<p>any one care to compare & contrast?.... especially against Wake, which is less familiar to me.</p>
<p>academics, campus culture, etc.</p>
<p>don't know too much about Wake, other than its party reputation. Is that true, relative to the other 3 that is?</p>
<p>I have never sensed that Wake Forest is a huge party school. To the contrary, it is (like Davidson) generally regarded as being very demanding academically with tough grading. It has a signficant frat presence, but no moreso than Davidson and certainly not more than Vanderbilt.</p>
<p>Physically, I wasn't knocked out by the campus. It's a relatively new campus, built in antebellum brick style lock stock n' barrel not too far from downtown Greensboro, NC. I preferred Davidson's location and campus and Vanderbilt offers a more interesting city.</p>
<p>Never could find out much about Wake Forest. We visited during their Easter vacation so there was no tour. Despite repeated requests, my daughter was never able to get them to send her a viewbook or an application. They must have received her SAT scores, transcript, and recommendations because they did finally write her in January inviting her to complete her application. That kind of stood out in comparsion to the adcoms at Davidson and Vanderbilt who replied to her inquiries with friendly, personalized correspondence and Emory's sophisticated and breathtakingly efficient communications response system. I don't know what to make of that because others have had good experience with Wake's admissions office and I would have thought she would have been an interesting applicant, decent stats from New England, visiting and writing for information starting nine months before the application deadline.</p>
<p>Wake Forest is actually located in Winston Salem, not Greensboro. Around 40% are in fraternities; about 50% are in sororities; that seems high to me relative to some other and larger schools. I think the campus is beautiful. Several other schools in Winston Salem, including the NC School of the Arts, which allows for some outstanding theatre, dance, music, etc., at low prices. Agree with the academics. Davidson is in a very small town in comparison. Not much to do off campus; one would really have to have a car to get into Charlotte or to go anywhere (even to see a movie?).<br>
My daughter wasn't interested in either school, so never contacted them or visited. Interestingly, Wake Forest got in touch--long after the deadline date for replying (May 1?), asking her to apply, stating it wasn't too late. Seemed a little odd.
Davidson probably does have as many students in fraternities/sororities as WF, along with "eating clubs," but I have never ever heard that it's a party school; I have heard that of WF, however, despite the fact that the academics are excellent, known for grade deflation.</p>
<p>Gtown- more urban feel, while Vandy and Wake have large athletic programs and more school spirit. Davidson is like a southern Bowdoin with a Div. 1 basketball program.</p>
<p>All Davidson's sports are DI, and I would compare it to Williams.
I wasn't able to find out much about Wake, either, compared to other schools. I finally ruled in out for my son, since there were just too many other, better options. It sounded like a neat place, though.</p>
<p>We've been back and forth to Winston-Salem many times and it's an enjoyable town with a thriving arts community. Wake Forest is known around here for academics (not as pressure-cooker/competitive as Duke) and school spirit/sports. I assume it's fairly Greek and conservative. Several of D's friends are applying, but it's out of our reach financially. Wake is one of the schools D sent scores to last fall, but I don't recall seeing any info. from them yet. Some schools are more pro-active than others.</p>
<p>I have a freshman son at Wake (also known as Work Forest). Academics are great. Greek seems to be big, but he wasn't interested in frats. Davidson is very small, no town to speak of. Academics would be great at any of the schools you are looking at---think you need to decide on location and size of school. My son isn't happy with what he calls the snobby kids at Wake, but the percent of those is probably the same at any of these schools.</p>
<p>Thanks for clearing that up, jack--I sat here thinking "When did Wake Forest move?!?!?!"</p>
<p>Winston-Salem has a different feel than Greensboro. I like the town.</p>
<p>hoedown: I like Winston Salem, too. Agree with foglikely that it really does have a thriving arts community, including lots going on at SECCA (SE Center for Contemporary Art). The fact that there are several other schools there make it appealing, too. When there are that many schools in one area, there always seems to be more going on..in addition to on-campus activities.</p>
<p>On Wake Forest:
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<p>On Davidson:
<p>When I visited, my impression was that many of the kids seemed to be kind of preppy, but also athletic. Many participate in intramurals and I saw tons of kids out running. They're definitely all quite intelligent. However, I'm not terribly preppy myself, and I didn't feel out of place - they didn't seem terribly stuck up or anything. My memory's a little fuzzy about how the frats work, but I believe the parties were mostly open, but if they have kegs they have to be registered and have an official person watching and IDing the kids who drink. The brothers actually are more involved in the community than most other frats at other schools. There actually aren't any sororities but instead there are eating houses for women. All the frat/eating houses are all in a little row on campus.</p>
<p>Two other perks: the bike system and free laundry. There are these bikes all over campus that kids can just pick up wherever they see them, ride them to their next destination, and drop them outside for the next kid. It's kind of random, but it seemed really cool to me and another example of the honor code in work - nobody stealing the bikes. Also, as part of housing, you get your laundry picked up and done for you at the on-campus laundromat. Pretty awesome.</p>
<p>Potential drawbacks: It's a nice small community...but it may actually feel TOO small over the course of four years. Also, it's gotten really competitive as many other schools have. The top end of the mid 50% (old SAT) is around 1500 for the incoming class.
