I know it’s a narrow issue, but can anyone offer an opinion on which school is better for this type of kid? He is not the sports or fraternity type but doesn’t mind if others are. He just doesn’t want the culture to be so pervasive that he can’t stay out of it. We’ve read that the two schools have strong business programs but we haven’t heard much about the liberal arts, e.g., communications, film, and theater, or the related work load.
Any thoughts?
Both schools have prominent Greek systems. However, WFU has a particularly strong reputation for high participation in Greek life. If you want to learn more about the non-Greek experience at either school, you might try asking about them separately in the VU and WFU forums.
Both schools offer a mix of pre-professional majors and traditional liberal arts majors. However, VU leans more pre-professional and WFU leans more liberal arts. You can look up the number of degrees issued in different fields at College Navigator (click on "Programs/Majors):
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=villanova&s=all&id=216597
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=wake+forest&s=all&id=199847
Many VU students major in pre-professional fields like engineering and nursing, which WFU doesn’t even offer. Both schools offer business and communication (communication would usually be considered pre-professional, rather than liberal arts). WFU generally issues more degrees in traditional liberal arts disciplines like English, foreign languages, or history, even though WFU is significantly smaller. If you are interested in film or theater, note that WFU issued 27 degrees in the category of "Visual and Performing Arts, while VU issued one.
Correction: WFU is in the process of opening an engineering program. However, I still doubt that it will become as large as the engineering program at VU, which issued more than 200 BS degrees last year.
How did you come up with these two schools? Have your visited? Have you read up on the schools in some of the good the college guide books such as Fiske, Princeton Review, Insiders Guide? Have you looked the two schools up on Niche?
Villanova is the only university that my 4th child actually considered attending along with her LAC’s. My D is quiet initially around peers and wanted a welcoming community. We attended the Early Action Candidates’ Weekend at this year and found the school’s LSA program very good. The various departments had open houses and you could speak with the students, professors and even the director of each department. I was impressed with the quality of the faculty and the research opportunities available for the undergraduates, along with the smaller class sizes. The students were extremely friendly and helpful. As a parent, I was completely amazed at all the students that were up before 8am, in the winter, to welcome the accepted students. There is Greek life but it really didn’t seem too dominant to us. Some students belonged while a good many didn’t. We were sold on the school and would have loved for her to attend, but she felt that 6000 undergraduate students was too big for her still. She ended up choosing one of her LAC schools instead. We did not look at Wake Forest.
I’m curious out of all the schools, you’ve narrowed it down to these two. Both these schools have a reputation for being on the more preppy and conservative side (not artsy and alternative). Although they are big enough that your son will probably be able to find his niche. WFU is probably more diverse.
Villanova does not academically compare to Wake Forest.
Wake Forest traditionally had a stronger academic reputation, and it has a significantly larger endowment. However, Villanova is attracting increasingly well qualified undergraduates. For example, based on the 2016-17 Common Data Sets:
SAT CR: WFU 600-700, VU 600-700
SAT M: WFU 640-740, VU 620-720
SAT W: WFU 620-710, VU 600-700
The differences are not great. In fact, VU’s test scores could actually be better, because WFU is test-optional while VU is not.
^ I would not pick a school based on test scores. I don’t think test scores are a good representation of a school’s academic strength either. I agree that WFU is more highly regarded, especially outside of the Northeast. WFU is also a much more innovative school; they transformed the old tobacco factories in downtown Winston-Salem into high tech STEM facilities (creating a second campus there). They are a school to watch.
Disagree with post #6. I’d consider the two schools to be academic peers.
It turns out that there is an element of subjectivity in these sorts of interpretations. I will try to offer some points that pretty much everyone would acknowledge as true:
Thank you for all these great replies.
My son hasn’t narrowed down his choices to these two schools, but is debating whether to even have them on his list. We are from Miami and he would like to stay in or near the southeast but his brother is at Carnegie Mellon so he doesn’t mind being in that area, either. He also wanted to be at a top 50 mid-size school (between 5k-15k students) so these fit the bill. He liked Villanova because it seemed to have a welcoming student body without the intense greek life. He identified Wake Forest due to location and reputation (despite its prominent greek life) but doesn’t know that much more (beyond what is in Niche or Unigo). But because all he read was about the business programs at the two schools, he was starting to think neither was a good pick for a liberal arts major.
In other words, he is Class of 2022 and just started identifying colleges to apply to in the fall. So, no, he has not picked anything yet and these schools are not finalists. Just collecting info for now.
Again, THANK YOU, and keep the advice coming!
Wake Forest is easily #3 of the historic Big 4 in NC, and one of the top world-class universities in the country. Villanova cannot claim to be a world-class university yet.
@LBad96 we will have to agree to disagree. I understand you are finishing your sophomore year in college at UNCW and are very happy there, but Villanova does have an outstanding reputation and a strong alumni base – especially in the Northeast. Wake Forest is also an outstanding school but for a student such as the OP’s son who wants to avoid a pervasive frat culture Villanova is worthy of consideration.
I agree VU is a terrific school and doing really well right now, and Wake is also very strong and has some very innovative leadership in place. The Wake Downtown campus in the old tobacco factory in Winston-Salem is up and running and will host several bio programs, including bioengineering and drug innovation. The main campus is about 4 miles from downtown Winston-Salem, which is a nice small city. There is a lot of related development around the Wake Downtown facilities (businesses, housing, restaurants, etc.). Also check out Wake the Vote program and some other programs starting up in other parts of the country. Greek life is a big part of the campus environment. Students would have to speak to the vibe for those not participating.
If you visit Wake, I suggest trying to arrange an interview. The school definitely takes the interview into consideration in the application review process. I’ll note also it has advised that the overall trend in admissions is toward more early round acceptances, and that was the case at the school this year. Good luck!