Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wake's Med school is ranked 15th in the country, so I don't think they are lacking in the hard sciences.

I didn't even know they had a Med School. No one I know or any doctor I see went there.

Well thanks, that’s all we need to know. Obviously since you have no experience it’s no good at all. Heck I’d be surprised if it even existed since you didn’t know it existed. Hey, thanks for setting the record straight. We’re grateful.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Go to Duke instead.

The worst. No way.

What? Explain this please. Ranked #8 by USNWR. How can it be "the worst"?

Anonymous wrote:Well, this says it all. 85% vote for UVA; 15% for Wake Forest. I'm done! https://www.parchment.com/c/college/tools/college-cross-admit-comparison.php?compare=University+of+Virginia&with=Wake+Forest+University

because of in-state tuition. Makes complete sense.

Anonymous wrote:These schools are on our radar as is W&M. Does anyone have thoughts about why W&M is lower ranked than UVA and Wake by US News? SAT scores are same between UVA and W&M (Wake is test optional), and based on Naviance at our school it is easier to get into Wake than the other two (we have a mix of VA and MD and DC kids). Is W&M viewed any less favorably by employers and grad schools? Maybe it is that W&M gets fewer applications? Just curious.

Well, it has to do with whatever methodology USNews uses. If you just look at admissions (from common data sets), W&M has higher standardized scores, and this is despite the fact that Wake has gone test optional. It also has a higher percentage from top 10% in class rank. W&M had a higher reputation ranking and was ranked higher (5th) in the undergraduate teaching rating. W&M also seems to do better on graduation rates. I think Wake probably does better on financial resources (having a medical school helps in that, but I don't know that it really impacts undergraduate education), class size, etc. I definitely do not think W&M would be viewed less favorably.

Well, this says it all. 85% vote for UVA; 15% for Wake Forest. I'm done! https://www.parchment.com/c/college/tools/college-cross-admit-comparison.php?compare=University+of+Virginia&with=Wake+Forest+University

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OMG, those scary ROVA kids. Why on earth would someone raise their child in ROVA?

It's not that they are scary or gun toting. The original comment about ROVA was that it makes UVA a bit more sheltered/parochial than Wake which draws from a larger geography.

Wake Forest's student body is more cosmopolitan - like Vanderbilt and Emory, WF has broadened the area that they attract students from.

Total BS. UVA has students from all 50 states and 183 countries. It also has questbridge students, low income students, first generation students, URM, and its student body is comprised of 94% top ten percent high school students. https://news.virginia.edu/content/uva-sets-early-action-application-record-including-large-increases-minority-and-first

U

You always cite this tired, context-less stuff. UVA had 10% first-generation students last year. Yale and Princeton had 17%. UVA, at 13%, had a lower percentage of Pell Grant eligible students than any Ivy League school. That said, Wake is the lowest of all USNews national unversities at only 9% Pell.

And that means what exactly? You keep citing pell grants as something people should care about. You do know it's a federal program that the universities have nothing to do with, don't you?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OMG, those scary ROVA kids. Why on earth would someone raise their child in ROVA?

It's not that they are scary or gun toting. The original comment about ROVA was that it makes UVA a bit more sheltered/parochial than Wake which draws from a larger geography.

Wake Forest's student body is more cosmopolitan - like Vanderbilt and Emory, WF has broadened the area that they attract students from.

Total BS. UVA has students from all 50 states and 183 countries. It also has questbridge students, low income students, first generation students, URM, and its student body is comprised of 94% top ten percent high school students. https://news.virginia.edu/content/uva-sets-early-action-application-record-including-large-increases-minority-and-first

U

You always cite this tired, context-less stuff. UVA had 10% first-generation students last year. Yale and Princeton had 17%. UVA, at 13%, had a lower percentage of Pell Grant eligible students than any Ivy League school. That said, Wake is the lowest of all USNews national unversities at only 9% Pell.

Well, the first obvious difference is UVA is much larger than Wake Forest. Price difference probably won't be too large for OOS, but UVA should be less expensive.

Wake has medical and law schools, but it doesn't offer anywhere nearly as many graduate degree options as UVA. It is going to be more undergraduate in orientation.

I would think UVA OOS would be significantly more selective than Wake. Part of this is probably masked by some of the things Wake is now doing in admissions. They have gone test optional. You can be pretty sure that students that don't submit probably don't have great scores. Even with that, UVA has higher middle 50s than Wake. Wake doesn't report GPAs, unlike UVA. They do report top 10% (77%), but only 29% of students had their rank reported. UVA has a higher percentage in top 10% and a higher percentage reporting.