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<p>I live about about 15 min from Davidson, and it may or may not be the best town for a college experience. Charlotte is nearby, but to really get anywhere you need a car. The town of Davidson itself is very small, but a great place to live. There's a small old-fashioned soda shop across the street from the main quad, and it's quite popular with Davidson students. The Davidson public library is right next to the campus as well, so students have the combined excellent resources of the Davidson library and the Public Library of Charlotte. The town is pedestrian-friendly to the extreme, and bikes are really all you need to get around. You'd probably get bored with the town after a couple of years, though. I found the atmosphere at Davidson to be much more peaceful and relaxed than even Wake, which was something I really liked about it. The campus is very attractive, and the buildings are in great condition (the science labs look brand new). The science facilities are absolutely wonderful and have superb grad school placement. The physics department seemed very small and supportive (their study room had more soft/caffeine drinks than your average grocery store!). Languages and study abroad are also quite popular, and the German department is a gem. My U Chicago interviewer was a Davidson German professor, and he kept trying to convince me to come to Davidson instead! He said, and most people probably agree, that Davidson provides a top-notch undergrad education with a truly well-rounded student body. Community service and athletics seem to be the most popular activities, but a current student could tell you more. Not to say it doesn't have it's problems. Davidson, like Williams, has a bit of a frat scene, and more than a few alcohol poisonings have been reported in their newspaper. This really isn't a majority of the students, though. Overall, it's a great school. Too close to home for me, though. :)</p>
<p>Winston-Salem. Greensboro! </p>
<p>Sorry for the brain fade. I was thinking of the visual image of the area surrounding Wake's campus and then driving from there to "downtown" to get a feel for the environs. I should have stopped to think what town it was really in!</p>
<p>I thought Davidson's campus had somewhat more "cool" factor. The student center overlooking the football field was very nice. And, the little town was neat in a quaint, antiquey kind of way. Wake's campus and location was OK, but nothing really special compared to other schools we visited. I thought it lacked a bit of history, which makes sense since the campus was built from scratch on an empty parcel of land in the 1950s when the university relocated from Wake Forest to Winston-Salem.</p>
<p>thanks everyone, this is very helpful. guess I'm working off of 30 year old sterotypes sometimes. Wake sounds like a solid place, we'll keep it on the list!</p>
<p>Visited Wake, Davidson and Gtown recently....Wake and Davidson very southern...strong academics as noted....for a sports fan Wake offers ACC games...Davidson is prettier and maybe a cut above Wake academically. Gtown is completely different, urban and diverse. Not "warm".</p>
<p>My D2's final decision was Wake, until she changed her mind the next day and went to Davidson. I think they are very similar. Agree with interesteddad on almost all fronts, with the following differences. I liked the layout and architecture of Wake Forest (no more than Davidson, but no less). The undergrad dorms surround the main quad, which I think is a nice arrangement. As a southern boy, the chapel looked to me to be the largest First Baptist Church I had ever seen. Sororities are a pretty big deal there, more so than Davidson. Frats about the same.<br>
The attraction to Wake for me would be the walking-distance access to a state-of-art wi-fi-enabled minor league baseball field, home of the Winston-Salem Warthogs (yeah, I got the cap when I was there). That, however, did not impress D2 much. ;) She was impressed, however, with Wake's science facilities, manageable size, ACC basketball, science and history faculty that she met, and we all liked it's merit scholarship programs.
I think in the final analysis, it was the "cut above" concept that oldman references that made her switch, at the very last minute (actually after the last minute) to Davidson. Of course, this is purely a reputation/perception thing--Wake produces its share of Rhodes, Fulbrights, Goldwaters, etc., too. But the reputation/perception difference was coming from profs at other schools she was considering. Profs in her field of interest at UVA, W&M and Rice all thought Davidson was a special place, and since she probably will have some sort of research science career, she concluded she should listen to those opinions.
Of course, now she is planning on going on one of Wake's very nice study abroad programs in the Fall as a visiting student, so you could say she wound up at both schools.
Bottom line in our family's view--very, very similar schools.</p>
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The attraction to Wake for me would be the walking-distance access to a state-of-art wi-fi-enabled minor league baseball field, home of the Winston-Salem Warthogs
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<p>Of course, Davidson is literally surrounded by every NASCAR team shop and all the drivers live just minutes away on Lake Norman. I'm guessing that probably means about as much to your daughter as the minor league baseball team!</p>
<p>Right your are!
She does enjoy Wildcat Basketball, though!</p>