Wake Forest University

Wake Forest University (WFU) is a private research university in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, United States. Founded in 1834, the university received its name from its original location in Wake Forest, north of Raleigh, North Carolina. The Reynolda Campus, the university's main campus, has been located north of downtown Winston-Salem since the university moved there in 1956. Wake Forest also maintains other academic campuses in Charlotte, North Carolina; Washington, D.C.; Venice; Vienna; and London.
Wake Forest's undergraduate and graduate schools include the School of Business, School of Arts and Sciences, School of Professional Studies, School of Divinity, School of Law, and School of Medicine. There are over 250 student clubs and organizations at the university, including fraternities and sororities, intramural sports, a student newspaper and a radio station. The university is classified among "R-2: Doctoral Universities – High Research Activity" and its undergraduate admissions is considered selective.
According to the National Science Foundation, Wake Forest spent $191 million on research and development in 2018, ranking it 117th in the nation.
As of 2024, 18 Rhodes Scholars, including 13 since 1986, 5 Marshall Scholars, 15 Truman Scholars and 62 Fulbright recipients since 1993 have been affiliated with Wake Forest. Past and present alumni of Wake Forest include nine college founders and presidents, six U.S. governors, 16 members of the United States Congress, 5 U.S. federal officials, 5 U.S. diplomats, a Pulitzer Prize winner, Olympic athletes and many U.S. district judges.
Wake Forest athletic teams are known as the Demon Deacons and compete in eighteen NCAA Division I intercollegiate sports. Those teams have won 10 NCAA team championships and the university is a founding member of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC).
During the Baptist State Convention of 1833, at Cartledge Creek Baptist Church in Rockingham, North Carolina, establishment of Wake Forest Institute was ratified. The school was founded after the North Carolina Baptist State Convention purchased a 615-acre (249 ha) plantation from Calvin Jones in an area north of Raleigh (Wake County) called the "Forest of Wake". The new school, designed to teach both Baptist ministers and laymen, opened on February 3, 1834, as the Wake Forest Manual Labor Institute. Students and staff were required to spend half of each day doing manual labor on its plantation. Samuel Wait, a Baptist minister, was selected as the principal, later president, of the institute.
In 1838, the school was renamed Wake Forest College, and the manual-labor system was abandoned. The town that grew up around the college came to be called the town of Wake Forest. In 1862, during the American Civil War, the school closed due to the loss of most students and some faculty to service in the Confederate States Army. The college re-opened in 1866 and prospered over the next four decades under the leadership of presidents Washington Manly Wingate, Thomas H. Pritchard, and Charles Taylor. In 1894, the School of Law was established, followed by the School of Medicine in 1902. In 1911, Louise Heims Beck became the university's first librarian, later going on to become a vaudeville performer and the recipient of a Tony Award. The university held its first summer session in 1921. Lea Laboratory was built in 1887–1888, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.
The leading college figure in the early 20th century was William L. Poteat, a biologist and the first layman to be elected president in the college's history. "Dr. Billy" continued to promote growth, hired many outstanding professors, and expanded the science curriculum. He also stirred upheaval among North Carolina Baptists with his strong support of teaching the theory of evolution but eventually won formal support from the Baptist State Convention for academic freedom at the college.
The School of Medicine moved to Winston-Salem (then North Carolina's second-largest city) in 1941 under the supervision of Dean Coy Cornelius Carpenter, who guided the school through the transition from a two-year to a four-year program. The school then became the Bowman Gray School of Medicine. The following year, 1942, Wake Forest admitted its first female undergraduate students, after World War II dramatically depleted the pool of male students.
In 1946, as a result of large gifts from the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, the entire college agreed to move to Winston-Salem, a move that was completed for the beginning of the fall 1956 term, under the leadership of Harold W. Tribble. Charles and Mary Reynolds Babcock (daughter of R. J. Reynolds) donated to the college about 330 acres (1.3 km) of fields and woods at "Reynolda", their estate. A name change to Smith Reynolds University was considered, but dropped. From 1952 to 1956, fourteen new buildings were constructed on the new campus. These buildings were constructed in Georgian style. The old campus in Wake Forest was sold to the Baptist State Convention to establish the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.
On April 27, 1962, Wake Forest's board of trustees voted to accept Edward Reynolds, a native of Ghana, as the first black full-time undergraduate at the school. This made Wake Forest the first major private university in the South to desegregate. Reynolds, a transfer student from Shaw University, became the first black graduate of the university in 1964, when he earned a bachelor's degree in history. He went on to earn master's degrees at Ohio University and Yale Divinity School, and a PhD in African history from the University of London in 1972. He became a professor of history at the University of California, San Diego, and the author of several history books. Other diversity milestones:
Wake Forest's Associate Provost for Diversity and Inclusion Barbee Oakes was named one of the "25 Women Making a Difference" in 2012 Diverse Issues in Higher Education, recognizing her for commitment to initiatives that promote pluralism and foster community. Wake Forest was among 40 schools across the country awarded the 2012 Higher Education Excellence in Diversity Award by Insight into Diversity magazine.
