u/NickJP123

Hey guys, I remember when I was deciding between Wake and a handful of other schools during my senior year of high school and I had a TON of questions that I wanted answers to but felt very confused about when reading online forums. What I'm going to provide to you below is my raw and real in depth experiences at Wake in various areas that I've deliberately tried to analyze over the last 2 years so that people who are in the shoes I used to be in can have a clearer picture. In terms of my credibility, I am a 20 year old male and a tour guide for Wake that is also a member of a fraternity, and I am very involved in several activities. I'll also be using information from lots of my friends who have had varying experiences in many different areas of wake (different majors, clubs, activities etc) to provide a better perspective to my information. I did another huge dump about how to get off the waitlist previously and have gotten dms from people before asking for help and have even played a huge role in getting some kids off it. With that being said, feel free to reply to this in 5 years from now or DM me whenever for any further questions. I'll have these organized by section so you can scroll to the ones you're interested in. Without further ado, let me talk about the first and often biggest question when it comes to Wake: what's Greek life like?

Greek Life

I remember asking this question too and spent the most time trying to figure it out. In fact, this was the main thing that kept me from going ED to Wake and the last thing that kept me up at night while I was researching whether to commit to Wake or not in late April. And let me tell you: I did NOT want to join Greek life. I was super against it and saw what it did to other kids at other schools, what they had to go through in pledging, and I also just thought that I wouldn't be "popular" enough to even get accepted into one and would probably be left out of all those things socially. However, when I first joined Wake I soon realized that the Greek atmosphere, although very prominent (us tour guides are not allowed to tell you guys this), is honestly very welcoming. I'll start by talking about sororities.

Sororities

As far as girls in sororities, so it is true that about 80% of girls are going to be in sororities, which is a really high number, and the admissions department kind of likes to sugarcoat that and tell tour guides to kind of lay back on that whole aspect of things. But in reality, the sororities are not that big of a commitment. It's not Alabama rush where you get packed into a huge sorority house and sing kumbaya every day. Pretty much anyone at Wake would tell you that sororities are kind of just like this huge club that meets once a week for chapter, and aside from that, has one to two date functions, and you pay a relatively small amount of dues, and you can get a lounge for half the sororities, which basically means that you're going to be living, you know, on the quad your sophomore and junior year in these little places where there's like, you know, a TV room, hangout room, that sort of thing. And that's kind of your on-campus sorority house, and that's basically all sororities are. People make fun of it all the time because people don't even know the names of all the girls in their pledge class, although to be fair there are dozens in each one. Also, there are going to be less popular and more popular sororities. The bar to get into like the less popular sororities is practically nil. You don't really have to do much to get into those less popular ones, they will take practically anyone. Also, just from the quote-unquote hazing period in reality is practically nothing although there definitely is a strong correlation between the more popular sororities and having slightly worse hazing than the less popular ones, but overall it's really not much of a commitment if you're in a sorority.

In terms of just getting into the sororities in the first place, for the first semester at Wake, you're really just getting to know girls, but it's extremely low pressure, and it's more like networking for a job where you just kind of know a handful of connections. And those are gonna be people who you might meet again during the real rush week, which would be your first week of the second semester. However, it's not really a big deal to be networking too hard your first semester, and a lot of these people, I'd say the vast majority of people, hardly know any upperclassmen girls in the first place, and they end up just meeting all of those people in that rush week where it's essentially speed dating. If you're concerned in any way about not being accepted into a sorority, that is honestly not something you should be worried about. They will take practically anyone, especially in those lower sororities. And while there is somewhat of a popularity contest to get into some of the higher sororities, overall, there's just a lot of different sororities and very few people are upset with the one that they end up in.

Now the other thing is what's it like to not be in a sorority at all. This is still 20% of girls, which is hundreds of people. I think it's important to understand that almost all of these people are not in sororities because they never wanted to be in one in the first place. While Wake Greek life is still nothing like the Greek like that big SEC schools might look like, some people just don't want to pay the dues (in the low hundreds per semester), have a friend group that's not interested in rushing, or are in this big Christian org called RUF (I'll explain this one later) that essentially acts as a social alternative to it for Christians. In the end, people who aren't in sororities can still go out or not go out to frats, bars etc. and can still have tons of friends in sororities. In fact, many of the sorority "lounges" on the quad have suites of girls in the sorority and other girls who are just friends with them and not in any sorority or their sorority.

