Wingate University — Attraction in Wingate

Wingate has a very personable and helpful staff many of whom have been there a long time it seems . Admissions staff was first rate. But once your student is enrolled, as a parent, you will need to be persistent to stay informed so you can help your student succeed.

Wingate's technology is antiquated. Difficult to do any business online as a parent. The school is paper intensive and sometimes the paper seems to fall through cracks. Wingate only recently came up with a way for tuition to be paid online. There is no parent portal yet that allows you to stay up to date with what is due when. Bills are mailed and the expectation is you mail checks or pay on site. If they have a payment plan, they do not advertise it. Most pertinent information goes through the student portal that the parent has no access to. This creates opportunities for miscommunication and missed deadlines.

The school is under-staffed. If you have to phone someone to ask for help or clarification, expect to get voicemail that states you will hear back in a couple of days at least. Email is a better option but don't expect a same-day reply.

Communication is not a strength here. During this last and very widespread flu season, the campus had a very big outbreak but no classes were cancelled and parents never received any communication regarding making certain your student had a flu shot.

Overall, I would say the school has its heart in the right place and most professors are engaged and want to see the students succeed. Still, the school has a ways to go in developing the kind of infrastructure that justifies its tuition costs.

Wingate rightly has a reputation as a collegiate Sparta, roughly one in every four students is some sort of athlete. Not necessarily a bad thing but if your student is not going to be playing a sport or chooses to leave a sport once there, be aware of what other options they have on campus to stay engaged. The student transfer rate accelerates at year two.

If campus surroundings are a consideration, know that Wingate is an exceedingly small town so that the campus is basically all there is. The neighboring town of Monroe is slightly bigger with more ammenities: small mall, Walmart and fast food options. Charlotte is a short drive beyond that. Uber is not allowed on campus, we were told. So your student needs a car or friends with wheels if he or she is going to leave campus or fly out of Douglas International.

Overall, Wingate has been a good experience for our student despite a bit of heavy lifting for the parents. Having proper expectations is important when choosing a college. Before you go, we wanted you to know what our...

Ugh. That whole situation sounds utterly and completely infuriating. I am genuinely pissed off. It's like you're paying a ton of money to attend this place, and they can't handle the absolute basics: getting your name right, telling you the rules, and providing decent food or healthcare.

Seriously, let's break down why this is all so maddening: The Meal Plan Bait-and-Switch

This is the biggest kick in the teeth because it directly hits your wallet and your stomach.

You did the smart thing and got the more expensive meal plan so you could eat where you needed to (Chick-fil-A). You had the clear, understood rule: three meal exchanges per week Then, without warning—not an email, not a sign, nothing—they just change the rule to two times a week at Chick-fil-A The worst part? They wait until you're trying to use your third meal, after you've already burned through your Dining Dollarsnon the exact same stuff you thought you were getting for "free" with the exchange. That's just a straight-up bureaucratic theft of your money and a total failure of communication. It's like they actively don't want you to use the plan you paid for.

---2. Health Center Lies (And the Name Fail) The staff issues are just the sour cherry on top of the trash sundae.

The Nickname: "Tree" (like the plant). It's not complicated. Getting the name wrong repeatedly is just lazy and disrespectful.

The Health Center BS: being told they can come to you if you're too sick, and then finding out later that was a straight-up lie, is genuinely dangerous. When you're vomiting with every step, you need medical support, not a bureaucratic runaround. It shows a complete lack of concern for student wellness when the person on the other end of the line clearly doesn't give a damn that you're violently ill.

--- 3. The Dining Hall Disaster

Your food options are a joke:

The main dining Hall is unreliable and often closed when you need it. The new place, "Victories," has ridiculous hours And you got food poisoning from the bagel spot which was the only food place that open in the morning that dose meal exchange, which isn't even open anymore.

When you're paying for a mandatory meal plan, the basic expectation is that you can consistently access food that won't make you violently ill. Their schedules don't fit a real student's life, and their quality control is garbage.

It just...

Been here for three years and all Wingate has done is raise the price of tuition while subsequently taking away things on campus. For one, they have limited our meal exchanges for Chick-Fil-A and Freshens to only two and three exchanges per week. The caf is unlimited, but they close at 8 p.m. and have limited food options. Wingate is also planning on charging us to keep our cars on campus while raising tuition at the same time. My question is why? No one asked for the DPC to be upgraded (and it was supposed to be done in January...) so why should we have to pay for it? The freshman dorms are in serious need of upgrading and the upperclassmen apartments are manageable but not worth the money, in my opinion. Honestly, the only reason I still attend Wingate is for the music department, and that’s why I gave this review 2 stars instead of 1. There is absolutely no reason that our tuition should be raised each year, that’s ridiculous and it actually causes many athletes and other students who attend Wingate on full scholarships to have to drop out. Private colleges are supposed to be essentially all-inclusive since that’s what the high tuition prices are for, but Wingate is definitely not all-inclusive and constantly cheats us out...