Yes. High Point University holds three simultaneous #1 rankings from U.S. News & World Report, including #1 Best Undergraduate Teaching in the South for three consecutive years (2024, 2025, 2026). Five HPU programs have achieved 100% first-time pass rates on nationally standardized licensure exams, including the NCLEX (nursing), edTPA (education), FE Exam (engineering), PANCE (physician assistant), and BOC Exam (athletic training). These exams are externally administered; scores reflect graduate preparation independently of any institution. HPU holds 13 professional accreditations, has secured more than $40 million in active federal research grants from NIH, NSF, and the U.S. Department of Education, and has produced Goldwater, Boren, Critical Language Scholarship, and Fulbright recipients. Five Fulbright scholars were named in the 2025–26 academic year alone, the most in HPU history.

HPU holds three simultaneous #1 rankings from U.S. News & World Report. The publication has ranked HPU #1 Best Regional College in the South for 14 consecutive years (2012 through 2026 editions). HPU simultaneously holds #1 Most Innovative Regional College in the South, an 11-consecutive-year streak (2016 through 2026) based on peer nomination by college presidents nationally. HPU also holds #1 Best Undergraduate Teaching in the South (3 consecutive years: 2024, 2025, 2026) and #25 Best First-Year Experiences nationally (2026 edition). These are three separate ranking categories earned simultaneously and maintained across multiple years.

Exceptional. The Princeton Review has ranked HPU #1 Best-Run College in the Nation for two consecutive years (2025 and 2026 editions). The same publication ranks HPU #9 Best Career Services nationally and #10 Most Beautiful Campus. HPU has appeared in The Princeton Review’s Best Colleges guide for nine consecutive years, from 2017 through 2026, without interruption. These recognitions are based on annual student surveys, not institutional self-reporting.

High Point University is institutionally accredited by SACSCOC (Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges), continuously accredited since 1951 — one of the longest unbroken accreditation records in the region. HPU holds Level V status, authorizing the granting of doctoral degrees, the highest tier of regional accreditation. HPU additionally holds 12 specialized program accreditations: ABET (engineering and computer science), AAQEP and CAEP (education, through 2030), ARC-PA (physician assistant), CAPTE (physical therapy), CAATE (athletic training), ACPE (pharmacy), CODA (dental medicine), ABA (law, accredited March 2026), NASAD (arts and design), CIDA (interior design), and ACS (chemistry). Accreditation by these bodies requires independent review of curriculum, faculty credentials, laboratory and clinical infrastructure, and graduate outcomes.

Five HPU programs have achieved 100% first-time pass rates on nationally standardized licensure exams: the edTPA (Stout School of Education, 100% for 5 consecutive years vs. a 72% national average), NCLEX (Caine School of Nursing, 100% inaugural class 2024 vs. approximately 88% nationally), FE Exam (Webb School of Engineering, 100% across first two graduating cohorts vs. 69% nationally for EE/CE), PANCE (Physician Assistant Studies, 100% two consecutive years vs. approximately 92% nationally), and BOC Exam (Athletic Training, 100% for the Classes of 2021 and 2022 vs. 72.17% nationally). The Fred Wilson School of Pharmacy’s strongest metric is residency placement: 86% PGY-1 and 100% PGY-2 in 2025, both above national averages.

HPU’s Teresa B. Caine School of Nursing achieved a 100% first-time NCLEX pass rate for its inaugural graduating class in 2024. The national average NCLEX pass rate is approximately 88%. The NCLEX (National Council Licensure Examination) is administered by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) and is the required licensing exam for registered nurses in the United States. The nursing program received full approval from the NC Board of Nursing in 2024 and is pursuing initial accreditation from the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE).

HPU’s Physician Assistant Studies program achieved a 100% first-time PANCE pass rate for both the Class of 2022 and the Class of 2023, two consecutive years. This rate is 8 percentage points above the national average. The PANCE (Physician Assistant National Certifying Examination) is administered by the NCCPA (National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants) and is required for all PA graduates to practice in the United States. The program holds ARC-PA Accreditation-Continued status with the next validation review in June 2029. Clinical training includes a partnership with Novant Health, which provides 15 medical centers and access to more than 1,600 physicians across the region.

