Social life at Wake Forest..and compare to Davidson

Colleges and Universities A-Z Wake Forest University
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I’m having a hard time wrapping my brain around how the social scene works at Wake. Can anyone shed some light?

What I’ve gathered so far is the Greek life is big. All of those parties are off campus and it sounds like they are somewhat inclusive of non-Greeks but not so much. Also seems like one has to drive to these houses? Sounds like there’s a bar scene and kids under 21 can get in but (obviously) won’t be served alcohol. Then, this is the biggest mystery to me, the campus is locked after 10pm. I guess that means that gates go down and kids have to show IDs to get back in. What is the reason for that?

I don’t think I know of any other campus with this particular scene. I guess Wake doesn’t want drinking on campus so the kids leave to drink and then come back? What does the university provide in terms of social options on campus? With the neighboring town not being particularly safe, it seems odd that kids venture off campus to socialize.

I was drawn to the school for our son who is mostly interested in LACs with strong undergrad teaching. Wake has that. We also like that it’s just a tad bit bigger than most LACs. The campus looks beautiful and the career services seems to do a great job with the students. The school spirit also seems like fun and different from some other LACs.

Also, did anyone look at Davidson and Wake? I’d love to hear comparisons when it comes to the social scenes.

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great questions. following.

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Hello again @homerdog. Hope you don’t mind me adding my two cents. I’ll answer a couple of your questions, all facts.

Greek life is extremely large on campus. Freshmen cannot go through recruitment until second semester.

The Greek organizations have lounges, which are usually the first floors of upperclassmen dorms (some also extend into its basement). they are usually shared between two Greek organizations, but one often dominates in throwing parties within them. These parties are reviewed by employees of Wake Forest, like any other event at the university. These are weekly. It’s rare that there’s no parties from Wednesday to Saturday night, as at least one frat is hosting something. These are referred to as ‘lounge parties’.

There are frat parties that happen off campus, in the actual Greek houses. These are the ‘frat parties’. I am not sure about after people pledge Greek (perhaps someone else can answer this for you), but they are pretty inclusive parties in the beginning of the year, seeing that most people who attend are freshmen, thus independent from Greek life. People on the Reynolda campus travel to these houses in cars, yes, but they can Uber or walk if they choose. And there is a bar downtown that students frequent as well. They are not served alcohol if they are under 21.

The campus lockdown is privacy and security, I suppose. Wake Forest is one of the only campuses I know of that is akin to a gated community (at least after 10pm on the weekends). Yes, students have to show ID or have the parking permit on their car (I’m sure both) in order to get back on campus.

Drinking on campus is a prevalent problem that they are working hard to solve. Being that Wake is a wet campus (serves beer to students over 21 at its on campus restaurants), it’s not entirely easy to change a piece of the school’s culture quickly.

I will say this about social life on campus. There’s things to do all week outside of going to class. Zumba, painting, even capture the flag is going on this week. However, the campus basically closes on Friday at 5pm and opens on Monday at 8am. There are few social activities on the weekends. This contributes a lot to weekend partying, since there isn’t anything to do. During the week, however, there are lots of things provided by the campus to do.

By the way, the “off campus” Greek houses are across the street from campus. If you were to walk, you would walk in front of the school’s soccer field. The other houses that are deeper in the neighborhood are close to Wake Forest apartments, thus the neighborhood is like an extension of Wake. You can still see Wait Chapel’s bell from them.

I cannot speak of Davidson vs Wake.

I hope I helped. If you would like more detail, please DM me, as Wake would likely appreciate everything not being public on this forum.

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My S visited Wake and my D visited both, so this is my impression based only on those visits and reading: We got the same vibe from Wake mentioned above. As for Davidson with my D, they have “eating houses” which are like sororities but no national affiliation. They have a much more inclusive process where you basically choose your top choices and you get in if space is available. They do have a couple of traditional sororities as well. I’m sure Davidson has the traditional Greek experience if you look for it but overall, I got the impression Davidson was a lower key, more inclusive system.

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I’m the parent of a freshmen at Wake. I agree with the basic points above that:

  1. Wake has a big Greek scene (generally have parties Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday). Has been very "open" so far. S is considering joining a frat but his group of friends is about 50/50 on that.
  2. There are tons of activities during the week (S is involved in business clubs, intramural sports, Club Baseball (starts tonight actually). Lectures, info sessions and STUDYING! (lots of that)
  3. Weekends are football / basketball/ soccer games, frat parties and / or hanging out with friends (what started out as going to frats all the time has morphed into once a week and the rest just hanging out with friends in dorm (sometimes more fun)

Greek life is what it is. Either join or don’t. S originally thought he would need to but now has so many friends that they are sort of there own group.