Fraternities

Okay, this one's a bit more complicated but I can definitely speak to it as a guy in one who had to undergo the whole process. Basically the entire first semester is what is called "dirty rush" where you have to get to know people before the real rush week in the spring. When you first arrive to Wake, people will immediately be getting on rush "lists" which basically means being on the shortlist of people who are invited to a fraternity's events (mainly just their Friday night parties). And if you're not on a list, you can't go to their parties, which sucks because girls can get in wherever they want but guys are barred unless they have the email invitation that they have to show to the guys at the door.

So how do you get on lists? People usually arrive and are on anywhere between 0 (most common) and 3 lists within that first week or so. There are 3 ways to get on lists: have a connection from HS (e.g. a guy in a frat was a friend of yours and puts you on the list over the summer), be in a friend group that all gets "rushed together", or you just meet an upperclassman in one of your classes or events who sets you up with a rush chair that can get lunch with you and put you on the list. While these are how to get on the list, it is honestly not that hard to get onto a handful. The difficult part is staying, and you have the entire semester to screw this part up. What you need to do to "stay" on the list is keep consistently showing up to their events and have guys who like you and remember your name (preferably rush chairs) for when they do "cuts" every week or so to keep you on, and not do something stupid or be seen as "botted" by the chairs (a few of my friends are rush chairs so these are the main complaints) and overall just be a guy who fits in with their vibe.

There is also somewhat of a popularity system in it but the people who are the happiest in fraternity rush are the ones who rush with a friend group and are more concerned with actually liking the brothers in the frat than how popular they are. And trust me, there is a wide range in the popularity of frats, and you will figure that out fast. However, I truly believe that most normal people can find a home in one where they find guys who are interested in them. Take me, for example, not wanting to rush but immediately being welcomed into a fraternity's rush process in my first 2 weeks of school after getting to know and liking some upperclassmen and bringing my friends along with me. It's super easy and laid back if you just act normal, show up, remember names, and make your name known (in a good way). Once that first semester is over, you'll be on 1-2 lists that you're interested in and will already know a decent portion of the brothers of the fraternity. By rush week, the process is practically symbolic and they make very few "cuts" at that point. The most important thing is that you found your people because rather than just having one week to get to know them, you have had an entire semester to ensure that these are the guys you want to spend the next 7 semesters with. Worse comes to worst, you aren't on any more lists and you just rush again in the fall when the other 20-30% of guys get offers and it's considered significantly easier.

Now I'll talk a bit about people who don't want to join or aren't in fraternities, which accounts for about 40-50% of guys, so a much larger chunk than girls not in sororities. If you read the sorority section above I'll say that it's basically the same kind of thing. People not wanting to pay dues, people who's friend groups don't want to join, or members of the Christian group RUF. Again, I'd say very few of these people are guys who weren't cool enough to get into a fraternity; rather, it's just guys who don't want to be in one at all and spent their first semester figuring that out, often dropping out relatively early in the process. Either way, Wake is fun for these people too, although I recommend at least trying to rush. Your only disadvantage is you don't get automatically invited to your fraternity's parties, but at least you don't have to pledge, because regardless of where you go that's going to suck. Plus, if you actually want to party, you'll probably have 1-2 friends in fraternities who can get you the invite and you can go whenever. But also, by late sophomore and early junior year a lot of people start going to bars rather than parties anyway.

The last thing about fraternities that I'll mention is pledging. Once accepting a "bid" to a fraternity after rush week, you join a "pledge class" of about 15-25 guys in your freshman spring, and if you do sophomore fall rush you are typically with 5-15 guys. You basically spend a majority of the semester doing pledge tasks like driving people from school to the parties, experiencing lineups (basically what people call the "hazing" where you memorize information and have to do stupid challenges), and doing random other tasks for brothers like getting "signatures" (they will give you a task and you get their signature and most fraternities make you get every brother's signature). Pledging is VERY difficult, but there tends to be, like in sororities, a strong correlation between the most "popular" fraternities being the hardest pledging process either from a time consumption perspective or difficulty of the challenges. I won't get into the specifics of what they do because I don't want this post removed, but you'll hear about it the moment you get to Wake. I will say this: everyone misses pledging once it's over, often calling it "the most fun you'll ever have that you never want to have again", and that's honestly so accurate. You do a lot of crazy stuff, get extremely close with your pledge class, and become extremely good at managing your time between schoolwork and pledging. You're basically working 70-80 hours a week doing stuff- great prep for those of you interested in high finance and such. But I would not let pledging be the thing that holds you back from joining Greek life, because practically no one regrets it, and you get a huge network of guys you know. Plus, once you make it, you get to relax and make future pledges do the same stuff for you.