Anonymous wrote:These schools are on our radar as is W&M. Does anyone have thoughts about why W&M is lower ranked than UVA and Wake by US News? SAT scores are same between UVA and W&M (Wake is test optional), and based on Naviance at our school it is easier to get into Wake than the other two (we have a mix of VA and MD and DC kids). Is W&M viewed any less favorably by employers and grad schools? Maybe it is that W&M gets fewer applications? Just curious.

First of all are you in-state? Wake is much more expensive than W&M (which is rising fast) and UVA (trailing)? Remember to look at those numbers in after-tax dollars unless you've got $400k set aside for junior's education. Wake is now over $75K a year. I believe W&M is around $33. UVA . The 2018 undergraduate tuition & fees of University of Virginia-Main Campus are $16,155 for Virginia residents ($31,000 including room) and $47,650 for out of State students (not including room). That's a whopping delta of $44K year Our DD faced the same delta when deciding between an Ivy and UVA, although UVA was only $26K (inclusive) when she started 3 years ago. If you get in to W&M or UVA read the fine print in and lock in your tuition rate. We would be paying less than $16,000 a year if we had noticed that. DD has moved off campus so our total bill is $16K. DD is taking care of own apartment, shared and food. No car. We are a donut hole family so we received no merit aid (almost none at UVA) and no financial aid, just the $5500 federal unsubsidized loan. We are glad DD picked UVA because she is now applying for an accelerated graduate program and then hopes to go to law school so we are saving up for that.

Second, I think W&M is a fabulous school. I'm sure you already know the feel is more different - more of a LAC. Like UVA it is very hard to get into although in just recent years the UVA scores are high school GPAs are slightly higher (4.44 GPA v. 4.42 GPA). The problem with the US News & World report rating that the UMD people like to toss about is that it plonks all the colleges and universities in one pool, public and private. They are two entirely different beasts. The more accurate UVA rating is the USN&WR ratings for best public universities - there it ranks no. 1,2, or 3 depending on the year. The best ranking for W&M are the SLAC rankings because that is what it is - a SLAC, not a mega university. So just disregard the USN&WR stats when it is comparing apples to oranges. All three schools are very different. Even though we are in state we didn't even think of applying to W&M because DD wanted engineering. But I would be thrilled to have a child attend there. I would not place Wake Forest anywhere near UVA or W&M nor would employers for that matter.

Third, the Virginia publics are rocketing now because parents have wizened up and realize that $80K a year for private (and in many cases the students now take 5 years or more to graduate) is foolish for undergraduate so applications are up across the system (look at Virginia Tech, GMU and JMU - all increases - as you would expect, UVA and W&M too). Same is true in the California system but with OOS being now limited to only 20% of the class, that closes out a lot of seats to OSS.

The fact that Wake is test optional should tell you something. The only schools that are doing this are those that want to improve their selectivity scores on the march up the USN&WR. To get more students to apply just to turn them down means doing anything possible to increase the number of applicants. That's what the struggling schools are doing. But once they get their selectivity percentages reduced they will return to requiring tests. And. of course, any college counselor will say that just because they say test optional doesn't mean they don't want to see your test scores.

Yes, Your Naviance should indicate that it is easier to get into Wake than UVA and W&M. Note also that you want to see just the stats for high school students from your school for the last few years - not a compilation. The field for VA publics is changing that fast. A lot of students who thought they were safeties for Va Tech last year were upset when they didn't get in (there are threads here on that subject).

If your child likes both UVA and W&M they should apply to both EA. Almost all of the "action" is being seen now at the EA, ED, SCEA stage. My DD was deferred on SCEA at an Ivy, and got into all the public EAs across the nation, including UVA. She didn't get into any of her RDs nor did her friends. Everyone in her group went to their ED/EA/SCEA selected/admitted schools.

Hope that was helpful. You should start reading up on the schools on collegeconfidential.

Anonymous wrote:Both are too Greek

Wake Forest freshman by end of first year are more than 50% greek. That's Wayyyyyyyyyyyyy more than UVA. My DD has gone three years at UVA and still has never set foot in a frat or sorority house. They are off campus so if that's not your scene, there are 600 other clubs to join.

Anonymous wrote:Wake's Med school is ranked 15th in the country, so I don't think they are lacking in the hard sciences.

I didn't even know they had a Med School. No one I know or any doctor I see went there.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OMG, those scary ROVA kids. Why on earth would someone raise their child in ROVA?

