" Wake Forest - Meh campus and tour. It reminded DS of his high school. Dropped this one."
Quite possibly the first time I’ve ever heard Wake’s campus described as meh…
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I really loved the campus…but I actually found the info session and tour itself to be meh as well. It was very low energy. My daughter crossed it off the list immediately. On paper I thought it was going to be a perfect fit for her.
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The WF info session?
We thought it was pretty good.
And the tour as well.
My son wanted to ED afterwards but we told him to hold his horses. (We saw Davidson the following day and was impressed by it, too.)
This was a few years ago though. Likely 2019. Maybe 2018.
This seems like another example of how your guides can really impact one’s impression of a school.
(For example, our Georgetown tour guides were so self absorbed it made for one of the worst tours ever. S ended up not applying for many reasons and I think sadly, the tour set the tone for his distaste.)
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We went to Wake Forest the day after we toured Duke. My DS was 16 at the time. In comparison, he found it to be bland. The tour, after having an amazing experience at Duke, was equally vanilla. The students and faculty were not smiling (something our college advisor told us to watch out for) and the overall vibe at Wake Forest was just not appealing to my son. Perhaps if we’d had a better guide my son would have felt differently? So hard to know. Apologies if I offended you in any way – I think WF is a fine school and I particularly love its DC program.
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We only did a virtual session but that was enough to turn my daughter off. The Admissions Officer and the student ambassador were both very meh…
We went to Wake Forest without a tour. A security guard came over to us and I thought he was going to ask us to leave but instead he talked to my D and showed us the business school after he learned she was interested in business. What a nice person! Campus was beautiful, including the business school.
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We had great conversations with two different security guards in fall 2020 when campuses weren’t doing official tours. One at Barnard where we couldn’t even get on campus at all - he was at the gate checking IDs and we talked to him for a good half hour maybe more and got lots of info and the other at Sarah Lawrence. It was a different way of getting info but given the lack of official sources it was actually great. We also got adopted by a student at Sarah Lawrence who saw us wandering around and got a bunch of info that way as well.
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We had a great unofficial tour at Yale with a security guard when we visited in early 2021 when they weren’t doing official tours again yet. We were just walking around the campus and noticed that he was talking to another family group. We assumed they knew each other, but when they left he came over to us and offered us a tour. He was fantastic. He really engaged my S27 with some trivia about the people for whom some of the buildings were named. Ultimately my D23 decided that New Haven was not the college town she wanted, but that still might have been one of our best tours. My S27 still thinks he might apply when the time comes.
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Duke is a tough act for WF to follow.
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My own personal opinion is that, at least in this instance, it could be the result of moderating. I think in many threads, particularly those that involve subjective topics involving politics and values, or those that are otherwise always all-out dog fights (LAC vs. Large Flagship), heavy moderation is necessary and helpful to keep the thread moving.
But on this topic, the reactions to people’s reactions is at least 1/2 the fun. It’s an innocuous topic, and one in which we can all see and hear about what people like and don’t like about the actual college campuses (as opposed to 99% of the discourse pertaining to ideas about the colleges) without diverse opinions necessarily running the thread off topic.
On-Topic: You like Brandeis.
Off-Topic: I don’t.
Off-Topic: Why not?
Off-Topic: Because I dislike the architecture and Waltham.
To me, they’re all on-topic. Sure, this thread exists, but it’s disjointed and not the same as the flow of the other one.
I’m probably wrong, but I’m going with my theory.
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On-Topic: You like Brandeis.
On-Topic: I don’t.
On-Topic: Why not?
On-Topic: Because I dislike the architecture and Waltham.
Off-topic: Have you eaten at Gustazo?
Off-topic: No, I don’t like Cuban food.
Off-topic: You should try the pulled pork
Off-topic: Can they do it without the plantains?
Etc
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I guess that’s fair.
Although as an authentic Cuban myself, if you don’t want the plantains then you should try Mexican.
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The student liked the school. The parent did not.
No offense taken. However, someone that loves Duke is probably not going to be an ideal Wake candidate. Two very different schools.
Genuinely interested to hear about this. Can you amplify this a little? From a distance I’d view them as similar in many respects.
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We are visiting Duke, Wake and UNC this summer. Please elaborate your thoughts.
Since this is an ‘off-topic discussion’ thread, I hope this is an OK place for me to note how much I appreciate @skieurope’s contributions to CC. Thank you!
And @skieurope : I wish you could somehow monetize your unique super-power of keeping the guardrails around this sprawling forum. You deserve it!
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Personally, I don’t think the forums have nearly the same number of active users since the redesign/new software took place. Feels like a lot of people left during that first month+ (it was rough, I left and forgot about it for months since it was not a good experience to use and had much less engagement) and didn’t come back.
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A change in the site and/or a reduction in the number of people who post here would obviously impact the answer… and I do wonder if traffic is down… but the question was as much about travel and if kids don’t see as many schools now.
It could also be an increase in the number of apps. Why go see 5 or 10 if you’re going to apply to 20 schools anyway? It probably makes sense to wait for acceptances, and then visit the ones you’re most seriously considering, at which point you might not return here to post impressions because you’re making a decision.
Or all of the above.
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