to 5-star restaurants with a meal plan, but the experience has been intentionally created to teach students about etiquette while having a business meeting over food. Similarly, it's the kind of school where across the hall from a coffee shop is a model of an airplane interior to practice small talk and networking.
It would also be impossible to speak about HPU without highlighting the amenities and academic support that students receive. Echoing Jess’ description of a “country club,” I would only add that in truth HPU puts most country clubs to shame when it comes to amenities. Student living conditions range from a “traditional,” but spacious, two-person dorm room, to 150 houses in a local gated community bought and refurbished by HPU, and topping out in some luxurious one-person A-Frame houses (across 7 tiers of housing ranging from $4,608 to $18,792). Amongst many other notable amenities, here are a few mentioned on our tour: six outdoor heated pools, 22 gyms, live music during lunch, free sporting tickets, two five-star restaurants, a movie theater, free laundry, free printing, and a free arcade. HPU’s story has been one of immense growth with ~2 billion dollars invested over the past 20 years. Their once 91-acre campus from 2005 now covers a staggering 525 acres in 2024. Similarly, we were informed that in 2005 the goal was to simply “get more students,” but in 2024 the focus is shifting to bringing in “more diverse students” and “keeping them here” with efforts to bolster their already impressive 86% retention rate. Their reach, once at the regional/state level, has grown significantly with 74.5% of students coming from out-of-state and ~5% of students coming from outside of the USA. At the same time, many professionals I spoke with during my visit didn’t hide the fact that the university was “struggling to help low-income students acclimate” to the campus community and culture. Along the same lines, the response to non-binary or transitioning students ranged from unofficially welcoming to a sense of bewilderment. At the time of our tour, all housing was divided along male and female genders and roommates were assigned based on a student's “selected gender.”
To a certain extent, I think the vast majority of American parents will find much of what I wrote in the previous paragraphs refreshing. After all, with colleges becoming increasingly selective and expensive most parents are demanding to see more data on outcomes and return on investment for their children. Along the same lines, students and parents are setting ever-higher expectations for campus and academic amenities that match that ever-growing price tag of a college education. The divide in interested families is often exemplified through HPU’s tagline, “God, Family, Country.” Some students and families find a bold proclamation to faith, family, and patriotism refreshing while many others will find themselves repulsed by the idea. This is not to claim that one reaction is better than another, but it can’t be denied that the USA is a country with increasingly polarized views around these concepts. We were told that HPU is looking to “build on the values that parents have imprinted on their students,” and that while “parents give roots, High Point gives wings.” While not categorically a Christian-focused college, there can be no doubt that HPU is certainly a patriotic and pro-American institution (along with all the assumed accouterments that might come along with that categorization in our current political climate). We were told that ~36% of students identified as “politically conservative,” but many of the students I spoke with at HPU felt that the promotion of faith, family, and patriotism reflected a top-down culture as opposed to emerging from the roots of the student body. Much of HPU’s campus ideology can be understandably traced back to its current (and 7th) president Dr. Qubein and his journey which echoes the classical archetype of an immigrant pursuing the American Dream.
If you’ve made it this far into our blog post, then I assume you are at least somewhat interested, so I’ve reserved this final section to highlight the students that HPU is looking for. In the past, HPU was often considered a school for students who might’ve struggled academically in high school, but that is rapidly changing. As one of the speakers during the event put it, “you tell me when you haven’t needed extra help.” HPU uses its general education requirements to “promote a growth mindset” (a phrase that students will hear many times) and “eliminate gaps between students.” Students are assigned success coaches who act as academic advisors and extracurricular mentors with required monthly meetings. Faculty and staff function on the idea that “[they] don’t weed [students] out, they weave them in.” While “a solid 3.0 can be very successful here,” HPU is also pushing for academically stronger students who will take advantage of their resources and Honors Program. During our final day of the program, a staff member summarized that “we take the best and brightest, late bloomers, the shy or introverted, [and students who] want more from opportunities.”
As I left the program, our hosts emphasized that the “next five to ten years” of HPU’s development would focus heavily on “graduate and professional” education programs such as dentistry and law. While HPU was certainly impressive and unique, my lingering thoughts focus less on the specific programs and more on the larger implications of its success in the business of higher education. I find myself thinking of how a faculty member spoke about “creativity” vs “innovation.” An important question, that all education professionals, families, and students should consider is whether HPU’s vision is just “different” from what we’ve seen at traditional institutions of higher education, or whether it is a “better” way to approach the longstanding narrative of college education. At this point, I don’t know the answer, but I think that the question is of paramount importance in an education system that increasingly pushes the financial and emotional limitations of teenagers and their parents.
Good luck (but I know you won't need it),
Jessica Chermak, LPC, CEP
Independent College Counselor
Co-Founder of Virtual College Counselors
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