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A college degree is a lousy investment

It CAN BE a pretty big deal. In the workplace, I can see it paying off if your employer values a Wake undergrad education over, say NCSU. But most employers don't even care where you went to undergrad. 1-2 years of good experience makes that line on the resume pointless. Actual job skills and the ability to communicate well further obliterate the "Education" line on most resumes. Example: I am now hiring two IT people. I have had 4 total interviews with the 2 people and have absolutely no clue if or where they attended college.

On the other hand, I can see the additional cost of a Wake degree paying off if you use the Wake degree to springboard into a top 10 graduate program in your field of choice.

The point is that while we all know a degree from Wake is more difficult to achieve and teaches you "more" than a UNC education, it's not a guaranteed path to additional compensation.

Maybe that is true in your industry. In my industry (law), all of my employers have been very impressed by my Wake undergrad degree.

As noted above, a top 25 school is a pretty big deal. We are wondering whether it is worth the cost differential between the in-state public universities.
 
Maybe that is true in your industry. In my industry (law), all of my employers have been very impressed by my Wake undergrad degree.

As noted above, a top 25 school is a pretty big deal. We are wondering whether it is worth the cost differential between the in-state public universities.

I don't think it's worth it. I think a much cheaper undergrad degree from UNC is a much better investment and I find it hard to argue otherwise. More people around the country recognize the UNC name, which counts for a lot.

Still, I wouldn't trade having gone to Wake, but it also wasn't so far removed from UNC cost-wise when I went there.
 
Many would say the same thing about Law School. I fucked up on my LSAT and am did not get into a great law school (Charleston Law), and now I'm not sure it's worth the $38k a year to attend versus taking time off and going somewhere better, given how crappy the law job market is.

The law job market is crappy and there are long term structural issues that go beyond the recession that will keep it crappy for a while. I strongly advise you not to go to law school unless you can get into a top tier program.

Also, FWIW, the LSAT is one of the best standardized tests out there at predicting actual performance. If you "fucked up" your LSAT, you have a pretty decent chance at "fucking up" your first year of law school. Retake the test. If you don't do well the second time, reconsider going to law school at all.
 
what % of wake undergrads are pre-med/pre-law?

We don't actually have a pre-law program, and I am not sure about pre-med. Here are the 5 most popular Wake majors:

Business/Commerce, General 9%
Economics, General 10%
Finance, General 7%
Political Science and Government, General 8%
Speech Communication and Rhetoric 7%
 
gotcha. most dont I dont think. the simpler question would be. what % of undergrads go on to law school and/or go to med/dr school
 
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gotcha. most dont I dont think. the simpler question would be. what % of undergrads go on to law school and/or go to med/dr school

That's a good question but I doubt Wake even has those numbers, or at least I doubt they have an accurate count.
 
gotcha. most dont I dont think. the simpler question would be. what % of undergrads go on to law school and/or go to med/dr school

Med school might be a little easier to tally, but law school would be tough because people often go to law school several years after they graduate.

Of my 18 guys (including myself) my year in my fraternity in the 6 years since graduating we've had
2 Law school
1 Med school
3 MBA
4 MSA
 
My year fraternity is:

Law - 2
Med - 2
MBA - 2

I wouldn't be surprised if a few more of us go back for an MBA at some point though, myself included.
 
i think a lot of this gets back to priorities. not everything is about money.
 
It all boils down to this

Assuming you're somewhat driven and can get decent grades at Wake (which is less easy than at public school) and you can afford it by either by your rich parents, scholarship, or financial aid that will leave you with managable debt (few hundred a month) after school then I'd think you'd be hard pressed to say it's not worth it to go to Wake (unless you want to be an engineer or something wake doesn't offer) or a comparable private school vs public school. However, if you don't have rich dad/scholarship money and have to bear the burden of crippling student debt then it's probably difficult to justify the costs vs the benefits
 
I do undergrad accounting recruiting at both UVA and Wake, and my general feeling is that UVA's undergrad business program (McIntyre) is doing a better job preparing the kids to think intelligently from a broad business sense than Wake's FASB idiot-savant accounting program. Most grads from both programs do great, but I give the edge to UVA.

So a very specific example, but in this case even putting the money aside the kids who paid $125k to go to UVA are better trained than forking over $250k for Wake.
 
I think if you take the time to read about Forbes' methodology for that list, Wake does pretty well to be 77 nationally. It has to be getting creamed for costing so much, they way they are ranking colleges. I mean UNC is only 2 spots ahead but has an annual cost of 15k less per year (out of state). 77 doesn't look so bad to me they way they chose to rank 650 colleges.
 
Wake tuition crushes upper middle class families that don't qualify for financial aid and but aren't considered rich. These are just the type of families that Wake grads become with a little hard work. How is the average alum going to be able to send their kids back to Wake?

Yep, without significant scholarships, there's no way any of my kids will go to Wake.
 
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