<p>If you’ve been around CC for more than four years, then you’ll know who I am. If not, I shall be anonymous to you.</p>
<p>Here are my thoughts on Wake Forest, my experience, and some dirt.</p>
<li><p>Wake Forest. It is a very good school; the best part about it is the professors. Second best, the students. All the professors here (save a few bad apples) are incredibly good at what they do: molding and shaping young minds. The students, well, some are good, some are bad. Yes, this is a Southern school, and as such, it has its share of people who aren’t friendly with people darker than whiteout.</p></li>
<li><p>More on the students. There are many many many types of students at Wake Forest. I was a non-greek, non-athelete. Just a standard guy, straight, male. There were definitely a lot of people I did not like at Wake. I would say half of greeks were people I would not like to be near. But, there were many people that I liked, which, no surprise, were not greek. I would say that the vast majority of people at Wake are bright and intelligent people. Some are determined and driven and will get that 4.0. Others are bright and intelligent, did very well in high school, but for them, college isn’t the time to hit the books. It’s their own personal choice (as it was mine). People are very friendly (and just like in the outside world, some are fake, but oh well) and get along real nice. You will find friends here, but your circle can be very very small or very very big.</p></li>
<li><p>Hatch. It’s no secret what the whole goal of his life is: higher ranking for WFU. Everybody knows that. While this is good for me some years from now when Wake is in the same class as Princeton and the Harvards, many people aren’t happy with his changes. I wasn’t. Our new logo is atrocious and makes us look like an online university… I guess it was meant to appeal more to the people that don’t submit SAT scores. The phallic flyer hanger is an ugly abomination that nobody looks at. Throwing out visiting faculty, being secretive, and not living up to pro humanitate–whatever that garbage means–was a very bad call.</p></li>
<li><p>The faculty eviction. Here’s pretty much how it went down. The Board of Trustees (rich white folk that come visit campus every once in a while), along with Hatchey, concocted the following plan. They wanted more students, and more students means more housing. Simple math. The PLAN was to admit more students than what could be accommodated at Wake with the intention of tying their hands together and “forcing” themselves to make the only choice that could be made: turn faculty housing into student housing. First off, fine, if you want to kick out faculty to make room for students, okay. But the way they went about it was an incredibly bad call. They acted without care for those people. Gave them very little notice, tried to buy them off with peanuts, but most reprehensible of all, they were treated without respect. It’s very funny to me that the people that live up to so-called pro humanitate are the students and the faculty, more so than the administration.</p></li>
<li><p>No more SAT’s. This has pretty much been discussed to the point where the truth is self-evident. It’s a ploy to boost selectivity and accomplish Hatch’s goal in life. While I will say that there’s no way in hell I would be admitted to Wake Forest in the last couple of admission cycles, I do see some value in keeping the SAT. I would have preferred to give the SAT less weight than getting rid of it altogether, but Hatch also needs PR and calls the shots. Actually, I would have substituted the SAT with the LSAT, because that test is actually worth something.</p></li>
<li><p>Admissions. Yes, they are being progressive. I’ll say that. Admissions at Wake aren’t what they are at other schools. It applies to the undergraduate school, the law school, the business school, etc. Across the board. Yes, numbers are important, but they look at the individual very very very much. I think this is a good thing.</p></li>
<li><p>Life after graduation. Wake, if you put in the time and effort, or after it kicks your butt into shape, will prepare you very well for life after graduation. You will have done twice the work that students at other similar schools put in, and so you’ll be light years ahead of the competition and will put in more work than anyone else. After all, you graduated Work Forest. I have a very nice job working for the government and in two years I will have nice prospects at law school.</p></li>
<li><p>Financial Aid. It sucked when I got here and now I’m out with $55k in student loans. Not a very good thing. Factor in law school and it ain’t gonna be pretty. I’m not sure what it’s looking like now. If you have very good stats and Wake really really wants you, they will fight tooth and nail for you, and throw more grants at you. They don’t want to “lose you” unless they absolutely can’t help it.</p></li>
<li><p>Meal Plan. It sucked worse than financial aid. If you have a choice, pick the absolute lowest plan possible. Bicker, nag, and harass if they won’t let you pick lower than the minimum. Say you’re Jewish or Muslim. Say you’re a vegetarian. Say your financial aid won’t cover it. I don’t know what, but get as few meals as possible. The food is garbage. I was friends with a few of the staff (heck, one of them, we go back to high school and middle school) and he said: “I don’t understand how the students put up with the food.” Said “You don’t want to know what’s in there with the cereal.” You’re not going to like The Pit. I find it very ironic that The Pit lives up to its name now and not back when I first got to Wake my freshman year.</p></li>
<li><p>Grade Deflation. Yes, it’s alive and well, but diminishing a bit. I’m not precisely sure if Hatch is behind this, or school just got easier as I got smarter each year, or what. But it does exist, by my reasoning, because you put in more work and effort for a grade here than you would elsewhere. And if you don’t put in a big amount of time and effort, the best you will do is a B. Maybe a B+ if you get lucky.</p></li>
