The Fulbright U.S. Student Program is the U.S. government’s flagship international exchange program, administered by the U.S. Department of State. Students apply through their institution, but final selection decisions are made entirely by the Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, independent of the institution. Being named a Fulbright scholar is a direct federal government judgment on the student’s credentials, proposal, and potential.

HPU has produced Fulbright U.S. Student Program recipients continuously since 2016. Five students received awards for 2025–26, the highest single-year total in HPU history.

The 2025–26 recipients: Higgins (Saudi Arabia), Galavotti (Timor-Leste), Muckerheide (Peru), Shelby (Czech Republic), and Horne (Taiwan). HPU also had 11 Fulbright semifinalists in 2025–26, an institutional record. Prior recipients have been placed in Bosnia, Germany, Belarus, Moldova, Mexico, Taiwan, Bulgaria, Ecuador, and Spain. The full record is at HPU Fellowships and Awards: Recent Recipients.

The Barry Goldwater Scholarship is the most prestigious undergraduate award in STEM in the United States. The Goldwater Foundation selects approximately 400 scholars annually from a national field of nominees submitted by institutions across the country. Recipients are evaluated on their research accomplishments, academic record, and potential for careers in scientific research. The award provides up to $7,500 per year toward educational expenses.

Three HPU students have won the Goldwater Scholarship: Boudreaux in 2018 (computational physics), Seemann in 2020 (biochemistry), and Flagg in 2023 (chemistry). Ulrich also received an Honorable Mention in 2018. All four were competing against candidates from major research universities across the country.

Boudreaux later published as a named co-author and first author in The Astrophysical Journal, combining fellowship and publication recognition while still an undergraduate. The full fellowship record is at HPU Fellowships and Awards: Recent Recipients.

Beyond Goldwater and Fulbright, HPU students have won a full range of nationally competitive federal fellowships and awards:

Each of these awards is administered by a federal agency or independent foundation that selects recipients based solely on the applicant’s credentials, with no adjustment for the Carnegie Classification of the institution.

Four HPU undergraduates are named co-authors on publications in The Astrophysical Journal through Dr. Nathan Barlow’s NSF-funded research on binary star systems. Three of those four served as first authors on separate papers: Boudreaux, Vasquez Soto, and Bryce Smith. The research used NASA TESS satellite data and resulted in the discovery of more than 100 previously unknown binary star systems.

HPU’s annual Innovation Journal (Volume 10, 2025) also publishes peer-reviewed undergraduate research with students as primary authors, with nine prior volumes available in the archive. View the Innovation Journal .

The same faculty who hold $40M+ in competitive federal research grants are the faculty who mentor these students. See the full grant portfolio on the Faculty Research & Credentials page.

In scientific publishing, first authorship indicates that the researcher named first on a paper was the primary investigator: the one who led the study design, data analysis, and interpretation, and who takes primary responsibility for the conclusions. Being a first author is categorically different from being a co-author, which indicates a supporting role.

The Astrophysical Journal is the flagship peer-reviewed journal of the American Astronomical Society. Papers submitted to it are evaluated by independent scientific reviewers who assess the validity of the methods, the significance of the findings, and the quality of the analysis. The journal does not adjust its peer review standards based on whether the first author is a graduate student, a faculty member, or an undergraduate.

Boudreaux, Vasquez Soto, and Bryce Smith were each the lead scientist on a separate paper published in this journal while still enrolled as HPU undergraduates. Their research, using NASA TESS satellite data under Dr. Nathan Barlow’s mentorship, identified more than 100 previously unknown binary star systems. Those are real astronomical objects, not previously documented, now in the scientific record because these three students found them.

The High-Point Undergraduate Research Collaborative Symposium (High-PURCS) is HPU’s annual undergraduate research symposium. In 2025, the 13th annual symposium hosted 419 student presenters across 241 projects and 31 disciplines, mentored by 90 faculty members.

The Council on Undergraduate Research awarded HPU the 2025 Campus-Wide Award for Undergraduate Research Accomplishments (AURA), the CUR’s highest institutional recognition for undergraduate research programs.

HPU also runs the Research Rookies Program for freshmen and first-semester sophomores, providing 15 structured activities leading to a “Research Apprentice” designation and graduation medallion. Summer research programs in 2024 engaged 75 students with 40 faculty through SuRPS, SuRF, and SuRI, spanning all disciplines.

The Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) is a national organization supporting and promoting high-quality undergraduate research, scholarship, and creative activity at institutions of higher education. The Campus-Wide Award for Undergraduate Research Accomplishments (AURA) is the CUR’s highest institutional recognition. The 2025 AURA was awarded to High Point University.

