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She loves it now. Had a rough first semester, but that was by dulac89
almost entirely a function of a terrible roommate and an initial friend group that turned out to be toxic. She's found her "people" now and is doing much better
I will say, I think she would have been overall a little happier at her second and third choice schools, but I think she is happy enough and she loves the academic environment. She fully recognizes that the quality of academics that she is getting is excellent, and that the degree from Wake will open some doors for her down the line that her other schools would not. She's definitely happy enough that she doesn't want to leave, and I suspect that will only get stronger as time goes on.
Nathan Hatch was the President of Wake Forest for 15 years (he retired last year), before that he was the Provost at Notre Dame. Many at Wake talk about the "Notre Dame-ification" of Wake Forest under Dr. Hatch. Except for the religious aspect, and the presence of fraternities and sororities, Wake feels a lot like Notre Dame. Strong focus on the undergraduate experience and the residence life experience, tons of support on the physical and well-being of students, highly engaged and accessible faculty, focus on smaller more intimate classroom experience, etc. Like ND, the athletes live in the dorms with the students, and some of her best friends this year were a group of freshman football players that live on her floor (the floors of the dorms are divided into same sex wings but the sings join at common areas where everyone hangs out). Because it's a small campus and everyone lives in the dorms, like at ND she says it's not them rooting for faceless football players, its her getting excited when her buddies from the dorm get in the game to play.
My daughter grew up wanting to go to Notre Dame, but two things turned her off at the end
a) she has become less religious as she's developed her own thoughts, and she wasn't sure she wanted to be immersed in that environment, and
b) she hates the cold
So Wake turned out be exactly what she wanted - small liberal arts university with strong sciences, big focus on the undergraduate experience, major D1 athletics, and good weather.
The town of Winston Salem kicks ass. I love it there. It's growing so fast. Wake built their sciences/biotech campus in an abandoned warehouse district downtown, and now "Wake Downtown" is a thriving downtown scene with a constantly increasing number of shops, converted loft apartments, hip restaurants, breweries, etc. surrounding Wake Downtown and the medical campus. And of course the main campus is beautiful, and with Wake's success the last 6 years in football, a ton of money is pouring in and there is a lot of development on campus. You can't go anywhere without some amazing new building/center going up.
My email is linked, if you have any further questions.