Where will I find my friends?

I always say this on my tours, and I don't really have to, but I feel like this is one of the most unexpected things about Wake that also happens to be one of the most important things to people's experience because it is one of the most pressing questions of kids about to start freshman year. Basically, everyone assumes they'll find their friend group in a club or a Greek organization. But honestly, most people find their closest friends from their floor on their residence hall their first year. I like to call this the "magic of the freshman residence experience" because they somehow happen to put likeminded and compatible people together. Each floor is comprised of about 20 guys on one side and 20 girls on the other, and friend groups of 3-6 often form from these or from various groups of these combining. It's honestly surprising how well everyone gets along together on floors and how many of them decide to live with their floor mates (not necessarily their roommates) in future years. I, for example, spent my sophomore year living with several of the guys on my floor from freshman year. It was a blast. Not only that, but you often live a large portion of your social life with those people, joining the same clubs and rushing Greek orgs with them as a group, often ending up in the same place as them. That's basically how friend groups form year 1, and it's surprisingly easy to meet the people on your floor if you just try your best in the first two to three weeks to get to know them. If not the people on your floor, you'll often meet people in the rush process, during pledging, or if you decide to join random other student organizations that essentially operate as frats because of their time commitment (club sports, orchestra, mock trial and debate etc.).

What if I don't like to go out?

Honestly, it's kinda weird because I'm in a frat but I'm honestly like this, and you really have two options. The first is you just find a friend group (in Greek life this is way harder) that doesn't want to party or go out much, or at least just wants to do so occasionally, and you hang out with them. This is basically what I did. I'd say the easiest way without taking too many chances is to join an org that has a culture of this, so for example join the rock climbing club or Campus Kitchen since those people typically do other things on Friday nights.

Option two is you just join a thing that takes you out on weekend excursions for various things. For example, if you join the mock trial or debate teams you will have to go across the country constantly to compete in competitions. The rock climbing club has a new expedition like every week (okay I don't know why I keep bringing them up I only have like one friend in it). But there are tons of orgs with opportunities like this. The biggest one for non partyers I'd say though is this thing called RUF. It's basically like a co-ed Greek org with about 200 or so people that Christians (or just people who don't go out) join that usually has their own events.

Option 3 is you just stay in your dorm and do nothing, but Wake is incredibly social so this is kind of impossible and there are very few people who do this. If anything, many people will just bring their friend groups to their dorms and they talk, watch a movie, or something like that. But being alone on a weekend night is rare because of the social culture of Wake.

Academics, "Work Forest", and all that fun stuff

Okay, so this one depends HEAVILY on two things. First, and most importantly, your major determines 70% of the amount of work you have to do. I don't want to get too into it since you probably already have a good idea, but an engineering major is going to be spending a lot more time doing work than a politics major or business major. Plus, most politics majors (and just generally social sciences/humanities/liberal arts people) end up AI'ing the readings and so they only work like 30 hours a week on academics max. As for business, which really deserves its own category since it's such a large portion of the school and is practically a majority of the people in frats, it's also very manageable, although finance is going to be significantly more work than just a general business management or marketing major. You get the idea. One thing is absolute, though, and it's that everyone (except for maybe pledges and D1 athletes) is capable of having a social life and joining at least 1-2 activities (hitting the gym, pickleball club, community service club etc.)

