Wake Forest Falls to #47 in US News Ranking

Colleges & Universities Wake Forest University
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I’m sure it runs the gamut. I’m sure people cross shop with the Vandy, Duke, Emory’s but also the UVA, UNC, and the Richmond, W&M and Elons of the world.

My daughter applied to W&L, W&M and then UGA/UF/UMD/IU. So tiny (due to Johnson), mid size - her preference, and large.

Only didn’t apply WFU because she did not like the campus.

I wouldn’t worry about who applies but rather where does your student want to apply.

Sometimes there’s a commonality. Sometimes schools, unlike one another, just click.

If you believe college factual, these are the top states represented. Given so many in state, I’m guessing Duke, UNC, NC State, and Elon as a safety probably are likely heavily cross applied. But just a guess.

U.S. States

State Number of Students Percent
North Carolina 255 22.04%
Florida 90 7.78%
New York 80 6.91%
New Jersey 78 6.74%
Georgia 69 5.96%
Virginia 69 5.96%
Massachusetts 62 5.36%
Connecticut 57 4.93%
Pennsylvania 56 4.84%
California 43 3.72%
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In our area (Tennessee) the kids who apply to Wake are also applying to Vanderbilt, Duke, USC, Boston College, Georgetown, WUSTL, Tulane, Emory, SMU, TCU, etc. and selective southern publics like UVA, UNC, and UGA. I’d say it’s a blend of both categories.

Both of our children graduated from Wake. DD applied to liberal arts colleges, some other mid-sized schools, and UTK as a safety. DS went ED, applied in August and was admitted in October.

Wake is a tough admit from TN, about 30 students a year. Most of the students come from highly regarded privates.

Wake students seem to fit a category, though, in that they are both bright and social. Many double major in unusual combinations, for example, and most enjoy a pretty vibrant social life centered around athletics.

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My S25 is applying to Wake along with W&L, Elon, Richmond and Furman.

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I think this raises an important nuance.

I think there are some kids who very much prefer a Wake type of experience (and their parents have made peace with what that is going to cost them). But it is a very selective college these days, so they might be applying to, say, an in-state public, and maybe some select OOS publics as well. But if they get into Wake (or similar), that is the direction they intend to go.

Other kids are still cross-shopping Wake and various publics and very well might choose one of those publics even if they are admitted to Wake.

Again Wake in that sense can fit into a variety of different application lists. But in some sense the core appeal is basically the same (or at least similar) in all of these sorts of cases. It is just the different surrounding circumstances and different priorities of these kids leading to differences in the rest of their lists.

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My oldest applied to WF, liked size and undergraduate focus. My youngest almost applied, but found 2 on your list that are actually better for her interests so didn’t. My nephew from up north attended, his other options were Boston College and UofM. He loved it there and had a great experience.

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My student liked Wake, BC, UGA, Auburn, UVA. Hated Emory and Bowdoin :slight_smile:

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I feel like I have a pretty good sense already of why this kid has Wake on their list, and it is a very unsurprising list to me because I totally get why a kid who liked Wake would also like those other colleges.

But again I think there are lots of different lists that would strike me the same way.

Like that! In fact that is basically my friend’s daughters sort of list.

Repeat of BC (I suspect this is not a fluke, like I can see why both BC and Wake would appeal to a lot of kids), but yet more variation that still makes sense to me.

Anyway, enough of that. I just find it interesting how Wake’s combination of appealing attributes makes it such a natural fit with fairly different lists.

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Then Emory and Bowdoin should be off. Mine liked Emory a lot. Didn’t visit Bowdoin but I did. Personally I was underwhelmed whereas I thought W&L was the nicest small school in America. Everyone is different.

What my daughter didn’t like about Wake ? Parking lots at every building vs big centralized garages. As we drove the outside, she already removed b4 she saw the inside. She thought it was an office park :slight_smile:

The inside is very nice.

But all see things differently and that’s how yours should apply. Auburn is very nice too. If they like Auburn, I feel Ms State is similar.

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We visited Bowdoin and Colby for possible recruitment with a sport, otherwise they wouldn’t be on the list.

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This also struck me although it didn’t matter to my S24. To me it was really obvious how that fit into Wake’s campus history, moving the whole college from the titular forest in Wake to its new location outside Winston-Salem in 1946 (thanks in part part to the Reynolds family).

By that time, everyone was planning around automobile use, and Wake’s campus plan is therefore sort of the collegiate version of the sorts of autocentric plans that were taking over suburban residential development, and also leading to some rather regrettable attempts to reconfigure existing central cities and such. And of course at the height of the “college of the future” movement (if you will), you end up getting some sprawling campuses with buildings that are not necessarily seen all that favorably today.

But despite some philosophical concerns, I actually think Wake managed to pull off a very nice campus anyway. For sure it is designed for automobile use, but I did not find it unpleasant, hard to walk around, or so on. I think it helped they were obviously trying on some level to make it feel like the campus was not from the future, was in fact stately and historic and such.

Anyway, just some random thoughts, but I did find it interesting to see in person how Wake’s campus reflected a very specific sort of vision circa 1946.

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Another differentiator for Wake is its strong preprofessional orientation. Three of DS’s fraternity pledge class of twenty-five are in medical school, for example.

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Yeah, they are obviously highly desired by some kids, but my S24 eventually decided not to even consider them due to the location and setting.

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I think Wake was an early adopter of this model, but it kinda feels to me like most of the higher education world is heading that way. Like my S24 is interested in Bio, not so much premed, but it wasn’t really viable for him to try to actually avoid “good for premed” colleges (he ended up at WashU, in fact, which is very much on that list). These days it feels like all the Econ kids actually want to go into finance, and so on.

That being said, I agree there are still schools that are more toward the academicky end, and others that are more toward the preprofessional end, and Wake is maybe a good example of a college that features an outstanding undergraduate education that is also more toward the preprofessional end. And actually, I am not sure my S24 would have chose Wake over, say, William & Mary, which is maybe a little more toward the academicky end.

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Yeah, he’s a business major who wants a smallish to medium school not in the NE. Otherwise I could see him liking BC. He’s applying to Notre Dame, Trinity in TX, and Miami Ohio as well. They all have somewhat of a similar vibe.

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I think this nails a lot of kids who apply to and potentially end up at Wake. Although, where we are, the other schools those students applied to don’t quite fit your description, and it’s not so much that their parents have made peace with the cost, but that the cost is a non-issue and helpful barrier to entry because it doesn’t apply to them.

Our local profiles of the WF applicant is one of two (broad stereotypes to follow): super high achiever for whom Wake is a backup or second tier choice (with lagging parental and sometimes student understanding of how selective it’s become, and how outlandishly selective the schools above it in the pecking order have become, so that it should be a target, and it usually becomes a “I’m very happy with the outcome” matriculation); and “normal” high achievers for whom it’s a reach or high target kind of place.

The former group are also applying to Vandy, Duke, UNC, sometimes Emory, Georgetown, BC, maybe an Ivy or two, etc., and then Richmond, W&M and the like plus a few true safeties. The latter group is also looking at BC, Lehigh, maybe a Villanova or NYU at the top, and then fill out their list with places like TCU, SMU, Pepperdine, Santa Clara, etc. In other words, fairly cost-inelastic as one works down the list*, and happy to pay for the private university experience even further down the selectivity/perceived academic eliteness scale.**

*Probably part of the reason why, of the dozen or so kids from our community I’ve known that ended up in Winston-Salem in the past three or four years, almost all of them were Early Decision. It marks you as a yield win and full-pay.

**99% of the parent population at some point says "Sorry, kid, but I’m not paying $150k more over 4 years for you to go to ____ when you got into Virginia Tech/Purdue/highly regarded home state public at half the price]

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With maybe just some minor variations in the exact names, those two groups definitely seem to capture most of the Wake applicants in my circles as well.

This is then an anecdote of one, but with my kid maybe more fitting into the first group, I was happy ultimately for him to treat it as a Target on his list. I knew the stats, but I was also thoroughly persuaded after our visit and my own research that it was in fact not just a comfortable, fun, “country club” private.

To be sure, it is in PART that. But it is also an academically interesting college that takes the quality of its undergraduate education in particular very seriously.

To sort of return to the original topic, then–the new style of rankings is basically downgrading colleges for being too much in the “country club” set. And from a social policy perspective, it is probably true Wake Forest is not necessarily doing quite as much for upward social mobility as some other colleges.

But still, it is an excellent school, by which I mean it is very good at actually being a school. And I hope, and really expect, it will continue to be valued by families who have that as their top priority. And who can pay.

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100%. I worked my tail off there as an undergrad. Albeit in a lovely setting.

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Its nickname isn’t “Work Forest” for no reason!

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That nickname was a big deterrent for both my girls :rofl:

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Unfortunately, Wake Forest seems overrated. Its graduate programs are not very strong–why is that?

Seems to attract mostly private school kids who can pay full-fare and give out token scholarships (admission & research scholarship) to make everyone feel good.

For the price, it may be better to spend the money on grad school.

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