Hey guys, I’m currently a sophomore at Wake, and I remember religiously using this site during high school, so I figured I would talk about what my experience has been so far. First off, I went to a prep school in FL, where every class was honors or AP, my stats were along the lines of 3.7UW 4.2W, 1330 SAT (did not send, of the numerous students I’ve talked to about this, about half send), President of a volunteering club and captain of a sports team, good letters of recommendation. If you talk to any student on campus, 99% of the time they DID an interview.
My academic experience has been very good so far. I’ve managed to earn a 3.85 after freshman year, and the classes, in my opinion, were not difficult. Freshman year, everyone is taking divisional requirements, so basic level stuff, simple effort will get you A’s & B’s. Sophomore year, it gets much more difficult and the weed out classes are much more apparent. Premed students are heading into Organic Chem and business students are now taking Accounting, very hard classes. Oh, by the way, it feels like 75% of students are pre-professional, I.e. pre-law, pre-med or pre-business. So take that how you want I guess. I’m yet to have a bad professor. All of the professors I’ve had know me by name, truly cared about students doing well and are always available. Unlike other well-ranked schools, the environment here at wake is not cutthroat at all. Students view each other as peers to collaborate with, and not enemies they have to defeat for a good grade.
Socially, I went into college thinking that Greek Life was not all that, but after stepping on campus it is quite apparent how strong of a presence greek life has. Over 50% of girls are in sororities and a bit over 30% of guys, but when you take athletes into account, the actual proportion is higher. I’ve managed to make a great group of friends without greek life, so it isn’t crucial, just apparent. The students are very preppy here and a good amount of students have money, it is very common to see people walking around in Gucci, Louis Vuitton etc., driving around beamers and Mercedes’, and talking about lavish vacations across the world.
I was interested in schools on the east coast, that were well-ranked, not massive and had D1 athletics. The fact that wake is the smallest power 5 school, speaks volumes. Wake is truly the only school, other than maybe Duke and Northwestern, that are small enough to offer intimate academics while playing big state schools in athletics.
This post feels like it is all over the place, but I hope it helped offer some insight into Wake. Go Deacs!