Now, that's not to say that Wake Forest academics aren't hard. You will be writing several 10+ page essays per year as a social science/humanities/liberal arts type major, spend late nights doing practice problems as a finance or accounting or math major, and be doing a lot of other confusing stuff I can't even begin to explain if you're doing engineering. People who have gone to UNC Chapel Hill and Wake have often said that Wake is slightly harder due to small class sizes, teachers in general being more work-heavy, and a more competitive environment of most students getting As and Bs and the vast majority of kids looking to go into engineering, general business, high finance, med school, and law school which all care heavily about your college GPA. But Wake definitely isn't Harvard. I know a few kids who transferred from Wake to t20's and say that Wake is still a good step down in difficulty from there, and that they can at least have a social life here. So it's really not that bad, and as a social science/humanities/liberal arts type major myself, if you're in my lucky category you will probably find Wake quite easy. But either way, work is MANAGEABLE, and the whole "Work Forest" stereotype isn't true for people with decent time management.

Politics/Political Climate

Feel like I'm good for talking about this cuz I'm a politics major. Honestly, Wake is pretty moderate politically. According to FIRE, Wake is 50/50 conservative and liberal, which makes it the second to most conservative college out of the top 100 aside from Notre Dame, and really one of the most politically mixed schools, with most being 70-90% liberal. While almost all professors in the social sciences are going to be fairly left wing, there are a handful of exceptions (1-2 in the politics department, and a decent amount of independents and republicans in the philosophy and econ departments actually).

One thing is true, though, which is that I'd say professors are definitely open to hearing multiple opinions during class time. If someone disagrees, their opinions are seen as valid. While professors typically push back against right wing viewpoints, they often engage with them critically or don't push back on them at all. I'd say most conservative students are going to be in areas like business, econ or other apolitical majors, with a decent but not overwhelming liberal tilt in the social sciences/humanities/liberal arts majors.

In terms of your friends' political leanings, I'd say it's honestly exactly what you'd expect. Guys are generally more conservative, girls generally more liberal. The liberal certainly isn't "leftist" and the conservative certainly isn't hard-right Trumpy, as most people are from relatively moderate backgrounds such as your posh center-left people from the Northeast (which accounts for like half our campus) or your run of the mill center-right Republicans who have a parent that owns a hedge fund.

The main thing that it depends on is the type of organizations you are in, for example the LGBTQ center is pretty left leaning, frats are pretty right leaning, and so on. Some friend groups are very conservative or liberal as a whole but others are a complete mix. However, regardless, politics is honestly not a huge thing on campus. People are more concerned about socializing and getting a good job, to be honest. This isn't one of those places where you see huge protests or gatherings, clashes between major political figures and students, or any huge free speech debates. There are a few expressly political events you can get involved in like debate watch parties, College Democrats and TPUSA, and random professors giving talks, but not a ton of people go to them or get involved, including very political people like myself.

Sports/School Spirit

Okay, this was one that may interest some of you and not matter at all for others. For those who don't know, there are several levels of athletic "conferences" in college, with the highest level being the power 4 conferences (ACC, Big 12, Big 10, SEC), each comprised of about 15-25 schools or so. Wake is in the ACC, and we are the smallest school out of all the power conference schools (nearly 100). Yes, we (a school with 5k kids) have to go up against UMichigan (40k or so) in certain sports. This means that we are kind of lacking in resources compared to those other schools despite competing at the highest level possible of college athletics. But honestly, we are really good depending on the sport.

The sports that cost more money to be good at, namely football and basketball, have been ones we've suffered in lately due to new rules that determine how much a school can spend (bigger schools with more donors can acquire better players due to higher funding). However, smaller sports (e.g. golf, soccer, baseball, tennis, cross country) have been where we've had most of our successes. For example, our men's tennis won the national championship indoor and outdoor last year, our women's soccer made it to the national championship last year, our field hockey team won 3 nattys in a row, and our men's soccer was ranked #1 at one point this year, and so on.

However, don't give up on football and basketball yet, as we just went 9-4 in football this year, pulling off huge upsets against ranked SMU and UVA in nail biter games. Also, our basketball is honestly terrible right now, but our team has historically been good (a few sweet sixteen and final four appearances) if you look to 2010 and before where we had stars like Chris Paul on our squad.

In terms of athletic culture and what it's like to attend stuff, basically no one goes to anything aside from football, basketball, and the occasional baseball or soccer game. For football, there are huge tailgates where kids can hang out next to a bunch of frat tents and get drinks. However, if we are losing a game, lots of kids will leave after the first quarter or first half, and we tend to give up pretty easily once we're down by a TD or two. For basketball, our home environment is pretty fun and we tend to stay the full game and occasionally pull off some pretty cool upsets. For example, two years ago we beat Duke and stormed the court, injuring one of their best players. But both that game and the UNC game require you to camp out in front of the basketball stadium starting at 8am and stay there until the game starts in the evening if you want entry or close seating.

