Social scene at Wake

Hello, I have applied to Wake and I’ve just been trying to get some more insight into what wake students do on the weekends. It seems nearly impossible to find stuff about wake parties online or on social media, but I may be looking in the wrong places… I don’t know. But anyways, I just have some questions I was hoping I may get answers to.
Is Greek life a major part of what goes on at wake?
Do people go to bars?
Are frat parties exclusive?
Are there other parties that go on?
Is wake strict about alcohol and that kind of thing?
Do a lot of people go to the football/basketball games?
Is it difficult to be involved in wake socially while still being successful academically?
Anything else you feel is worth knowing?

Is Greek life a major part of what goes on at wake?

Yes

Do people go to bars?

Not really

Are frat parties exclusive?

Occasionally

Are there other parties that go on?

Yes

Is wake strict about alcohol and that kind of thing?

No

Do a lot of people go to the football/basketball games?

No

Is it difficult to be involved in wake socially while still being successful academically?

No

Anything else you feel is worth knowing?

Frat parties are a big thing at Wake. There are other things to do. The workload is challenging. College in general is a game of effort and time management.

@Sam998 Do students really not go to football/basketball games? I though that would be typical for an ACC school.

@marauders it’s not like no one goes, but “a lot” of people don’t really. To be clear, I just finished my first semester here so most of it’s been football and my understanding is that our other teams are a lot better than our football team, so that might have something to do with it.

Frat parties are generally the social scene at wake on the weekends. there is an on-campus bar (Last Resort) that seniors go to sometimes but not really that often. Wake is definitely NOT strict about drinking: it’s college, they know its going on on campus and off. The RAs are usually the most strict unless you are being a real disturbance on campus. Frats are usually only exclusive towards guys–not girls. Greek life is pretty big and my personal opinion is that I think it is harder for a guy to not be a part of it than a girl (mostly because girls can get into parties very easily). However, if youre not into partying, not to worry. If you can find other friends who also dont want to party, you can make your own fun. My friends and I usually alternate partying and just hanging out. The actual football game isnt as big as the tailgate but plenty of students find their free seats in the students section. Wake’s motto is “work hard, play harder”. I find wake students are very driven and most dont let partying get in the way of their academic success. Partying is pretty much reserved for the weekends, but there is some on the weekdays (wake Wednesday). Personally, I LOVE wake and know many happy people.

@aok2016 this question comes up every year, so I’d suggest digging into past discussions on this. others covered this pretty thoroughly in this thread and are current students rather than alum like I, but I’d say that when I went to school 10 years ago, it was much more homogenous (think almost 90% Caucasian), 1% international, less economically diverse, less open for gay/lesbian students. Honestly less of many things except maybe middle class students. Anyway, point being was I was far from the stereotype student and I’d be lying if I said it was all fun and games, but I found some great people, make great friends with students and particularly with some amazing professors. I got incredible opportunities I could not have had I gone to a school where I was more main-stream and ended up having a blast. At least wen I was there, if you wanted to party and weren’t in a frat, you could get into lots of parties anyway so long as you knew guys in them and did not do things to make enemies. That being said, I found them quickly monotonous so mostly went to friends’ or went in and out quickly. Once W-S started improving, I went there, sometimes I’d find ways to get to Salem, W-S state or very rarely School of the Arts, which I highly recommend doing! If you want a party college experience, but not one that is closely correlated to frat life, WFU could be tough-at least it would have been when I was there-but you prioritize other things and are okay with people talking about parties on Saturday and Sunday mornings in the cafeteria, I wouldn’t be worried. Plus, I found each year the core of the most exclusive folks got smaller, hopefully that’s still true. Good luck wherever you go, #GoDeacs!