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Anonymous wrote:Would love to know name of a medium size school with active sports culture, bonfires, etc. Sounds great!

Wake Forest, they played Ole Miss yesterday. It was a blowout but everyone still had fun. Back to ACC games and a reasonable chance at victory next week. Best part of this all comes in a package where kids have slac size classes and close relationships with professors. If my child misses a class, her professors will email her.

Op: Thank you! This is great information and much-appreciated! I am just now learning about that school.

Since you are a prestige whore I doubt this will work for you. I gather you didn’t learn about it before because while it would show up in a simple search if that is what your daughter wanted…it’s not in the Top 25.

DP; do not be too offended the PP missed Duke and Notre Dame too. And Wake is still T25 in my book, as it was 2 short yrs ago when the rankings were based on class size and actual academic factors. It is ivy-like and amazing, as are WashU, Emory and William and Mary(no rah-rah sports there though). Anyone who knows anything about phD/professional school feeders and career launch has Wake on their list.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Would love to know name of a medium size school with active sports culture, bonfires, etc. Sounds great!

Wake Forest, they played Ole Miss yesterday. It was a blowout but everyone still had fun. Back to ACC games and a reasonable chance at victory next week. Best part of this all comes in a package where kids have slac size classes and close relationships with professors. If my child misses a class, her professors will email her.

Op: Thank you! This is great information and much-appreciated! I am just now learning about that school.

Since you are a prestige whore I doubt this will work for you. I gather you didn’t learn about it before because while it would show up in a simple search if that is what your daughter wanted…it’s not in the Top 25.

Wow, not sure why you made such an unkind comment. Your unpleasant words are inaccurate. I am a parent trying to guide and inform my child so they identify and apply to a range of schools. This is a process of exploration. If we knew all the answers, we would be seeking out advice.

Because it takes all of 5 minutes on a Google search to find that Wake Forest and the other top 100 schools that people have listed that meet your kid’s interests.

These aren’t hidden gems.

Anonymous wrote:Would love to know name of a medium size school with active sports culture, bonfires, etc. Sounds great!

Duke, Wake, Notre Dame...all ivy-sized yet have the sports more like an SEC school...there are probably more

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would love to know name of a medium size school with active sports culture, bonfires, etc. Sounds great!

Wake Forest, they played Ole Miss yesterday. It was a blowout but everyone still had fun. Back to ACC games and a reasonable chance at victory next week. Best part of this all comes in a package where kids have slac size classes and close relationships with professors. If my child misses a class, her professors will email her.

Op: Thank you! This is great information and much-appreciated! I am just now learning about that school.

Since you are a prestige whore I doubt this will work for you. I gather you didn’t learn about it before because while it would show up in a simple search if that is what your daughter wanted…it’s not in the Top 25.

Wow, not sure why you made such an unkind comment. Your unpleasant words are inaccurate. I am a parent trying to guide and inform my child so they identify and apply to a range of schools. This is a process of exploration. If we knew all the answers, we would be seeking out advice.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would love to know name of a medium size school with active sports culture, bonfires, etc. Sounds great!

Wake Forest, they played Ole Miss yesterday. It was a blowout but everyone still had fun. Back to ACC games and a reasonable chance at victory next week. Best part of this all comes in a package where kids have slac size classes and close relationships with professors. If my child misses a class, her professors will email her.

Op: Thank you! This is great information and much-appreciated! I am just now learning about that school.

Since you are a prestige whore I doubt this will work for you. I gather you didn’t learn about it before because while it would show up in a simple search if that is what your daughter wanted…it’s not in the Top 25.

Anonymous wrote:Cornell may be good fit for work hard party hard with school spirit. Less big in football but lots of cornell pride and pride about hockey

I agree with this - lots of school loyalty, but it's not tightly tied to a football team.

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Anonymous wrote:OP here: she wants a school that has academically driven kids, but a strong social vibe as well. She loves duke which and Also likes vanderbilt. Both are academic but with sports and spirit. Both are very hard to get into. Doesn't want a school with just a party reputation...

Definitely check out Wake then.
-- current Vanderbilt parent

I keep hearing wake is the new Vanderbilt.
True?

Maybe? We visited a few times and I get the sense that Wake today is like Vandy was 20+ years ago. In terms of vibes, heavy regional representation, racial and SES demographics and stats of incoming kids.

Vanderbilt today is much more grindy than DCUM realizes, and a lot less SEC tailgate parties with homogenous blonde legacy rich children. OP shouldn't let IG influence her daughter too heavily on these aspects. The reality on the ground is more like Cornell or Northwestern and less like Alabama than TikTok might lead you to believe.

-- current Vanderbilt parent

Yes, this is what i hear about Vanderbilt as well. Have you toured it this year? We toured during the summer and tour group was all Asians and geeky whites. No white preppy kids (ala Vanderbilt of 10 years ago) at all.

PP here. I am a current parent of a vanderbilt student so I don't do tours anymore. I am, however, on campus about 3 times / yr and your assessment of the tour group is pretty close to the group that enrolls.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would love to know name of a medium size school with active sports culture, bonfires, etc. Sounds great!