Class Registration

Okay this one is pretty relevant especially for any incoming freshman but basically we use this thing called Workday where you can look up all the classes and figure out what you're going to take. I will preface this whole thing by saying that the class registration process takes a good 5 or so hours of prepping and you still may not get all your classes you want, but if you're smart and follow my advice you can get most.

Basically, you need to create 2-3 "saved schedules" with a main one and backups. You will want to get all your divisional credits out of the way (see the Wake website for more info) in your first year and largely forget about your major for any reason aside from filling out divisionals. Be sure to research these very well because you may end up taking a useless class if you don't.

Also, for registration day, the second that your time slot opens you need to be on your computer (preferably a newer one with all tabs and apps closed for speed), with your saved schedule open, and then refresh it and click the green "register for my classes button" at the second the clock strikes the beginning of the hour your registration period is. Trust me, if you do all of this and have 2-3 saved schedules, you will get most good classes.

Now, this is the other important thing to know. Your professors, NOT the name of the class, will be the most important thing that affects your academic experience. There are good professors and there are bad ones, although I'd say most are going to be good. But you need to check for each class that you are adding to your saved schedule to ensure that you do a professor who is relatively low work load and not too hard of a grader. Sometimes not every class or professor will be available, and I highly advise you to wait on taking the class rather than get it over with and risk a bad professor. It's important to consider both of those metrics, as those are the 2 main things that people complain about, and people who say they don't like their professors almost always point to that. It's also important to know that even if you find a class to be "interesting" or "fun", don't bother taking it if the professor is bad. It's just not worth it, and at the end of the day you don't really get to learn that many fun things in college but rather just have to do a bunch of reps and get a grade. For those of you who took the time to read this, I'll leave you a nice little treat which is this professor rating spreadsheet that people in Greek Life have access to that I encourage you to use alongside RateMyProfessor.com (the standard in determining good professors), hopefully this link works: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/1/d/1o1hPz4jvZD2OvQ6Ol66hoJc8sxLM5JdVpcBRe4wkS1M/htmlview?urp=gmail_link

In-Class Experience

First thing's first, and this is one of the most distinct factors of a Wake Forest education, but you will be in classes generally between 15-25 kids on average. Social sciences/humanities/liberal arts classes will almost all require attendance with a handful of allowed misses, and will almost all require participation (a good rule is once per class). For others, according to my friends it tends to be optional but you're going to want to attend and participate if you hope to survive.

Most kids do end up AI'ing their readings and whatnot, which saves time but also leaves a lot of kids saying "did you do the reading?" to which most people say "nah". Also, most classes let you have your computer out so kids will often play games or take notes (it honestly depends on how important class time is in various classes since some are a genuine waste of time and others base practically everything off it). Cold calling happens in maybe 10% of classes luckily, and people rating professors tend to make that pretty clear in their ratings in case that's something you want to avoid at all costs.

Living Conditions - First Year and Beyond

Your first year you will be in a 2 person dorm room with a random roommate. It may sound kind of rough to have a random roommate rather than someone you find online with similar hobbies to you and such but it's honestly not bad since they will pair you with someone who will have a similar style of living to you. You may not find your roommate to be your best friend, but at least they go to bed at the same time as you and wake up at the same time (highly important), are pretty clean (or dirty, however you like it), have shared thoughts on eating in the room, and other highly important things. Some people do lie on these surveys but usually people don't because they don't want their roommate to hate them. It's also honestly so rare for people to change rooms (I've only ever heard of it once) because of the similarity in lifestyle of those people. However, because this isn't someone you found on social media with similar hobbies to you and who you deem as cool and a possible friend, people often don't become best friends with their roommate, and usually find other people on their floor to do most socializing with. However, most people genuinely like their roommate and love seeing them around on campus. Unless, of course, they get sexiled every other night. That's really the only exception, and it's not too uncommon.