On March 12, 2019, Wake Forest was one of eight colleges and universities involved in the Varsity Blues scandal. It was later revealed that former Wake Forest volleyball coach Bill Ferguson accepted a $50,000 bribe to help a future student be admitted into the university.
A graduate studies program was inaugurated in 1961, and in 1967 the school became the fully accredited Wake Forest University. The Babcock Graduate School of Management, now known as the School of Business, was established in 1969. The James R. Scales Fine Arts Center opened in 1979.
In 1979, Wake Forest began a process to change its relationship with the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, in order to obtain more academic freedom and choose non-Baptist trustees. In 1986, the school gained autonomy from the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina and established a fraternal relationship with it.
Middleton House and its surrounding 5 acres (2.0 ha) was deeded by gift to Wake Forest by Philip Hanes and his wife Charlotte in 1992. The donation was completed in 2011.
The thirteenth president of Wake Forest was Nathan O. Hatch, former provost at the University of Notre Dame. Hatch was officially announced as president on October 20, 2005. He assumed office on July 1, 2005, succeeding Thomas K. Hearn Jr., who had retired after 22 years in office (and for whom the Upper Quad is now named). In 2020, Hatch announced his retirement as president. On January 29, 2021, the Wake Forest University Board of Trustees named Susan Rae Wente as Wake Forest's fourteenth president and first female president of the school.
On September 16, 2015, Wake Forest announced plans to offer undergraduate classes downtown in Innovation Quarter in Winston-Salem. On March 18, 2016, the school announced programs in biomedical sciences and engineering at its new Wake Downtown campus, opening in January 2017. Wake Downtown is in a former R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company plant, next to the second campus of the school of medicine which opened in July 2016.
On February 21, 2020, Wake Forest officially apologized for the institution's role in profiting and benefiting from enslaved people during slavery.
Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center and Atrium Health announced a partnership in 2019 with the goal of a Charlotte, North Carolina, campus for the Wake Forest School of Medicine. More specific details were revealed in February 2021, including a seven-story tower, and on March 24, 2021, Atrium Health announced a 20-acre site at Baxter and McDowell Streets. Also, School of Medicine dean Dr. Julie Ann Freischlag said construction would start in 2022, with the first students attending in 2024. Hatch, who was leaving as president June 30, said Wake Forest would have a School of Professional Studies at the Charlotte location in 2022.
On March 17, 1978, president Jimmy Carter made a major National Security address in Wait Chapel. The school has hosted presidential debates on two occasions. The first was between then-vice president George H. W. Bush and governor Michael Dukakis on September 25, 1988. The second match of then-governor George W. Bush against vice-president Al Gore on October 11, 2000. Both debates were hosted in Wait Chapel. Bill Clinton campaigned at Wake Forest for his wife Hillary Clinton during her 2016 presidential campaign.
The Reynolda Campus is the main campus for Wake Forest University, housing the undergraduate colleges, three of the four graduate schools, and half the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. The core of Reynolda campus is the two interlinked quads, separated by the main administrative building and dining facility, Reynolda Hall, into North and South Campus.
North Campus consists of Hearn Plaza, better known as "the quad", which holds six upperclassmen residential buildings, Subway restaurant, a book/office supply store, a clothing/athletic store, and Wait Chapel. Wait Chapel serves multiple functions. Its auditorium serves as an area for prayer, ceremonies, concerts, and certain guest speakers. The classrooms at Wait Chapel house the offices and classrooms for the Divinity School and the Religion Department.
South Campus is the home of Manchester Quad, named for substantial donors Doug and Elizabeth Manchester. It holds freshman housing, most of the classroom buildings, the Benson Center, and the Z. Smith Reynolds Library.
Reynolda House Museum of American Art is the centerpiece of the Reynolda Estate, from which the university's Reynolda Campus takes its name. The residence was constructed in 1917 by Katharine Smith Reynolds and her husband, Richard Joshua Reynolds, founder of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. It was converted to an art museum in 1967 and has been affiliated with Wake Forest University since 2002.
Reynolda House displays American art ranging from the colonial period to the present, including well-known artists such as Mary Cassatt, Frederic Church, Jacob Lawrence, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Gilbert Stuart.
Wake Forest students regularly get involved at Reynolda House through internships, volunteer opportunities, and academic research. In 2010, Reynolda House and Wake Forest partnered on a first-year student orientation project that uses the museum's masterpiece by Frederic Church, The Andes of Ecuador, as the focal point of the summer academic experience. General admission to the museum is free to students and university employees.
The 129-acre (52-hectare) property that comprise Reynolda Gardens of Wake Forest University was once at the center of Reynolda, the early 20th-century estate of Mr. and Mrs. R. J. Reynolds, and included a lake, golf course, formal gardens, greenhouses, and woods. Although many changes have occurred to the landscape over the past century, this preserve serves as a learning center for topics related to horticulture, environmental sciences, and landscape history. Wake Forest students and faculty engage in research throughout the preserve. The public is invited to participate in a wide variety of learning experiences, including classes, workshops, summer camps, and special events.