Wake Forest, they played Ole Miss yesterday. It was a blowout but everyone still had fun. Back to ACC games and a reasonable chance at victory next week. Best part of this all comes in a package where kids have slac size classes and close relationships with professors. If my child misses a class, her professors will email her.

Op: Thank you! This is great information and much-appreciated! I am just now learning about that school.

Anonymous wrote:https://www.reddit.com/r/StLouis/s/H3F8f2x0Rx
St. Louis is dangerous. Read some of these comments about Wash U students getting mugged.

The area around Wash. U. is roughly like Capitol Hill. Going there and walking home to an off-campus apartment woukd be about like working in one of the congressional office buildings and walking home to a place on Capitol Hill.

Anonymous wrote:OP here: she wants a school that has academically driven kids, but a strong social vibe as well. She loves duke which and Also likes vanderbilt. Both are academic but with sports and spirit. Both are very hard to get into. Doesn't want a school with just a party reputation...

She should consider University of Miami, the good state universities and Southern Methodist University. Maybe Northwestern for a reach, but I have a degree from Northwestern and don’t think school spirit is that much stronger there than at Wash. U. Maybe the University of Illinois would be good for school spirit.

Anonymous wrote:Would love to know name of a medium size school with active sports culture, bonfires, etc. Sounds great!

Wake Forest…pretty sure that is the school PP was mentioning as I recall the tour guide mentioning a bonfire.

Also, they have a strong baseball team with good attendance.

However, I assume OP doesn’t think Wake is ranked high enough since it’s clear none of this thread is much more than how schools are ranked.

Anonymous wrote:Would love to know name of a medium size school with active sports culture, bonfires, etc. Sounds great!

Wake Forest, they played Ole Miss yesterday. It was a blowout but everyone still had fun. Back to ACC games and a reasonable chance at victory next week. Best part of this all comes in a package where kids have slac size classes and close relationships with professors. If my child misses a class, her professors will email her.

Would love to know name of a medium size school with active sports culture, bonfires, etc. Sounds great!

Anonymous wrote:Can someone comment on the social and academic vibe of Emory and WashU? HS counselor recommending both, but my daughter is not excited about either due to lack of school spirit, sports, community, etc. She hears the social life on both campuses is lackluster. She is a very strong academic kid but wants to have fun. She has visited both. Didnt think kids looked happy or social. She thought washu campus was beautiful but not thrilled about st. Louis. She thought emory campus was odd layout, no sense of community, not much nearby. Any thoughts or insights into the student social and academic experience would be appreciated.

I went to Wash. U. I’ve never seen Emory, Rice, Case Western or the University of Rochester, but my understanding is that they’re probably all pretty similar. They’re schools for serious students who want intense, challenging classes who go in not wanting to live for drinking. My guess would be that most students who’d enjoy any of those schools would also have fun and get a good education at the others.

The Wash. U. students might look stressed at the end of the term because they signed up for two extra classes at the beginning of the term because the course descriptions looked really interesting. They brought their suffering on themselves. It’s also somewhat hard to get straight A’s in STEM classes there. It’s not all that hard for a bright, well-prepared student to do well enough to get into a good grad school, but, for students who went to ordinary high schools, not test schools, freshman year might be intimidating.

But Wash. U. actually has a range of fraternities and sororities. You can go there and party as hard as you want.

Many students live a few blocks off campus, in a neighborhood like a flatter Capitol Hill, and have lovely apartment parties.

For students who hate sororities, there are tons of organizations. The university has richly funded student activities organization that will fund almost anything, so it’s easy for students who find a gap to set something up.

KWUR, the radio station, and Student Life, the school paper, are great, independent and quirky and have their own social scenes.

COVID hit the student organizations hard, and last year was a recovery year. But it looks from what students are saying online that recovery is in progress.

I’m Jewish and give to the Hillel. My impression is that Wash. U. had enough Gaza protests to keep up with the Ivies and engage students who enjoy protesting and counter protesting but not enough to affect the quality of life of students who hate that kind of thing.

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Anonymous wrote:My DC is a freshman at Emory. After reading all the "lack of school spirit and social scene" on this forum, I was concerned. Couldn't be anything further than the truth. There is a very active social scene and school spirit at the school if you want it.

What’s an average Thursday, Friday or Saturday night?

I am 17:02 poster. This week- my DC went to a bar on Thursday night, party on Friday night, dorm hanging out Saturday night and Braves game today (tickets courtesy of Emory). There are school sponsored activities every day of the week. DC sends me pictures of kids hanging out together. Most are in Emory clothing. They look really happy.

I don’t think anyone has said that kids that attend Emory aren’t happy there, it just isn’t the school centered social life that
Kids get at Power 5 conference schools. My daughter, who attends one of the schools discussed in this thread, spent yesterday at tailgates and a football game with literally thousand of her classmates and alumni, all dressed in the school colors. School often holds pep rallies with school mascot, band, and a bonfire night before big games. School also has big time winter and spring sports that have full student sections. I’ll add that this school is solidly medium in size. Kids really don’t need to go off campus much because social life is so school centric.