As for future years, the way it works is you basically move "up" campus, so mostly on the quad or to North campus in either the apartments or the dorms up there. As for the quad, people in Greek orgs will generally be living in lounges, or basically dorms where the school gives spots reserved specifically for people in a specific Greek organization and they get to live in suites with their friends and have a cool lounge space with couches, TVs, a kitchen, and an outdoor hangout space. Not every org has a lounge and many of the frats keep getting kicked off and replaced with other organizations (e.g. Campus Kitchen community service org).

Wake has a 3 year residency requirement, and many will be in on-campus apartment-style places or really nice dorms by junior year after doing suites with roommates sophomore year. Once senior year hits, 50% decide to stay on campus and the rest will leave. A majority of those who leave are doing it to be in Greek housing because the frat row and sorority housing where seniors often live is right off campus, or about a 10 minute walk. This is where the parties and such are held, and where many pledges have to report. Seniors living here have to negotiate their own leases and stuff but it's generally passed down among Greek orgs and their friends.

Faith

I'm Catholic so I can only really speak to my experience and people involved in Catholic and Christian life. About 25% of campus is Catholic (probably since 50% of people are from the Northeast) and another 20-30% is some sort of Christian. If you want to go to weekly, mass there are 3 mass times per week right on campus. The Catholic Community is also great, and they have Bible studies, weekly dinners, and other offerings. For other Christian services, they do offer a few on campus but the vast majority participate in what they like to call "church rush" where you go into Winston-Salem in various carpools run by RUF (the Christian org) and find a variety of churches and go to them and choose your favorite over time that you and possibly your friends want to go to. There are several of each denomination and a few nondenominational options. As far as day to day life, if you're a Christian and not Catholic, just join RUF. It's what all of them do, and it's comprised of about 200 people who do various events together and basically operate as a Greek org. It's extremely easy to meet them and they seem to be a tight knit bunch.

Food

First and foremost, let's just talk about how the meal plans work. Each meal plan is gonna have different combos of these. There are 3 main currencies used, with the first being dining dollars which basically correlates directly to the US dollar and can be used at the POD, which is three different grocery stores on campus that let you buy small stuff like chips or protein bars or drinks. Then there's meal swipes which is basically an all you can eat buffet swipe that works at any of the dining halls (the Pit, North Pit, and Magnolia Room). Lastly, there's the Old Gold, which can be used as an all you can eat swipe at the dining halls and also be used in Benson, which contains a lot of our other options (Chick Fil A, Bento sushi/poke/noodles, Forest Greens salad and sandwich, Sabrosa Mexican bowls etc.) for various predesignated "meals", so for example one Old Gold can get you a chicken sandwich, fries, and a drink at Chick fil A. Your meal plans will come in a variety of different quantities of dining dollars, meal swipes, and old golds, with some giving you a certain amount of swipes per week and others saying you get a certain number for the whole semester. You can change your meal plan for the entire first month. One piece of advice I'll throw in there is to not overdo your swipes early on in the semester since almost everyone overspends and begs their friends for swipes by the end.

As for the quality of the food, it's a college dining hall, so it's not going to be insanely high quality or taste like your parent's cooking. However, I've eaten at several college dining halls, and I have to say that Wake is among the best out there. There's salmon, steak, and other really nice stuff constantly revolving at the Pit. We also literally have every major fast food culture (southern, asian, American, mexican). I've even eaten duck, oysters, and turkey legs before, so there's occasionally extremely nice stuff. Plus there's a lot of make-your-own stations at the Pit, including omelettes, pasta, and sandwiches. And even if the quality isn't the best, which it generally tends to be satisfactory, the most important thing is that you won't get sick of it because there are just so many options. One more important thing is that there's a Subway open 24/7, which is sooooooo nice if you're looking for a midnight snack, sick and starving (they have meds and a POD there too), or just want a place to hang out and eat after going out since the frat row is a half mile walk or long uber away while waiting in the cold. Most kids go 20, 30, and sometimes even 200 times to subway during their time at Wake, and I know many colleges without a 24/7 dining option and honestly have no idea how they do it.

Conclusion

If you read all of this, I'm honestly impressed. I hope this was helpful, and if you have any questions, feel free to reply or DM, I'll respond occasionally. In case you're curious, I've really loved my time at Wake and a lot of it is thanks to my friends, professors, and the many groups I'm involved in. Enjoy your summer, good luck with applications or your freshman year or whatever else you're doing. Peace...