Please share "Campus Vibes" for Brown, Davidson, Duke, Vandy, Wake, Yale and/or GW

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@rickle1

S is a senior at Wake. I would describe the overall student body as very smart, active, successful, service oriented, and spirited. Lot of class presidents, vals, sals, team captains, leaders. Academics at Wake are quite challenging but the kids manage it well while doing lots of things. As an example, S is in a challenging major and does well while spending plenty of time participating in a business fraternity (leadership role), club baseball, intramural sports, mentoring younger students, and his first two yrs he worked in the Controller’s office 10 hours per week to cover his social money of which he spent regularly. He is fairly typical at Wake.

A unique or rather unusual characteristic of Wake is the combination of an LAC environment (small classes all taught by professors, close relationship with professors, residential & undergraduate emphasis which creates a tight knit community - required to live on campus three yrs) with a huge Power 5 sports program which gives it the best of both worlds. Tons of spirit and excitement of ACC sports, rivals, pride with that small school academic foundation. Smallest school in the Power 5.

@rickle1 - I can’t believe your S is a senior already. I remember you first telling me about your S a couple years back (he was headed overseas I believe for a semester?) Your S is very active. He obviously balances all of the demands and social activities well. My S immediately fell for Wake when we visited there his 10th grade year. We had planned to return again this past March. He has interviewed there and could certainly see himself at Wake. Do the kids go off campus much? I believe your S did not go Greek but was totally okay with that b/c he found a great group of kids in his dorms his first year? Has he used the career counseling services for assistance in whatever his plans are for after graduation? Did he ever get tired of the relatively small campus? (granted being overseas, and the pandemic took out a year or more of his time there…) Lastly, are there any kids there who are not big sports kids? My S is very physically active (NJROTC for 4 years) and likes to run and exercises daily, but…he has never watched an entire basketball game (or FB, or BB, etc). Crazy, I know (hubby and I watch lots of sports). He always says he’d rather play sports versus watch them. But I personally think that would change if he had a bunch of people he was attending games with (like WF bb). I think he’d be converted in that respect.