What’s different about Wake from my college days is there’s no town to walk to. Downtown WS is a pretty neat place. Great food, lots of pubs, etc. but it’s really for adults of kids who are 21+. It’s also a few miles away (there is a shuttle service) For most college students, that happens junior yr so Greek life is the party scene until they are of age.

I have seen invites through Student Union for evening activities (laser tag, movies, things like that) for students who don’t want to participate in the greek party scene.

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@homerdog, your impressions are spot on, both in terms of the social scene and academics.

Academics are terrific, really world class. The campus-local community set up is not ideal. The campus is a bubble. There are no real student-friendly areas very convenient to the campus. Winston-Salem is a pretty nice city and has some good restaurants/bars but requires driving or riding, which is especially difficult for newer students. The off-campus parties, which are a very significant part of the social scene, require lots of Uber trips and other shuttling, with coordination among friends.

It strikes me that the absence of opportunities for things to do very near campus does contribute to the drinking culture. If a student is going to Uber or otherwise shuttle to a party at a house that has been secured for the express purpose of evading drinking restrictions on campus, then drinking is probably going to be the focus of the party.

With the drinking age at 21, off-campus parties and drinking are issues for pretty much all colleges and universities. The set-up seems to make it somewhat more of an issue at Wake. I do think it makes it a challenging social environment for a student who does not want to spend most weekends at house parties where there is excessive consumption of alcohol.

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I agree with the above posts 100%. That is a great summary of what it is like. With that said, perhaps I may provide an alternate perspective for prospective students and families (or just those curious).

As a Wake student who does not consume alcohol, I would like to say that you can have a wonderful experience here even if you do not pick up a drink (or a drinking habit)! Before everybody pounces on me and tells me I’m wrong or delusional, please let me explain.

So, lets start with the negative. Unfortunately, excessive consumption of alcohol has serious consequences. In my first two months at Wake in 2017, roughly 75 students (mostly freshmen) received medical attention or hospitalization due to drinking or drinking-related injuries. My greatest concern is for people’s safety. Both I and my friends have seen people almost die from drinking. It’s not a joke at all. Furthermore, I would estimate that the number of people cited for drinking by the school or local police is in the hundreds every year. (A senior once told me that roughly one in three students receive a citation for drinking at some point). The way that I compartmentalize such occurrences is that people will learn from such incidents and mature and grow from them.

As someone who does not drink, all this was surprising and troubling. At first, it’s all you see. But to say that everybody drinks or that drinking is everything is false and untrue. In fact, some of the happiest and most successful people I know at Wake don’t drink. That is because these people have discovered that the social scene and their overall college experience is not built on the drunken nights that they don’t remember but rather the moments spent building relationships in extracurriculars, learning in class, or even a dinner with your best friends. There are so many wonderful classes, organizations, and people to fill your life with here that the supposed “emptiness” of not drinking will be null.

My biggest piece of advice to prospective college students, whether it be at Wake or some other school altogether, is to chart your own path and make your own decisions. Don’t let other people’s choices influence you. We all have independence for a reason: to make our own choices. When you are yourself and make the choices that align with your values, you end up finding your true friends, finding meaning in life, and having the very best college experience that you can have. For some people, “the best experience that they can have” involves drinking and for others it does not involve drinking. No matter where you fall, there is a place for you at both Wake Forest and in the world at large.

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Agree with all comments above. The one thing I would add is that we were surprised by the extent to which Wake is still a regional rather than national university in the social sense. Students do come from all over but the majority are from the Southeast or the Northeast. As such there is a higher degree of cliqueishness in the first year as students tend to socialize (and pledge sororities/fraternities) based on their high school connections.

Also, the campus is not conveniently located within walking distance of anything so if your student wants to be able to volunteer or work off campus, he/she will need a car. There are some campus shuttles but they do not appear to be very extensive/frequent–at least as far as I could find out from the limited information on Wake’s website.

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^^^ they do have a shuttle that goes downtown (every half hour or hour - I forget). Wake Downtown went live last year. This is a new facility that heads up the engineering program (and other science / labs). Lots of classes are held there so they added this service to make it easy for students to get downtown. It’s about a 10-15 minute ride. So this would help with those working or volunteering downtown. Not sure what time they stop in the evening. I think there’s a schedule on Wake’s website.

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Freshman D has had a satisfying social life at Wake. She doesn’t drink and has found several like minded friends. They go to off campus fraternity parties once a week or so. The fraternities have designated drivers (pledges?) to provide transportation to/from the dorms. She’s involved in several student organizations and also enjoys the ACC athletic events that seem to occur on a daily basis.

