As a current freshman at Wake, this was one of my main conflicts when I first came here. I am an African-American woman from a low-income family, so you can imagine how much adversity I face on campus.
I will say that the conservatism is not out front. there are not people wearing MAGA apparel and marching up and down the quad. Rather, their true colors come out when we have things like protests about certain topics. The student body turns their backs against things that don’t directly affect them. we had a DACA protest in front of Wait Chapel earlier this year, hardly anyone showed, and most people just walked past, going on with whatever they had been doing before simply because it didn’t affect them directly. If you’re looking for a place that you say 'Hey, this thing is going to affect a group of people in America and I want to bring awareness to it", this may not be the place for you. I will say that you won’t be alone, people will give you support, but it won’t be as many as you would want.
Everyone is talking about being exposed to other ideas and cultures and whatnot- if you don’t want to do that at Wake, you really don’t have to.