Why DPU Was The Worst Fit For My Kid (And What I Learned For Your College Search)
I’m heaving a 40-pound mini-fridge up the uncarpeted third flight of DPU’s oldest dorm when my phone pings. It’s my 18-year-old, Lila, texting from the first floor: The RA doesn’t know where my room is. The key doesn’t work. Can you come down? I set the fridge down against the wall, my shirt soaked through with August sweat, and trudge back down, already feeling that twist of something wrong in my gut that I’d been pushing down since we got on campus that morning.
We’d picked DPU for all the right reasons on paper. It was in-state, $10,000 a year cheaper than the private school Lila got into, it advertised a top-ranked early childhood education program, and it was only an hour and a half from home, which felt perfect for a kid who’d never spent more than a week away from us. We toured on a sunny April afternoon, cherry blossoms drifting over the quad, the admissions rep laughed at my bad joke about dorm life and told us they prioritized student support. We left feeling like we’d won the college search game.
By the third week of classes, Lila was calling me every night after dinner, her voice wobbly. Her introductory education class, the one the brochure said capped at 35 students? It had 280. The professor was a grad student in his second semester of teaching, who didn’t respond to emails for 10 days at a time. When Lila realized the class didn’t actually count toward her major requirements, she tried to book an appointment with her advisor to change her schedule. She was told the next available slot was six weeks out, after the add-drop deadline. Her advisor oversaw 412 undergraduate students, she later found out.
The little things piled up fast. The mold in the shower that facilities said they’d “get to in a couple weeks” was still there when she moved out four months later. Lila’s vegan, and the dining plan she was required to buy as a first-year only had two vegan options daily, both frozen patties that were usually sold out by 6 p.m. When she started having panic attacks before every lecture and reached out to the campus counseling center, the earliest intake appointment she could get was seven weeks out. One night she said to me over the phone, “Mom, I’m paying all this money to sit in a room and stare at a 10-year-old PowerPoint. No one cares if I’m here or if I learn anything. I just want to come home.”
I used to think “bad university” just meant a school that was too expensive, not accredited, or a for-profit scam. I didn’t expect a well-known in-state public school to cut every corner it could on the stuff that actually matters for new students. DPU’s been cranking up enrollment every year for the past decade to bring in more tuition money, and they never added more advisors, more counselors, or more full-time faculty to keep up. That’s the part they don’t put in the glossy brochure.
After a lot of late-night talks and a lot of panicking about money, we decided to have Lila transfer at the end of the first semester. It wasn’t an easy call. We lost half a semester of financial aid, we had to pay an extra $500 in transcript and application fees, and Lila had to take two summer classes to catch up on credits that didn’t transfer. A lot of people told us we were overreacting, that every first year is hard, that we should just stick it out. But first year isn’t supposed to be so hard that you’re crying every night and can’t get the help you need.
I’ve talked to so many parents since then who are in the thick of college searches, asking me what I’d do differently now. I don’t just tell them DPU is the worst fit for us— I give them the three concrete things I wish I’d checked before we sent Lila there.
First, when you visit campus, skip the pre-planned tour for 20 minutes and stop a random student who’s not wearing a tour guide shirt. Ask them straight, “What’s the most frustrating thing about going here?” Most kids will tell you the truth. I did this a month into Lila’s semester, and a sophomore education major told me she’d been waiting three months for her advisor to sign off on her graduation application, and no one would return her calls. That’s the kind of thing you’ll never get from an admissions rep.
Second, check the advising ratio for your kid’s specific department, not the general university website. DPU’s homepage says they offer “personalized advising” but the education department’s own internal page (buried three clicks deep) said the average advisor had 320 undergrads. If the number is over 150, that’s a red flag. No one can give 320 students any meaningful support.
Third, if your kid has any specific need— dietary restrictions, mental health support, accessibility accommodations— call the office that handles that directly before you commit. Don’t take the admissions team’s word for it. I called DPU’s dining office before move-in and they told me they had “plenty of vegan options.” They just didn’t mention that meant two a day in the entire 1,000-person dining hall.
Lila’s now at a small regional college 45 minutes from home, with the same early childhood education major, and tuition is only $1,200 more a year than DPU. Her advisor has 78 students, she got a same-week counseling appointment when she was stressed about transferring, and last week she texted me a photo of a drawing a first grader made her during her first classroom observation, grinning in the background.
We still have a little extra debt from that lost semester, and sometimes I lie awake at night wondering what would have happened if we’d dug deeper before we sent her off. Not every kid who goes to DPU has a bad experience— I know a handful of people who graduated there and have great careers. But for a kid like Lila, who needed a little extra support to find her feet as a first-year, it wasn’t just a bad fit. It was a school that cared more about enrollment numbers than the students paying tuition. Right now, we’re just taking it one semester at a time. No neat endings, just a lesson I wish I’d learned earlier: the best college on paper isn’t always the best college for your kid.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » Why DPU Was The Worst Fit For My Kid (And What I Learned For Your College Search)