I’m trying to decide primarily between UW-Madison and Wake Forest. I’m planning on double majoring with one major in a business related subject, and the other in the humanities. At both schools, I’d have to apply to the business school; at UW spring of freshman year, and at Wake, spring of sophomore year.
I’m concerned that the intro classes at Wisconsin are going to be impersonal and purely lecture style, while at Wake Forest it’s much smaller and discussion based. I 100% prefer Madison as a college town and the overall atmosphere, but academically Wake has great resources, size, and weather. I’m also a little hesitant about Wake because of the work forest reputation and possibly having to work a lot harder academically, but that’s probably not true. Any advice to offer. I know both are great options, but I’m having trouble deciding?
I also got into other schools (UMiami with small scholarship, Lehigh, Bucknell, UMD, and Emory Oxford campus), but I like WF and UW the best.
UW Madison is certainly a work hard/play hard mentality, and the big mistake a lot of first years make is to think it will not be academically demanding. My kid who is a UW grad knew plenty of kids who transferred out to a regional UW campus after they blew it academically first year. Yes, at UW, many Intro classes will be large lecture with discussion sections led of 20-25 students led by a grad student in that field. My kid’s experience as a double major at UW was that, while his Intro classes were 100+ lectures, all with discussion sections, he quickly moved into intermediate level classes which were typically in the 25-40 person range and as a major, his seminars were as small as 8-10 people and typically 12-18. He had close relationships with several faculty, having taken several classes with them, including small Honors seminars of 15, and got great law school recommendations from them so he never had a problem with access.
For more info about class size in specific departments, you can access the class offerings for recent and current semesters, which shows the cap on class size, how many discussion sections, how large the discussion section etc. In terms of double majoring across colleges, at UW and anywhere, make sure you understand the requirements and feasibility.
@Midwestmomofboys
Thank you for sharing your son’s experience. I’ll check out the class offerings to see the class sizes and discussion sections.