Hampden Sydney College

Date: Dec 03 2011
Major: Philosophy (This Major's Salary over time)
First, let me talk about the positive aspects of the University. The campus is beautiful and historic. The faculty are top-notch, approachable, and helpful—tenure for professors is not based on their academic publication history, but rather their teaching and relationship with the students. Academically, the school is great; however, and this is important, grades are not inflated and most students graduate way below the median for universities in the United States.

Now, the bad part. A H-SC degree has prestige only to old white men in Richmond, Norfolk, Lynchburg, and Roanoke, VA. To younger generations in Virginia (people who did not go to the school), the degree implies your (a) the idiot, alcoholic and drug addicted son of an upper-class preppy family, (b) a close minded racist, sexist, and self-absorbed elitist; and (c) a jerk who lacks self-awareness with an undeserved/unearned sense of entitlement. To people outside of the state, H-SC means nothing. At all. They don't know what it is, and explaining it is painful.

The stereotype of H-SC is unfair to most of the students. But the more visible elements of the H-SC community not only promote the characterizations, but embrace them as positive qualities. The school's community considers itself elite, and preaches to the students how elite and meaningful the H-SC degree is. The reality, however, is that the school is not elite; a degree from Roanoke College, Elon University, Alabama, Florida State, Ole Miss and even WVU (schools that are easier to get into, easier to stay in, and easier to get higher grades) means more because people have actually heard of them.

Add on top of all of this the experience of H-SC as an all-male school located in one of the poorest counties in the state, that has horrible food served by angry workers, and an "honor system" that prides itself on kicking students out for the most inane "violations" (like lying about being sick) while simultaneously tolerating (if not promoting) excessive hazing and drug/alcohol abuse, and you've got a school that is so far separated from reality and, consequently, unbelievably inept at preparing "young men to be good men and good citizens," that I couldn't, in good conscience, recommend this school to someone I cared about.