Queen's University/Charlotte--visit report

[plansrme]

On our recent three-college tour, the sleeper hit of the spring ended up being Queen's University in Charlotte.  We picked it only because we were driving right through Charlotte anyway, and my daughter has a friend who swims there.  It is Division II, but their men's and women's teams just won NCAA Div II swim and dive championships, with no divers, so they're as fast as a lot of mid-tier Div I programs.  I have such a school crush on Queen's now!  It's kind of embarrassing how I keep gushing about it.  It has so many strikes against it--its ACT mid-range is something like 20-24, so not terribly high; its freshman retention rate is not stellar; the school is tiny, around 2000 students (one source says 2200); and its gender distribution is between 65/35 and 70/30 F/M, depending upon what source you read (I am going to start a thread about that generally).  But, here's what I loved:

 

1.  The campus is beautiful!  Small, but beautiful.  Some of the buildings date to 1915, but even the science building that was completed in 2013 blends in perfectly.  It is located in a residential neighborhood 2.5 miles from downtown Charlotte, and they stress how well they get along with their neighbors.  

2.  One internship (or maybe two, can't remember; also, some students do several) is required for graduation.  They seem to focus on helping their graduates find jobs.  The admissions presentation highlights how several recent graduates found their first jobs, and they were regular, attainable jobs, not stuff no one else could really do.  I really liked that.  Their target is Charlotte, of course, but there are worse targets to have in your backyard.  This whole "the purpose of going to college is to get a job" approach was very appealing to me.

3.  They only have one dining hall, a coffee shop and an Einstein's on campus, but their dining hall food was delicious.  And our meals were free!  The woman at the register just waived us in when I asked if we could pay cash.  Admissions also had our name on our parking space when we got there and gave my daughter a t-shirt for visiting.  We felt very special.  SHALLOW, I know!

4.  Tuition includes at least one study abroad experience, either short- or long-term.  Something like 80% of their students participate in a study abroad.

5.  Residency is required until senior year.  The dorm we toured was one of the original buildings from 1915, and it showed, but I thought it was charming.  Small spaces are so much easier to take when the ceilings soar.  Also, laundry is included in the dorm fee.  You do it yourself, but use of the machines is free.

6.  Everyone we met was so friendly and enthusiastic about Queen's.  We walked to the building with the pool and asked to see it, and the grown-up at the front desk took us downstairs to let us peek in.  A student was in there doing some stretches, and he stopped what he was doing, walked over and introduced himself.  He was the swim team manager, it turned out, and he was so mature (despite just being a freshman), friendly, thrilled with Queen's.  We talked to him for 15 or 20 minutes.  The fact that their swim team just won NCAAs was mentioned several times in the tour; again, yea for school spirit!

7.  About 50% of the student body is from North Carolina.  The most popular majors are business; nursing is second.  We also ran into a lot of sports management/exercise physiology sorts of majors.  They do have graduates working in operations for the Hornets and the Green Bay Packers and other professional teams.

 

I wish I didn't like Queen's!  Someone tell me how awful it is, please, so I'm not too disappointed if my daughter turns up her nose at it.  Tell me no one in her right mind would encourage her kid to go to a school with such average average ACT scores.  Come on. . ..

[Kareni]

Thanks for sharing such an enthusiastic report on a college with which I was totally unfamiliar; there truly are hidden gems lurking all about.

 

 

I wish I didn't like Queen's!  Someone tell me how awful it is, please, so I'm not too disappointed if my daughter turns up her nose at it.  Tell me no one in her right mind would encourage her kid to go to a school with such average average ACT scores.  Come on. . ..

 

The upside is that your daughter might qualify for some stellar merit aid ....

 

Regards,

Kareni
 

[ThisIsTheDay]

  Tell me no one in her right mind would encourage her kid to go to a school with such average average ACT scores.  Come on. . ..

 

I don't necessarily agree.  So it's an easier school to be accepted into.  The retention rate is not as high because the student ability is, well, not on par with the other schools you toured.  But your dd has motivation and drive; it's not like she'll be one of those who will be leaving after freshman year.