It's not that they are scary or gun toting. The original comment about ROVA was that it makes UVA a bit more sheltered/parochial than Wake which draws from a larger geography.

Wake Forest's student body is more cosmopolitan - like Vanderbilt and Emory, WF has broadened the area that they attract students from.

Total BS. UVA has students from all 50 states and 183 countries. It also has questbridge students, low income students, first generation students, URM, and its student body is comprised of 94% top ten percent high school students. https://news.virginia.edu/content/uva-sets-early-action-application-record-including-large-increases-minority-and-first

Wake alum. And here is where I think they are going to differ.

Wake is Greek. Hard to say if it is more Greek, but Greek is important. It is conservative (traditional republican. Kids there are not on the Trump Train).

Wake shines at liberal arts and pre-professional. If your kid is heading MD, JD, MBA or a solid liberal arts grounding it is excellent. They will make you take a wide range of classes your first two years. If the want to track PhD, especially in physics, math, etc., this is not your school.

The physical facilities are nice, because that’s what your 75k a year buys you.

Obviously Wake is smaller. And classes are smaller. Last I heard, capped at 25. 40 for science lecture. Many upper level are less than 10.

I am a huge Wake fan because of the small class size, the requirement that you take a wide range of classes and the faculty. What has always stood out to me what that both DH and I (DH is also an alum) went to professors house, got to know them outside the classroom, and we both researched for professors. And we were in very different departments. We really formed close relationships and 3 Wake professors came to our wedding.

The education is excellent. And it earns the work forest name. My phi beta kappa/ summa got me into T10 law schools— and UVA OOS.

No TAs, except teaching science labs, because their non-professional grad school is small. Wake focuses on undergrad and the professional schools (law, medicine and business).

Winston is not a college town. You are going to do much better if you have a car, and their are nice places to eat and places college kids hang out and bars, etc within a few miles of campus. But it is not a walkable college town like Chapel Hill or Charlottesville, or walkable to many things like WM.

Wake is not religious. It was 30 years ago. But it split with the Baptist convention. The community does have a Moravian influence though, which is nice. They do things like the Love Feast before winter break with luminaries all over the campus, which was always really special.

My son is looking at SLACs for college. I would love for him to go to Wake because I think it is a great education. But he wants a science PhD, and that if not Wake’s specialty. And he is not at all interesteded in Greek life and would not do well in the old money/ conservative/ frat boy culture, so I am not encouraging him to apply. But if he were a different kid with different interests, I would.

I think it’s fair to satay that Emory and Vandy are peer school. Because they are both in NC, there is also cross application with Davidson, and I think they have a lot in common.

Anyway, my honest, no UVA bashing assessment.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UVA has a better reputation.

In the DMV, but they have the same ranking nationally. UVA is revered in this area, but the range of UVA's reputation is far less than many here imagine.

You are silly.

UVA is much stronger than Wake in NYC, Boston, SF, Seattle. Top firms recruit more at McIntire than WF.

The national ranking is complete crap.

I would love to see a ranking done by FT or WSJ that ranks schools by placement in Bulge Bracket IB's, Buyside Finance, Google, MSFT, Facebook, Apple, Palantir, MBB-Consulting, CIA DI/NCS, State FSO, marketing at Ogilvy/WPP, etc. I.E. jobs at firms that UG's really want.

WSJ did a ranking based on 'feeder' schools to top grad programs in law and medicine:

http://anayambaker.hubpages.com/hub/Wall-Street-Journal-College-Rankings-The-Full-List-and-Rating-Criteria

This is much more valuable than silly USNEWS.

This isn't even close. By reputation, UVA wins this fight easily. I don't even know where Wake Forest is.

I don't either. Never even heard of it until a friend's DD attended Wake as a legacy. She transferred out of there as fast as she could - now finishing up at a much better school. UVA by the way is no 2 on the USN&WR listing of public universities in the united states. You can't lump a public university in with private colleges which is what the UMD types try to do to bring UVA down. It's been up there with UCLA and Berkeley battling it out for years for top 3 positions. Always ahead of Michigan. You can try to claim its provincial if you are OOS but the fact is that more than a third of the school (and much greater at the grad school level) are OOS and internationsl. At UCLA and Berkeley that figure is only 80%. The rest are instate californians. http://provost.virginia.edu/us-news-gives-uva-no-2-public-university-ranking

Anonymous wrote:Go to Duke instead.

The worst. No way.