Surprised no one has answered this - I’m probably not the best person to do so, but as the mother of a current freshman I can give you a little of her perspective.
Workload - Well, it depends on your perspective. Is she studying more than her friends at state universities? Definitely yes. Is she studying more than her best friend at Duke? Or someone at Boston College, Emory, etc.? Probably not. She says an older student told her to treat college like a 9-5 job, and says that’s the best advice she’s received. She gets out of class about 1pm every day, and after lunch goes to the library for a couple of hours, plus occasional group study sessions for particular assignments. She obviously has more to do when she has a paper or something due. She’s already involved in several extracurriculars and is doing well in all her classes, so it’s definitely manageable.
Business School - She is also a potential business major so we went to the business school parent session at orientation. You apply to the business school second semester of your sophomore year, and current prereqs are Economics, Calculus and Accounting (so you particularly want good grades in those classes), plus a minimum GPA of 2.7. They are in the process of reviewing admissions criteria and will likely increase the minimum GPA, plus possibly add more prereqs. Last year’s statistics: 332 applied, 265 accepted, average GPA 3.501, up from 3.456 year before. Still, that’s close to an 80% acceptance rate.
Can’t speak to the fraternity question, sorry!
I’ll say that she loves Wake, and we have been very impressed by everything at the university.
I just droned on about the workload question-this seems to come up every year. Bottom line, mostly I’d echo @HandLMum though I didn’t go to any state school so I can’t really comment on that, they may well work as much? Otherwise, you can read my other post if you want.
B-School: First off, on a personal recommendation, I’d say be cautious about committing yourself to B-school. Working in business in no way requires a bschool degree and if you do some outside reading, lots of businesses are looking for non-business students and MBA admission is rated as easier for students with a different degree. Still, Wake’s undergrad Bschool is great preparation for the business world and my friend who went there had generally positive experiences. Their statistics are out there, I think 80% was about what it was when my friends applied nearly a decade ago so… work hard. don’t get your grades down with poor personal out-of-school choices, take pre-reqs, they’ll likely show you if you’d enjoy/succeed in the bschool and if not, don’t freak out, your life is not over.
I was not in a fraternity, I am not Indian, so I’m no expert, but as far as I could tell there was no even gossip of frats that were friendly/not friendly toward Indian students. As far as I know that was a non-issue. not all students are open-minded and kind and friendly to everyone (good luck finding a school where that’s true), but your particular concern I never heard about.
I had a great experience, there were pros and cons. It helped me succeed certainly. Choose to succeed and enjoy life wherever you go. It’s not a dress rehearsal.