• Welcome to OGBoards 10.0, keep in mind that we will be making LOTS of changes to smooth out the experience here and make it as close as possible functionally to the old software, but feel free to drop suggestions or requests in the Tech Support subforum!

Most Bothersome Wake Forest Development in the last 12 months? Pit/Tunnels Adjace

donaldross said:
Wake Forest alums think it matters whether every Professor has a doctorate and that 30 students are listening to a one sided lecture rather than 80.

The rest of the world thinks it matters what income your graduates earn from the skills they learn and also whether the University has cutting edge researchers.

This sort of is what it is. We’ve chosen our old school values. America doesn’t share them. We haven’t acclimated, and now say that we will not even try.

We are choosing not to be a top ranked University. We think the rest of the world is nuts. Yet our graduates must venture into it. Prayers that they they find more success than the last generation of Wake Forest graduates found.
Click to expand...
Do Wake grads actually make less than students from other schools when controlling for field of study, location, or any other relevant factors? If so, I would tend to somewhat agree with you but I haven't seen that data and don't care to search for it.

If we have a higher percentage of students majoring in humanities or other soft sciences that don't pay as well then it makes sense we would have a lower average income then other schools. How do we compare in income if we compare by major? I think that's the more applicable measure.

And specifically for donaldross, what factors made you decide to attend Wake? Do you think you would be better off if you had chosen a different school?
 
06deacon said:
lol what ph? I think you really are assuming the worst.

Call it “small class sizes” or call it “having a teaching professor in a small class” rather than a TA teaching the class while the professors focus primarily on research. Because the latter seems like it’d boost the ranking even though its the anti-Wake approach.
Click to expand...

That argument makes no sense for a variety of reasons. Class sizes aren’t that important for most undergrad classes. There are plenty of ways to increase research productivity without increasing class sizes. Grad student instructors aren’t necessarily worse than professors EXCEPT they have less prestige as researchers.

On the other hand, more students —> larger classes is a logic conclusion.
 
The top private schools are economic blind and many are no loan schools now Wake isn't there. Wake doesn't have the endowment for that. Normal financial aid misses any family making over 100K but many of those normal families still aren't able to afford to pay 80K per year for wake. And even going up the income ladder many now see Wake as not worth the extra expense versus a state school. And I don't really see that idea as being wrong.

The ivys and the no loan schools have fixed that problem and work off an entirely different system of tuition. Wake has not so they get one type of student enrolling and it has been going on for 25 or so years. Wake tends to now only get the students well off enough where 80K per year isn't a concern for the family. Wake forest was considered a bargain school in 1990. That changed about 25-30 years ago when tuition sky rocketed. And they didn't grow the financial endowment side like the ivys and Stanford did. Many of the hungry intelligent high school students have gone elsewhere like state schools. And they tend to succeed in the real world. Wake alumni tend to not be as hungry. They tend to already have enough money to not worry about much.

Wake is a good school no doubt but after going to a state grad school some of the idea that Wakes professors are so much better than elsewhere is mostly fantasy land. They need to find a way to target hungry students and not the same rich kids year after year.
 
Sco Deac said:
The Dixie Chicks sung about this very issue in their late 1990s hit single "There's Your Tribble."
Click to expand...

Travis Tritt also mentioned it in his well known “I Smell T-R-I-B-B-L-E.” He was referencing those days when the tobacco mills were running.
 
donaldross said:
To you that's the case, I get that. You know Wake Forest. However, 1000s of the best 13-17 year olds will now never get to know Wake Forest. Will some venture down the last into the 40s? Sure, of course, they will know someone who knew someone. However, thousands and thousands of the best of the best will now not even have us on their list. I am not saying they will reject us--they just will not even look at us. It doesn't matter what spin we put on this, those that matter will not ever hear the spin since we are now not even on their college list.
Click to expand...
This is a marketing issue. Instead of sitting back and pointing the US News rankings as a proxy for a marketing strategy, campus leadership needs to find a way to show that 13-17 year-old demographic that what Wake offers is different from and better than most of the alternatives. The shifting US News methodology doesn't invalidate Wake's philosophic approach. It just removes one way of demonstrating the upside to that approach. Now we need to find alternative ways to sell Wake's competitive advantages.
 
It is definitely a marketing issue. And it certainly wont change anything in the next few years. But several years in the 50s instead of the 20s will drop applications for sure.

Why would the top student pay more for Wake when it is ranked behind or the same as much cheaper options at UNC, NC State, Vtech, etc....Wake used to be only behind UNC. Forbes and the Wall Street Journal have Wake ranked in basically the same spot. So it isnt a fluke Villanova got hit worse. They dropped to 67. So the private schools without the mega endowments took hits. Those schools cant afford to take diverse economic students. They need the full tuition paying kids. That is something for Wake marketing to address. More decades of catering toward the same rich kid applicant wont help rankings going forward. Wake may or may not care about rankings...
 
Rocket said:
Do Wake grads actually make less than students from other schools when controlling for field of study, location, or any other relevant factors? If so, I would tend to somewhat agree with you but I haven't seen that data and don't care to search for it.

If we have a higher percentage of students majoring in humanities or other soft sciences that don't pay as well then it makes sense we would have a lower average income then other schools. How do we compare in income if we compare by major? I think that's the more applicable measure.

And specifically for donaldross, what factors made you decide to attend Wake? Do you think you would be better off if you had chosen a different school?
Click to expand...

The rest of us on the boards definitely would have been.
 
Can we please stop with the “Wake grads are making less” thing? Do you have a single friend at Wake who graduated from Wake who is struggling financially?? This is absurd.
 
awakegirl said:
Can we please stop with the “Wake grads are making less” thing? Do you have a single friend at Wake who graduated from Wake who is struggling financially?? This is absurd.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately I do.
 
awakegirl said:
Can we please stop with the “Wake grads are making less” thing? Do you have a single friend at Wake who graduated from Wake who is struggling financially?? This is absurd.
Click to expand...
Somebody obviously doesn't post in the CT.
 
Deaconblue said:
Unfortunately I do.
Click to expand...
I really don’t outside of some friends struggling with mental health and I didn’t hang out with the rich kids. I’m curious what others experiences are. I graduated in 03.
 
I don't think most wake grads struggle financially. But you have a lot of wake grads who never needed to work much. You have plenty of Wake grads who got married had kids and never worked. That all factors in. And I do think there are plenty of kids everywhere pay the price for majoring in english history philosoophy etc.... So overall plenty of Wake grads don't set the busienss world on fire. Most have family money to fall back on.
 
The trouble with Tribble(s).

ST_TroubleWithTribbles.jpg
 
PhDeac said:
If you have ineffective teachers 2% of the time, you have ineffective teachers. If you have ineffective teachers all the time, you're an ineffective student.
Click to expand...
Just going by my intermediate and high school experience in a NC small town years ago and anecdotal evidence from friends who have recently had kids in high school, there are some incredibly effective teachers, but the majority are incompetent.
 
struggling is relative. I know plenty of Wake people that have had struggles, but they lost jobs or had medical issues. I know people from Wake that went to be teachers or government jobs and they don't make as much as a lawyer but I wouldn't say they struggle.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top