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Is Wake Forest worth the money?

I graduated in 2011, and had I not had the good fortune of the tuition concession program from having a parent work there, I would not have found it remotely worth the money.

That said, I feel like going to wake did help me get a decent law school scholarship, so there are some benefits. (I was talking to a girl in my class who had "higher" grades than me from app state, same LSAT score, and she got no scholarship money). I assume Wake helped me in that respect. However, if I had paid even half price for wake, the scholarship would have not seemed so great.

In short, Wake is a great school, but it is not a golden ticket worth the high price (you can probably say that about a lot of schools, if not all of them). Unless your child can get a scholarship or go at a really low cost (or unless you are loaded and won't be taking on debt, or saddling your child with debt) Wake is not worth it in this economy in my opinion.
 
I think it all depends on whether or not you find out about the boards.
 
Do a search on "lousy" and check out the college is a lousy investment thread for general, and Wake specific opinions on paying for college today. The prevailing sentiment was that it is better to do state undergrad + masters for the private school money. There is/was an education bubble so be careful about buying an education at top of the market prices. Loans are driving the bubble, but I think parents/students have lost their appetite for them. Schools are too proud to publicly lower their prices, so there is a lot of room for discounting behind the scenes.

Take sentiment out of the decision - this is a business decision, an investment. Your daughter will have "fun," and "unique experiences" wherever she goes. Wake has made calculated financial decisions re pursuing a "Duke-light" strategy (appeal to NY/NJ students bc they can afford it due to region COL differences) to the detriment of legacies.

Here is a hopeful story: Last year I was taking my kids trick-or-treating and a parent saw my Wake hat and said "Go Deacs." Turns out their daughter was a freshmen at Wake. I commented on the price (this is a middle class neighborhood - houses ~200k), and they said the bottom line price was either 26 or 29k. Honestly, I the shock of hearing "twenty-" made me not hear the last number. I didn't pry about how much was loans.
 
wake20 said:
I loved Wake, but to be honest, I plan on eventually living in Northern Virginia and sending my kids to UVA.

Sad, but real talk.
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GreenDeac said:
Good luck getting in there if you're from Nova. I know plenty of kids who easily got into Wake and other Top 25 schools but couldn't get in to UVA.
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I graduated high school in Fairfax County in 2003, got into wake and emory, did not get into UVA. One of my really good friends got into UNC out of state and not UVA in state.
 
I graduated high school in '02 in Charlottesville. I got into Wake but not UVA. The other 3 kids that applied to Wake from my high school were rejected and went to UVA.
 
rjequalsmj said:
I graduated high school in Fairfax County in 2003, got into wake and emory, did not get into UVA. One of my really good friends got into UNC out of state and not UVA in state.
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I grew up in the Shenandoah Valley and I also got wait listed at UVA, but got in no problem to Wake, GWU, VT, Richmond, Dickinson, JMU and Hawaii at Manoa. I did not get in at UNC from out of state despite both my parents going to UNC for undergrad.
 
wake is not that hard to get into.

i had about a 3.5 at a small suburban HS, took 1 AP class, played 1 sport (golf) and was in no clubs or other extracurricular activities
 
Deacfan2009 said:
Agreed, comparable. I think Wake carries more national recognition (Davidson isn't even ranked in the regular US News rankings, right?)
...ETA that I think the 6k is arguably worth it for the addition of ACC sports alone.
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Colleges and universities are ranked separately. Davidson landed at #11 this year. Agreed that Wake carries more national recognition though.
 
As a parent who just went through this, I found it difficult to justify Wake at more than 3X the cost of the school she ultimately chose. I was fortunate in that she wanted to different experience (large, public school vs. small, private one), so it made the decision easier. That said, with two other kids (four and seven years from college) to think of, spending $220K+ on MSK didn't seem realistic.
 
awaken said:
Do a search on "lousy" and check out the college is a lousy investment thread for general, and Wake specific opinions on paying for college today. The prevailing sentiment was that it is better to do state undergrad + masters for the private school money. There is/was an education bubble so be careful about buying an education at top of the market prices. Loans are driving the bubble, but I think parents/students have lost their appetite for them. Schools are too proud to publicly lower their prices, so there is a lot of room for discounting behind the scenes.

Take sentiment out of the decision - this is a business decision, an investment. Your daughter will have "fun," and "unique experiences" wherever she goes. Wake has made calculated financial decisions re pursuing a "Duke-light" strategy (appeal to NY/NJ students bc they can afford it due to region COL differences) to the detriment of legacies.

Here is a hopeful story: Last year I was taking my kids trick-or-treating and a parent saw my Wake hat and said "Go Deacs." Turns out their daughter was a freshmen at Wake. I commented on the price (this is a middle class neighborhood - houses ~200k), and they said the bottom line price was either 26 or 29k. Honestly, I the shock of hearing "twenty-" made me not hear the last number. I didn't pry about how much was loans.
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"It's not to bad. It was only $29K when I wrote the check."

My goodness.

I think the point about FSU was that it should be miles ahead of USF and UCF given the location and history. USF was founded in '56 and UCF in '63.
 
After 7+ years in FL, it's stunning to me how little of a footprint FSU has in Tampa and Miami.

USF has hot chicks, too.
 
As much as I am thankful for the opportunity to attend and graduate from Wake, I cannot envision a scenario where it would make sense to me to send my kid to Wake.
 
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