It is FINE to decide that a culture of school doesn’t meet your needs. One makes this decision, however, after thoughtfully spending time on campus attending class, eating in the dining hall, and talking with current students who are pursuing the same course of study you are interested in.
What is not FINE, is coming on this forum and publicly belittling the other prospective students on a tour. The OP called them dorky preps. What if he had said they were too ghetto, too country, or too gay to be friends with? I think we would all be appalled.
And really, what could the OP possibly know about the people on his tour? Did he spend time with them discussing the candidates who have thrown their hats into the 2016 presidential race? Did they get together after the tour and talk about the latest books they had read? Did they go to the gym and work out together and talk about water policy in the West or farm subsidies in the Midwest?
I’m guessing not. I’m guessing that he made spot judgments based on superficial things (clothing… speech patterns) and that is a sign of immaturity.
However, to answer the OP’s question about the Wake student body. They tend to dress in a preppier style than we see in Colorado. I’m still getting used to the idea of men in pastels. Sperry’s seem to be the footwear of choice and again, this is something you don’t see very often in Boulder. I will say, though, that as shoes go, they are a comfortable and practical footwear choice given the climate. When in Rome…
Politically, many of the students are fiscally conservative. I would say that the school overall is socially moderate. Many of the students come from profoundly wealthy families. My son often feels like the poor kid. I say good! Get some perspective, snowflake. See what it feels like to proverbially live on the other side of the tracks.
Wake has a rigorous liberal arts curriculum. Students take their studies seriously and they work very, very hard. Many of the students are on clear pre-business, pre-law, pre-medicine tracks. The thing my son loves best about Wake is that he gets soooooo much attention from his professors. They don’t just all know him by name, they spend time outside of class with him. They have encouraged him to apply to special programs. In one case, his professor took him to breakfast to try to talk him into majoring in Classics. My son is thinking about it. Almost everyone at Wake double or triple majors. Right now, my son is at Wake doing a German language program. He is finishing up four weeks on campus and then he will do five weeks in Germany. Wake gave him money to do it. Some of his other friends also stayed on campus for the summer. One is doing biology research (just finished his freshman year) and another has an internship.
I think the culture at Wake is such that students are expected to be friendly and outgoing and supportive of their peers. At Wake, you get really good at being socially adept. They are pretty much the opposite of dorky…if dorky means socially awkward.