 

My current 12th grader was accepted into a school with identical stats, and his ACT score was 27.  He was offered the highest merit scholarship awarded by the school, with virtually equals full tuition.  He was also accepted into the Honors program, where he'll be more challenged, and the students in his Honors classes will have stats more likely to mirror his.

 

If your dd is remotely interested, she has nothing to lose by applying!

[hopskipjump]

 

I wish I didn't like Queen's!  Someone tell me how awful it is, please, so I'm not too disappointed if my daughter turns up her nose at it.  Tell me no one in her right mind would encourage her kid to go to a school with such average average ACT scores.  Come on. . ..

 

Wish I knew something about Queen's specifically to help you out with your request! :p Sounds like a potential wonderful learning & living environment to me!!

 

My dd is heading off to a school where she doesn't match their ACT profile well at all - but I'm feeling that it's going to be a great fit. She generally works best at being "big fish in a little pond," and I think that just learning the social and classroom "ropes" (she's not taken dual-enrollment classes... only at-home, or online AP) will be plenty enough to balance the challenge of maybe-not-intensely-difficult-first-semester courses.

[plansrme]

Wish I knew something about Queen's specifically to help you out with your request! :p Sounds like a potential wonderful learning & living environment to me!!

 

My dd is heading off to a school where she doesn't match their ACT profile well at all - but I'm feeling that it's going to be a great fit. She generally works best at being "big fish in a little pond," and I think that just learning the social and classroom "ropes" (she's not taken dual-enrollment classes... only at-home, or online AP) will be plenty enough to balance the challenge of maybe-not-intensely-difficult-first-semester courses.

This daughter is a good student, but not great. If she gets a 25 ACT, I will literally do a happy dance, so it had occurred to me that she might be better off starting at the top of the heap than at the bottom. Something to ponder, the way a 14 yo girl might ponder some boy band member. . .. Edited April 9, 2016 by plansrme

[MarkT]

https://colleges.niche.com/queens-university-of-charlotte/

[Ann.without.an.e]

On our recent three-college tour, the sleeper hit of the spring ended up being Queen's University in Charlotte.  We picked it only because we were driving right through Charlotte anyway, and my daughter has a friend who swims there.  It is Division II, but their men's and women's teams just won NCAA Div II swim and dive championships, with no divers, so they're as fast as a lot of mid-tier Div I programs.  I have such a school crush on Queen's now!  It's kind of embarrassing how I keep gushing about it.  It has so many strikes against it--its ACT mid-range is something like 20-24, so not terribly high; its freshman retention rate is not stellar; the school is tiny, around 2000 students (one source says 2200); and its gender distribution is between 65/35 and 70/30 F/M, depending upon what source you read (I am going to start a thread about that generally).  But, here's what I loved:

 

1.  The campus is beautiful!  Small, but beautiful.  Some of the buildings date to 1915, but even the science building that was completed in 2013 blends in perfectly.  It is located in a residential neighborhood 2.5 miles from downtown Charlotte, and they stress how well they get along with their neighbors.  

2.  One internship (or maybe two, can't remember; also, some students do several) is required for graduation.  They seem to focus on helping their graduates find jobs.  The admissions presentation highlights how several recent graduates found their first jobs, and they were regular, attainable jobs, not stuff no one else could really do.  I really liked that.  Their target is Charlotte, of course, but there are worse targets to have in your backyard.  This whole "the purpose of going to college is to get a job" approach was very appealing to me.

3.  They only have one dining hall, a coffee shop and an Einstein's on campus, but their dining hall food was delicious.  And our meals were free!  The woman at the register just waived us in when I asked if we could pay cash.  Admissions also had our name on our parking space when we got there and gave my daughter a t-shirt for visiting.  We felt very special.  SHALLOW, I know!

4.  Tuition includes at least one study abroad experience, either short- or long-term.  Something like 80% of their students participate in a study abroad.

5.  Residency is required until senior year.  The dorm we toured was one of the original buildings from 1915, and it showed, but I thought it was charming.  Small spaces are so much easier to take when the ceilings soar.  Also, laundry is included in the dorm fee.  You do it yourself, but use of the machines is free.