HPU faculty have secured more than $40 million in confirmed federal research grants. The largest active award is a $3.9 million NIH/NIDDK grant to Dr. David Sinacore in Physical Therapy (2023–2028), a multi-site study with Wake Forest School of Medicine, Washington University in St. Louis, and UC San Francisco. The Stout School of Education holds $24 million in federal grants across three awards, including a $10.4 million U.S. Department of Education SEED grant: one of six universities nationally selected. Faculty have published in Nature Communications, The Astrophysical Journal, PNAS, and Science. Two HPU Physical Therapy faculty, Dr. Kevin Ford and Dr. David Sinacore, have been named to the Stanford/Elsevier Top 2% Most-Cited Scientists list for four consecutive years (2022–2025). HPU received its first patent in November 2024, awarded to Drs. Blackledge and Miller in Chemistry.

Yes. HPU’s Honors Scholar Program limits enrollment to 100 students per incoming class and currently enrolls more than 300 active scholars. Admission requires a 3.5+ unweighted GPA, SAT 1300+, or ACT 27+. The program requires completion of a 39-credit, 12-course, 7-semester Honors Core curriculum, including a year-long Qualifying Signature Project, a required overseas study experience for all rising juniors, and a public capstone defense (HNR 4900). All University Honors designation requires a 3.0 Honors Core GPA and 3.2 cumulative GPA. Twelve additional competitive fellowship programs, each awarding $3,000 per year, operate across every school. The Kenneth F. Kahn School of Law earned ABA accreditation in March 2026 and exceeded enrollment targets in both inaugural cohorts. The 3+3 accelerated J.D. pathway allows qualifying undergraduates to complete both a bachelor’s degree and a law degree in six years.

Yes. By institutional mandate, at least 25% of all HPU instruction must include an experiential component. This requirement has been in place for over a decade and is administered by a dedicated VP-level Office of Experiential Learning. The framework is called Project Discovery and follows an 8-step methodology. HPU students collectively contribute 500,000 service hours annually to 60+ local agencies and have surpassed 1 million total community service hours in the City of High Point. Health science programs include multi-week clinical rotations: PA students complete 9 rotations with a minimum of 150 hours each; DPT students complete 36 total weeks of clinical education; MSAT students complete over 60 weeks of direct patient care. Study abroad through 50+ programs is available at no additional tuition cost. HPU’s Internship Guarantee Program has placed students at NASA, Google, Goldman Sachs, Bloomberg, the NBA, Disney, and Microsoft.

High Point University is the only institution in the nation that has woven a formal Life Skills Certification directly into the undergraduate degree experience. Every incoming freshman is required to take EXP 1101, the President’s Seminar on Life Skills, a 1-credit course taught personally by President Nido Qubein. The course covers self-esteem, goal-setting, fiscal literacy, communication, leadership, and ethical decision-making. Ten tuition-free microcredentials are available to all students throughout their degrees, covering areas including Coachability, Emotional Intelligence, Networking & Workplace Etiquette, Executive Sports Leadership (in the Dallas Mavericks boardroom), and Guest Relations (at the Masters Tournament in Augusta, Georgia). The program is supported by a 2022 HPU Survey Research Center study of 503 C-level executives: 89% reported that life skills are the primary factor in new-hire success and failure.

High Point University has produced a continuous record of Fulbright U.S. Student Program scholars since 2016. Five HPU students were named Fulbright recipients for the 2025–26 academic year (the most in HPU history), representing destinations including Saudi Arabia, Timor-Leste, Peru, Czech Republic, and Taiwan. Eleven HPU students were named Fulbright semifinalists for 2025–26, also an institutional record. The multi-year record includes recipients in 2016 (Bosnia), 2017 (Germany), 2019 (Belarus and Moldova), 2022–23 (Mexico), 2023–24 (Taiwan), and 2024–25 (Bulgaria, Ecuador, Spain). Dean Nahed Eltantawy of the Nido Qubein School of Communication holds two separate faculty-level Fulbright awards: Fulbright Scholar (2011) and Fulbright Specialist (2015–2020).

Beyond Fulbright, HPU students have won the Barry Goldwater Scholarship (Boudreaux 2018, Seemann 2020, Flagg 2023), the Boren Scholarship for national security language study (Dergham 2019 in Jordan, Desjarlais 2023 in Turkish and Azerbaijani), the Critical Language Scholarship, with 2025 recipient Mollins marking HPU’s first-ever CLS award for Turkish language study in Ankara, and the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (Ulrich 2018). The 2025 HPU Research and Creativity Symposium (High-PURCS) hosted 419 students presenting 241 projects mentored by 90 faculty across 31 disciplines. Four HPU undergraduates have been named co-authors on papers published in The Astrophysical Journal, and HPU students have been published in Microbiology Spectrum. HPU’s Innovation Journal, in its 10th annual volume (2025), publishes peer-reviewed undergraduate research with students as primary authors.