<li><p>My Fellow Alumni. Read the OGB and you’ll see that we are not happy. Of course, I can’t speak for all of them, and ginny is bound to disagree with me on this, but many of the students I speak to say Wake treated us like dirt. Hatch was a mistake… all those “President’s Balls”… well…we’re choking on them now. Read the latest Op-Ed by Keith and you’ll get a sense of how disillusioned we are with OUR school. While the SAT and greater selectivity will help Wake, guess what, those alumni donations are going to dry up more than the Sahara. I am not giving Wake a dime and neither will a vast majority of people. Hell, Wake, after seeing the writing on the wall, tried to bribe us with stupid tours of the underground tunnels. Nice try, but I don’t think so…</p></li>
<li><p>Greeks. For all my disgust with a great many of them, I share their gripes with Wake misadministration. The off-campus parties were really really bad. It pretty much killed parties at Wake where non-Greeks and Greeks could mingle and drink and party. Now we have to take shuttles to some off-campus location. Parties are much infrequent and all the partying is now intra-Greek. (Meaning the Pi Phis get trashed at Martin Hall and dance with each other). Wake Forest has slowly and steadily been purchasing bars near the Coliseum, and letting the land and property sit, just to cut down partying venues for students. Sure, they say some BS about maybe storing books there or building something some day, but it’s garbage. If you want to come here for partying, even a minimal amount, you will have a hard time getting crunk.</p></li>
<li><p>Diversity. Baloney. Wake is plenty diverse, and this is coming from a diverse-qualifying fellow. There is every shade of the rainbow at Wake (figuratively-speaking). Many of the best people at Wake are of this variety… including our new SG President-elect. Groups that are “under-represented” (whatever that means) at Wake include the following: Muslims, Jews, Internationals (the map in Carswell looked like we have 7 or something now), and Hispanics… maybe gays too, but I don’t know. Apart from those groups, Wake is not the Southern, white, frat house you might think it is.</p></li>
<li><p>Web Site. The WFU web site sucks baddddddd. It hasn’t changed, I believe, since 2000. The Office of Creative Services puts out nice quarterly magazines but they might consider taking a stab at the ugly web site.</p></li>
<li><p>Ways to Learn More. Check out JuicyCampus.com. Check out Facebook. Ask students. Don’t call the admissions office or Harbinger Corp… it’s all BS.</p></li>
<li><p>Miscellaneous. The staff at Subway needs to be thrown off a cliff. They are rude people. It’s not my fault you’re barely making ends meet and you’ve got to serve us food, okay??? It got so bad that WFU instituted some dumb program where the highest-ranked and friendliest worker there got $50 or something a week. The program got scrapped after a few weeks. I guess it wasn’t worth it to be nice to the students for a fraction of their George Bush tax rebate.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Hmm, I don’t know what else to write. Feel free to ask questions, etc. Those are my thoughts, and they are pretty much spot-on (at least IMHO).</p>
<p>Oh… our commencement speaker, EJ Dione, was horrible. After flattering Hatch for the first five minutes of his speech (<a href=“http://www.wfu.edu/news/release/2008.05.19.d.php)%5B/url%5D”>http://www.wfu.edu/news/release/2008.05.19.d.php)</a>… and much of our rolling our eyes because we knew Hatch was the worse thing to happen to Wake in a while, he gave one of the worst speeches I’d ever heard… and I’ve heard quite a few. I was a student marshal, seen tons of commencement speakers, and especially big name ones. This was a dud. Hell, the baccalaureate speaker, Bishop Vashti, was a MILLION TIMES BETTER than good 'ole EJ.</p>
<p>Some advice for people considering Wake:
a) Try to get in to a better (aka better ranked) school.
b) If you want a graduate degree… try to get in to a better school that doesn’t deflate your GPA.
c) Treat meal plans like avian flu/HIV/your pick.
d) Make friends with your professors… they’re the best thing about the school.
e) Bring your car.
f) Backup the data in your computer because your IBM is bound to go out on you at some point.
g) Bring money. Bring your checking account. Open up a Wachovia account… but if you’re like me, do most of your banking at Bank of America (no on-campus branch, though).
h) Study hard, don’t leave Wake with anything lower than a 3.3.
i) Think about the great job you’ll get after graduation to motivate yourself.
j) Join (tons) of clubs to meet people… a much better way to make (good) friends.
k) Go out of your comfort zone.
l) Remember that pro humanitate used to mean something in the past, but doesn’t now, since the motto will soon be pro moneytate.
m) Don’t buy your kids gift baskets from Resident Life & Housing–trust me–just put the money on their Deacon One card or apply it to next semester’s tuition bill.
n) Don’t put money on the Deacon One card… everything at Wake is overpriced through the roof.
o) Don’t violate the honor code… that can ruin your life if you have any ambitions past Wake.
p) Get a diploma frame if you have the money–or–get one for your kid too if you can afford one
q) Only live on-campus for freshman year and sophomore year. Maybe junior year too. Senior year… it might be time to go off-campus.
r) Roommates suck. Freshman year was okay. After that, it was not good times for me. Hated all of them. If you have a choice, PICK YOUR ROOMMATE.
s) Find good friends at Wake and keep in touch with them. If you’re like me, you might meet your fianc</p>