6.  Everyone we met was so friendly and enthusiastic about Queen's.  We walked to the building with the pool and asked to see it, and the grown-up at the front desk took us downstairs to let us peek in.  A student was in there doing some stretches, and he stopped what he was doing, walked over and introduced himself.  He was the swim team manager, it turned out, and he was so mature (despite just being a freshman), friendly, thrilled with Queen's.  We talked to him for 15 or 20 minutes.  The fact that their swim team just won NCAAs was mentioned several times in the tour; again, yea for school spirit!

7.  About 50% of the student body is from North Carolina.  The most popular majors are business; nursing is second.  We also ran into a lot of sports management/exercise physiology sorts of majors.  They do have graduates working in operations for the Hornets and the Green Bay Packers and other professional teams.

 

I wish I didn't like Queen's!  Someone tell me how awful it is, please, so I'm not too disappointed if my daughter turns up her nose at it.  Tell me no one in her right mind would encourage her kid to go to a school with such average average ACT scores.  Come on. . ..

 

 

DD has high stats and she loves Queens.  Our greatest concern is the students they chose to highlight in their alumni feature.  Maybe I'm crazy but I thought "if you are only going to highlight a few great alumni then a guy with a MBA working for the Hornet's in ticket sales doesn't sound like a win to me".  Maybe I was missing something :crying:

 

DD loves the campus, she loves Charlotte, she loves Myers park, etc, etc. 

Edited April 13, 2016 by Charleigh

[plansrme]

DD has super high stats and she loves Queens. Our greatest concern is the students they chose to highlight in their alumni feature. Maybe I'm crazy but I thought "if you are only going to highlight a few great alumni then a guy with a MBA working for the Hornet's in ticket sales doesn't sound like a win to me". Maybe I was missing something :crying:

 

DD loves the campus, she loves Charlotte, she loves Myers park, etc, etc.

I actually had just the opposite reaction to the jobs, though--they were attainable jobs, normal jobs, that someone right out of college might get. I think working in the ticket sales department for the Hornets is a perfectly appropriate entry-level job for a new business grad. I doubt he is standing in the window swiping credit cards; I would assume it is marketing. Most new college grads are not coming out and being VPs of anything; that first job is not your final job. It is a stepping stone, a foot in the door. This guy wants to work in management for the NBA or, apparently, an NBA team, and they highlighted how he got there. I liked that they recognized that and laid out the path that got him there.

[Ann.without.an.e]

I actually had just the opposite reaction to the jobs, though--they were attainable jobs, normal jobs, that someone right out of college might get. I think working in the ticket sales department for the Hornets is a perfectly appropriate entry-level job for a new business grad. I doubt he is standing in the window swiping credit cards; I would assume it is marketing. Most new college grads are not coming out and being VPs of anything; that first job is not your final job. It is a stepping stone, a foot in the door. This guy wants to work in management for the NBA or, apparently, an NBA team, and they highlighted how he got there. I liked that they recognized that and laid out the path that got him there.

 

You have a valid point. Thanks for the reminder! I did imagine taking money for tickets but I bet it is more than that.

[cottonmama]

I visited this school and fell under its spell a bit, too, but I ended up going to a more challenging state school, and I don't regret it.  Queen's is awfully expensive, IIRC.  It wouldn't have been worth a pile of debt to go there, as lovely as it is.  Even with a scholarship, I don't think it would have helped me meet my goals as well as the larger school did.  Of course, it depends on your dc's goals.

 

Anyway, my impression when I visited was that Queen's was a good choice for a student who would get lost at a larger school, or for a student who would really make the most of the small school experience -- networking with other motivated students and with professors, creating opportunities for learning beyond the curriculum, being active in campus organizations, etc.  For a student whose test scores fall above the average range, I expect they might have to be a bit more intentional to get a comparable education to a more prestigious university.  But maybe knowing that going in and being that intentional would make it a better education in the end?

 

Good luck with the decision!