She has a car, but mainly uses it on weekends to go to the movie or the grocery store. I think she could do without it; the shuttle service is pretty good and there is a Zipcar service too. She goes downtown with friends to eat sometimes. We’ve been there a lot and never have felt that it was paricularly unsafe. There is a lot of redevelopment going on in downtown Winston-Salem now. It reminds me of Nashville about 10 years ago.

There are a number of eateries and a pub on campus. Students can walk to Reynolda Village where there are restaurants and shops. The workout facilities are amazing, and the students spend a lot of time there. She really doesn’t have much time to socialize due to the academic workload, so the suburban campus has provided a good balance between academics and fun.

We visited Davidson on a weekday and spent the night there. The proximity of the campus to downtown was really nice. The vibe was similar to Wake Forest, just on a smaller scale. We saw an athletic team at a restaurant at lunch, but not many students downtown that night. They were probably hitting the books. D thought Wake Forest provided more options. Wake Forest bills itself as a “collegiate university”, and that’s a pretty good description. Davidson looked like the quintessential liberal arts college.

I would have been happy with her attending either school.

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We wish that Wake students could do without cars, but we found that they can’t after sending our daughter there for her first year without one. There is no shuttle to Wake Baptist Medical Center, so volunteering there if you’re pre-health requires a car. Wake has one Zipcar at each of three campus locations but they are very popular so counting on using one for regular transportation is not feasible. Many campus activities both Greek and non-Greek involve tasks off-campus which require access to transportation. One of my daughter’s classes last year had a requirement for off-campus community service which she would not have been able to complete without her car. She could certainly survive at Wake without a car but having one has improved her quality of life significantly. She does not have a single friend at Wake who doesn’t have a car there.

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Is anyone in this group familiar with / involved with any of the campus ministries?

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D belongs to the Episcopal Student Fellowship at Wake. There is a communion on Sunday nights, dinner on Wednesday and an off campus weekend retreat each semester. They also have a tailgate group at football games. Nice group of students and good leadership from the campus Episcopal priest.

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@marrast Thank you for sharing that! My faith is important to me… I am not a partier / drinker but I like getting out and having fun with friends. I was just accepted and will be starting in Fall 2018. Thanks for sharing!

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@homerdog I echo most of what was said above. My DS is a freshman and decided not to rush a fraternity and isn’t concerned about his social life without it. He is involved in a club sport and a few other activities that seem to keep him busy and studying does take a good amount of time. He does not have a car nor do we plan to get him one next year as of now. If he needs to go anywhere he takes Uber and he hasn’t had a problem getting a zip car. We didn’t look at Davidson so I can’t compare for you. Wake Forest is the smallest school in the D1 power five conferences so you get school spirit and good athletics but you don’t have a huge school. My sons biggest class as a freshman was 30 kids so that is pretty nice. Kind of the best of both worlds. Good luck with your search!!!

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Thanks @lbf . I just heard that Wake is starting a four-year mandatory live-on-campus policy. That would start to discourage the Greek influence. I also heard that a few frats cannot rush new members (at least for this coming year) so the university is really trying to reign in on that part of the social life. A friend of mine has a junior there and he told her that new incoming students may have a very different experience than the current juniors and seniors.

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@homerdog I’m not sure anything will discourage the greek life. It is true that 3 fraternities were put on interim suspension and couldn’t take pledges last week during rush. It is a tricky thing fraternities and I’m not sure what the answer is. I was in a sorority way back when in college and I really enjoyed it. I think there is enough to do on campus whether you go greek or not. If you want you can check back in with me in a couple of months I can tell you the feedback I get from my son about deciding not to rush and if it affected his social life.

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My freshmen S was on the fence about Greek life. He rushed (was really 50/50), got a bid, went to the first night of pledge and decided it wasn’t his thing. He also is playing a club sport and involved in some business related clubs so he has other outlets. He started out not being interested in the frats. Has a big group of friends in his hall. Half way through the semester they were all talking about pledging so he was leaning towards it. Turns out few of them did so he was far more comfortable hanging with his friends than doing the whole pledge thing. I share this only to say that it is pretty easy to find your group with or without the frats. He texted me tonight saying they all went to a tennis match and were going to be partying with the tennis team tonight (don’t tell the coach :slight_smile: so where there’s a will there’s a way.

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To the person who asked about campus ministry. My daughter is involved in RUF and went to the Summit pre-orientation camp. Met some amazing friends. RUF is a huge group with fun activities and the campus pastor is amazing. You can listen to his podcast on the RUF website. I’ve also heard great things about the Catholic and Episcopal groups from my daughters friends.

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If we didn’t have this ridiculous 21 drinking age, we wouldn’t have these problems. Kids could drink legally at on campus bars in a controlled environment and even non-drinkers could enjoy that social scene.

Getting rid of frats does not change anything. Example: Bowdoin College.