The AURA recognizes institutions where undergraduate research is genuinely integrated into the academic program at scale, not just available as an option. An independent external organization evaluated HPU’s research programs and named HPU as the national exemplar. This designation follows the 2025 High-PURCS symposium with 419 student participants and 90 faculty mentors, the undergraduate Astrophysical Journal publications, and the student co-inventor records on HPU’s first patent.

The CUR has no institutional interest in the outcome of its award decisions. Its recognition confirms what the fellowship records and publication records show from a different angle: that HPU’s undergraduate research program produces outcomes recognized as exceptional at the national level.

HPU students have won professional discipline competitions, engineering competitions, and entrepreneurship competitions at the national level:

• PCMA Global Student Competition: Overall Winner (2023 cycle). HPU Event Management won the Professional Convention Management Association global student competition, and was the only school with two teams in the Top 5 in the same competition cycle.
• IEEE SoutheastCon 2024: 2nd Place, Hardware Competition. HPU Robotics Club placed 2nd nationally in the hardware competition at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers SoutheastCon 2024.
• 15th Annual Elevator Pitch Competition, 2025: $20,000 in startup funding awarded. Wolford/PlayFast won first place ($10,000) and advanced to the CEO national pitch competition. Total prize pool across the competition was $20,000. View announcement

The Goldwater Scholarship, Fulbright U.S. Student Program, Boren Scholarship, Critical Language Scholarship, and NSF Graduate Research Fellowship are all administered by federal agencies or independent foundations that evaluate applicants on the student’s own record. None of these programs adjust selection criteria based on the Carnegie Classification of the applicant’s institution.

When the Barry Goldwater Foundation selects approximately 400 scholars nationally from thousands of nominees, it is evaluating each student’s research accomplishments, academic record, and scientific potential. The Foundation does not give preference to students from R1 research universities. When the U.S. Department of State selects Fulbright scholars, it is evaluating the student’s proposal and potential, not the institution’s research classification.

Three HPU Goldwater Scholarship winners, five Fulbright scholars in a single year, four published co-authors in The Astrophysical Journal, and a Boren recipient placing first at HPU to ever win the award were all selected by organizations that did not factor Carnegie Classification into their decision. Each of those selections was made on the student’s work alone.

The students documented on this page are mentored by the same faculty who hold more than $40 million in active federal research grants from NIH, NSF, and the U.S. Department of Education. When Dr. Barlow’s NSF grant funds binary star research, it funds the research teams that include undergraduates. When Dr. Sinacore’s $3.9M NIH study runs with Wake Forest, WashU, and UCSF, HPU undergraduates join that team.

The structured pathways that support these outcomes include:

• Research Rookies Program for freshmen and first-semester sophomores, providing 15 structured activities leading to Research Apprentice designation and a graduation medallion.
• Summer Research Programs (SuRPS, SuRF, SuRI) that placed 75 students with 40 faculty mentors in summer 2024.
• High-PURCS Annual Symposium, providing structured presentation experience and mentored project development across 31 disciplines.
• HPU Office of Fellowships and Awards, coordinating institutional support for competitive fellowship applications.
• More than 300 active Honors Scholars with access to 12 competitive fellowship programs, each awarding $3,000 per year through the Honors College.

See the full faculty research portfolio on the Faculty Research & Credentials page and the honors and fellowship programs on the Honors & Selective Programs page.

The federal agencies, international foundations, peer-reviewed journals, and independent research organizations that have evaluated HPU students have arrived at a consistent verdict: these students can compete at the highest level of national and global academic competition.

The U.S. Department of State selected HPU students as Fulbright scholars continuously since 2016, reaching a record five in 2025–26. The Goldwater Foundation selected three HPU students as STEM’s most prestigious undergraduate award winners. The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship program selected Ulrich in 2018. The Astrophysical Journal published Boudreaux, Vasquez Soto, and Bryce Smith as first authors on separate papers. The Council on Undergraduate Research named HPU the 2025 AURA recipient nationally. The PCMA selected HPU Event Management as Global Competition Overall Winner.

These are not institutional self-assessments. They are determinations made by organizations that evaluated HPU students and programs against a national and global field, using the same criteria they apply to every other institution and every other student. The record they produced is the same record peer institutions see when they designate HPU #1 for undergraduate teaching three consecutive years.

The most reliable evidence of student achievement is externally verified by organizations that apply the same criteria regardless of the institution’s size or classification: