Wake Forest review from first year parent

Colleges & Universities Wake Forest University
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I haven’t really been here since my D started college, but I decided to check in today and read some negative posts. The campus and surrounding area seem very safe to me. There is a cute area a short walk away from campus called, Reynolda Village with some places to eat etc. There is a neighborhood off campus that has beautiful homes. I don’t have to say that the campus is beautiful and a wonderful place to spend your days.

From what I see and hear, there are soooooooo many events and activities on campus. It truly boggles the mind. Too much to do, not enough time. There really is never a dull moment. Added to all that, the football games have been well attended and exciting.

D feels the workload. She has to study differently than she did in high school. You can’t slack. Her professors for the most part are very good, and they are helpful if you go to office hours. The class sizes are relatively small.

The environment is very social and most people are friendly. There’s lots of parties, but you don’t have to go to every one. My D tends to go to them on weekend, but doesn’t really have time for Wake Wednesdays which is a big party night for students.

I do have to say that the school feels very homogenous. Lots of people who look alike and dress alike. Kids are from all over so it’s geographically diverse. I noticed that the Asian international students stick together and the African Americans stick together. That’s kind of unfortunate.

To sum it up, it’s a wonderful school, D is having the quintessential college experience, easily made friends, is getting a good education and has an unbelievable amount of opportunities. All I can say is to just visit. You have to see it. If you have any questions, ask below.

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@citymama9 , any updates on how your daughter is doing at WFU? Speaking more about socially than academically, but one probably affects the other.

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I thought I would offer my perspectives as well as the father of a first year student.

My son has been happy from the very first night he spent on campus. He attended a pre-orientation program that he loved. He said that all the kids seemed great and everyone got along very well. Afterward, he recognized familiar faces on campus and that was somewhat comforting at first.

Our son doesn’t have the best roommate situation. He and his roommate get along fine, just not the best of friends. However, he has met some great friends on the hall, including girls who live on different floors. As the first poster mentioned, I think that Wake is very social. Son has mentioned Wake Wednesdays in particular. Now that it is late fall, he said that the first years seem very preoccupied with Greek rush. So I think that is a big component of the social life, although as others have pointed out, not everyone participates.

He has found the work hard, play hard mentality to be true. Said he can’t imagine going to another school where the kids only go out on the weekends! I think that he is working pretty hard, which is a change from high school. So he is learning to manage the workload.

As far as criticisms of the school, I think the fall first year registration process was stressful since it’s managed from home before they get to campus. There are many supports offered, but still felt a little like he was on his own.

And, as the original poster mentioned, the school seems somewhat homogeneous, racially and economically. I think they are making efforts to be more diverse, but may have some additional work to do.

All in all, we are very relieved that the transition has gone so well and that our son is very happy.

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Interesting. Another positive, first-hand review from a parent of a current student. We must have all been given the same script from the admissions office to post here…

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My DD is also a first year Wake student. She is very happy and loves WFU. To put my comments and observations into perspective:
DD is my first to go to college
We are from NJ and DD went to a private school from K-12 (so very diverse in all ways)

DD absolutely LOVES Wake and is very happy! Wake was not in her top 3 when applying.

Social:
She has made friends (from all over the US) in her hall as well as in class. Sometimes goes to fraternity parties on Wednesday’s and Thursdays, and almost always on Fridays and Saturdays. Always Uber’s to and from with girls or guys from her hall. She gets along very well with her roommate but they don’t go to parties together. (Roomie is religious and does other social things) but they very much respect each other. She will go thru rush in January and hopes to join a sorority. She says, and I have observed that Wake and Winston-Salem is much less diverse racially than her HS.

Academics:

She finds the amount of work and level of difficulty to be the same or slightly less than HS (she was in accelerated levels and some AP). Which is to say she had to work very hard in HS and continues to at Wake. She says many kids that say they coasted thru HS in Honors and AP at their HS are having to adjust to the large increase and difficulty at Wake. Depending on your HS, you may have to work much harder or maybe not.

Other:
The Wake Family outreach is amazing. They send a Daily Deac email blog post if you opt in. It is very informative about any number of areas campus activities and opportunities, FAQ’s and practical advise for parents, etc. I look forward to reading it every day and feel very informed.

Registering for classes for Fall 2019 was stressful. Many classes she was interested in were already full because upper classmates registered months prior. She had 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choices picked in case. Registering for Spring 2020 classes was worse. Freshman are given the lowest priority in terms of registration times so many classes full. That being said she was able to register for interesting classes that meet Divisional requirements and at preferred times of day (not 8am!). I understand that once she has 40 credits she can declare a major and be able to register for classes in advance of others. It all worked out and will only get better.

There is crime in Winston-Salem, it is a city, and is expected. There is some crime on campus, this is also true of all campuses. You can look at the WFU Police website crime report by the day. There were a couple of major crime events this fall, off campus drive by bullets, threatening emails to 1 campus department, alleged rape, and Wake sent alerts to students and parents immediately. I was worried at first, but after speaking with friends with college age students, it seems stuff happens on all campuses.

While DD can walk to Reynolda Village for restaurants and some shops, she cannot get to CVS, Target, etc on foot. You need a car or Uber for those kind of errands. She uses Amazon Prime instead. She would like to bring her car next year.

Greensboro airport is about 30 minutes away from campus so it has been very easy for her to travel home for breaks. Wake is further away from home than I wanted but the flight is short and easy.

She is very happy and we are very happy. Her transition to college was way smoother than I anticipated and that was a huge relief for my DD and me. She is thriving!!!

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I think the only thing that bums me out about these reviews is that there seem to be consensus (both above and on other threads) that kids want cars at Wake. We just aren’t going to let D have a car on campus wherever she goes to school. When we visit in the spring, I’ll have to ask more questions about how many kids have cars. S19 doesn’t have a car at his school and hasn’t needed one but i think his “town” is bigger and they can walk there. Having a car there is nice but not needed and he hasn’t had to ask anyone for rides anywhere.

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@homerdog DD does not need a car because she can Uber or campus shuttle if she needs. As I described to you before, one cannot walk from Wake’s campus to downtown Winston-Salem or to shopping centers. I would say Mostly students from NC, SC, have cars on campus because they can drive themselves home for breaks. (There are no trains in W-S) kids from the northeast, Midwest, west, even FLA don’t seem to have cars on campus. It’s absolutely not necessary to have a car and most students don’t.

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@UGG2023 right but you say you’re from NJ and she’ll bring a car so I didn’t understand if more kids have cars than the kids who can drive home.

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My sophomore son(not at Wake) is driving his truck home 500 miles for winter break. He lives off campus and uses his truck every day. I hate paying his insurance but the benefits outweigh the cost.

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We live 2000 miles from the school and felt our daughter needed a car while she was there. She had a number of creepy experiences with Uber (has been using Uber since she was a high school junior in the Boston area and needing to get to auditions–but Uber in W-S appeared to be a different kettle of fish than Uber in Boston) and the shuttles didn’t meet her needs for off-campus volunteer work.

All of her friends had cars on campus, including the ones who didn’t live within easy driving distance of the school. That may be a function of her friend group’s demographic, but I doubt it. Would be interesting to see official Wake stats on how many students bring cars to campus–I’m sure they have that info readily available.

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This is a thread for first year reviews of student satisfaction at Wake Forest University. I’d like to hear first hand from more parents or students about the thread topic.

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MODERATOR’S NOTE: Yes, please stick to the thread topic.

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So, I’m confused. Posts indicating that students need cars at Wake are off topic for this thread but posts indicating that students don’t need cars are fine? LOL. I think this calls for a separate thread addressing cars at Wake…

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Agreed. I don’t think car comments are fine, just well meaning (or sometimes not) posters who don’t read the thread topic and jump in and/or those who have an ax to grind against a particular school. Welcome to blogworld.

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Hi there, someone above asked how things were going. D is home for break now. The semester ended well. Haven’t seen the grades yet, but they should be good.

Nothing has really changed since I last posted. I’m worried about Rush more than my daughter is. The thing with Wake is that most of the girls want the same few sororities so I would imagine the competition is fierce. I’m not a fan of Greek life that’s such a big deal, but it’s a part of the culture and we knew what we were signing up for. All the girls who are rushing go back to school approx. a week before the rest of school comes back. I don’t want to think about what it’s like if you don’t get a bid.

D doesn’t have a car, and I don’t expect she’ll have one in the future. It has not been a problem. Luckily, many of her southern friends have cars so she gets to go on Target runs. Like the others said., she takes Uber as needed for things like going to parties and getting her nails and eyebrows done . There’s a place in Reynolda village to get the beauty treatments, but they are always booked… It’s really not a big deal at all. She gets a ride to the airport for the most part.

What i have noticed is that the professors are extremely nice and helpful. They want you to succeed. Not all have been “great or that interesting”, but all have been very available when needed. The ones that are good have been wonderful and inspiring.

As you can tell, I ask a lot of questions.

As for clubs. my D signed up for too many. She initially was going to meetings 4 nights a week, and many times. 2 clubs mtgs in a night. She eventually dropped a few, because it was just too much. She also was joining things she wasn’t thrilled with, but thought they would “look good”. She won’t be doing that again. If you have students starting college in the fall tell them to only do what they love except for one club that is aligned with their career goals.

Another thing, my D is not a fan of the The Pit, the dining hall so she ends up using her dining dollars. She has had to add to her acct twice now. I told her to please not eat Chic Filet more than once a week, lol.

Finally, it’s so interesting to me that so many of us ( after reading posts above) have kids that are pretty much saying the same things. I agree with everything I have read above except for the need for a car.

I just remembered one more thing. If your child is fairly liberal they need to understand that many of the other students will be conservative. My D has different views from many of her friends, but she manages to not let it interfere with these relationships. There have been times though when it has been difficult.

Hope this helps.

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@citymama9 whoa. You’ve said more in your innocent post than I think you expected. You’ve really painted a picture.

Your D gets her nails and brows done. Is everyone high maintenance like that? D gets her brows done every once in a while but never her nails.

Rush seems stressful and being disappointed in the experience sounds like something that could be likely for many girls. And is the food not good? I wouldn’t want our D to be eating fast food. Can you give me details about why your D doesn’t like the food? Healthy, yummy food is important to us.

Finally, she has to be careful with her words when it comes to politics? I thought Wake would be split down the middle when it comes to politics like Davidson.

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@citymama9 : I love your posts. Open, honest & interesting.

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@Publisher Thank you so much !!
@Homerdog I don’t know if everyone at wake is “high maintenance” as you say. My D has been getting her eyebrows waxed for many years. As for nails, she likes to get manicures. Not every week, but whenever she feels like it. It’s not a Wake thing, it’s a personal preference that is very common.

I don’t think the food is bad in The Pit. My daughter complains that it’s the same thing over and over. She’s very picky. If you go to their website you can see the menus. It looks like they have a ton of options. My D also said that on days when she has back to back classes she finds it easier to grab a sandwich somewhere. There isn’t that much fast food. There are places on campus where you can get healthy options. No shortage of healthy food, though she complains about the fruit quality.

About politics, my daughter isn’t the only Democrat. She isn’t the only liberal, although she will describe herself as moderate. No one has ever shut her down when talking about issues. She just isn’t used to conservative ideas since literally no one she has grown up with is conservative. She is learning tolerance and learning that not everyone thinks like her. I think people applying should know that there will lots of people who support Trump. However, I don’t think it’s a highly political school, but the kids do argue over things like global warming etc. Kids are coming from most states so there are all kinds of people. She knows southern liberals and northeast conservatives.

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No matter your daughter’s political views, I think it is great that the kids are arguing and she is hearing different views.

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I’ll weigh in on the political front as best I can from what S tells me.

Interesting dynamic. Administration and Professors are left of center (some very much so, others more moderate), which is quite common on college campuses. Student body is right of center with individuals falling all over the spectrum.

Students come from all over and many different backgrounds, but there is a large contingent of affluent kids (about 40% are full pay). However, it’s not part of the conversation. They tend to know if a friend comes from affluence, but it’s not negative or possitive, it just is.

Per S, although there are some vocal and passionate positions out there, most of his friends are more apolitical. It’s not that they don’t care, but more like acknowledging and accepting of others doing/ thinking their own thing.

There is a big push from the administration to positively affect the local community and to foster community on campus around the official motto of Pro Humanitate. This, in some sense, trumps (pun intended :smile: ) politics as students from all walks of life are joining to support causes. Traditions like Hit the Bricks, Wake N Shake, Project Pumkin, Lighting of the Quad, Lovefeast are all about community helping . supporting community. What’s very cool about it is they get participation from a substantial number of students. For example, Project Pumkin is their effort to bring a happy and safe Halloween to many disadvanteged kids in the WS area. Essentially every campus organization (Greek, non Greek) plays a role in hosting kids, playing games, etc. They really put a lot of effort into these events. The organizations themselves (again Greek and Non Greek) typically do charitable work within the community.

The vibe I get from S is not a lot of arguments surrounding politics. More like the spectrum being represented and most accepting of that. I would guess more conservative than the average liberal campus but not in a loud or overbearing way.

An aside - S just got back from studying abroad. He’s a Fin major / Politics minor and took a Politics course in Barcelona during a very unusual and sometimes violent uprising based on political prisoners, free speech, etc. He commented how different the global viewpoint was and how that was portrayed by the average citizen. Totally different way of life, attitudes, etc. Great experience (although as parents, we could have done without the riots and tear gas - all of which S said was easy to avoid).