Adjacent to the Wake Forest campus, Reynolda Village is home to stores, restaurants, services and offices. Now owned and operated by Wake Forest University, the buildings were originally part of the 1,067-acre (432-hectare) estate of the R. J. Reynolds family. These buildings were modeled after an English Village and included dairy barns, a cattle shed, school, post office, smokehouse, blacksmith shop, carriage house, central power and heating plant, as well as cottages to house the family's chauffeur and stenographer, the village's school master, and the farm's head dairyman and horticulturist. The present-day village has a wide range of shops specializing in home furnishings and designer fashions, as well as art galleries, fitness studios, and a full-service day spa. The Reynolda historical district, including Reynolda Village, serves as an educational, cultural, and community complex for the Winston-Salem community.
Wake Forest University owns and manages one of the premier meeting destinations in the southeast. Graylyn was built as a private estate for Bowman Gray, Sr., and his family in 1932. The Gray family lived in the home until 1946 when it was donated to the Bowman Gray School of Medicine. In 1972, it was donated to Wake Forest University where it was used for many things over the years, including graduate student housing.
Located in the Ardmore neighborhood near downtown Winston-Salem, the Bowman Gray Campus is home to Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist, which includes its teaching and research arm, Wake Forest School of Medicine, and its clinical enterprise, Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Health. With about 13,000 employees, the Medical Center is the largest employer in the Piedmont Triad Region, operating as an integrated health care system. Wake Downtown is located in the Wake Forest Innovation Quarter. The Graduate School of Arts & Science has some programs located in the Historic Brookstown in downtown Winston-Salem.
Wake Forest purchased the Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum and 33 surrounding acres from the City of Winston-Salem on August 1, 2013. The Coliseum, which seats 14,407, has been the home of Wake Forest's men's and women's basketball teams since it opened in 1989.
The opening of Wake Forest Biotech Place in February 2012 marked a milestone in development of Wake Forest Innovation Quarter, based in downtown Winston-Salem and formerly known as Piedmont Triad Research Park. Operated by Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, Wake Forest Biotech Place is a 242,000-square-foot (22,500 m) multipurpose biotechnology research and innovation center space that is the present-day home of several School of Medicine departments doing pioneering research, as well as private companies.
In December 2012 the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center formally launched its new commercialization enterprise, Wake Forest Innovations. Located in the Innovation Quarter, Wake Forest Innovations brings together technology asset management functions with resources to support scholarship, invest in the innovative potential of its academic and clinical communities and help translate ideas and discoveries into commercial products and services for both the Medical Center and Wake Forest University.
In January 2017, undergraduate programs began at Wake Downtown.
Built as the world headquarters for Reynolds Tobacco Company, RJR Nabisco donated the more than 500,000-square-foot (46,000 m) building to Wake Forest University in 1987. Now known as the University Corporate Center, the building is located off Reynolds Boulevard, near campus, and houses the following University offices: Information Systems, Finance Systems, Procurement Services, and Financial and Accounting Services. Aon Consulting, BB&T, and Pepsi are also tenants.
The School of Business established a satellite campus in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1995; in January 2001, it moved into a 30,000-square-foot (2,800 m), award-winning facility on North College Street in Uptown.
The Charlotte Center is home to U.S. News & World Report's No. 1 ranked part-time MBA program for working professionals in North Carolina. It offers two part-time MBA programs (Evening and Saturday), continuing legal education courses, continuing professional education courses, executive education, Lunch & Learn and speaker events. Certificate programs offered at the Charlotte Center include business management for nonprofits, sustainability, financial planning and negotiations. The center also hosts corporate retreats and serves as an educational and gathering space for students and alumni in the greater Charlotte area.
The university began offering a small set of general summer school classes at the Charlotte campus in the summer of 2014.
The university's Washington, D.C. campus offers undergraduate classes during the spring and fall as well as law classes during the spring and summer semester sessions. The Wake Washington Center also alumni workshops, networking events, volunteer meetings and speaker events and panels.
The university owns international properties in Italy, Austria, England, and Nicaragua.
In 1974, Wake Forest purchased the building that formerly housed the American Consulate in Venice and named it Casa Artom in honor of Camillo Artom, a professor at the Baptist Medical Center until 1969. Casa Artom is a two-story building facing the Grand Canal. It is flanked by the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, which houses the Peggy Guggenheim art collection, and the 15th century home Ca'Dario. Each fall and spring semester, a group of Wake Forest students and a resident professor live and study together here.
In 1998, Wake Forest purchased a three-story villa in Vienna. The acquisition was made possible through the donation of Vic and Roddy Flow of Winston-Salem, and the house was named in their honor. Built in 1898, the house was formerly the office of the U.S. Consulate. Flow House is situated in a northwest section of Vienna that is known for its embassies, diplomatic residences, and distinguished private homes. Each fall and spring semester, a group of Wake Forest students and a resident professor live and study together here.
In 1977, Wake Forest acquired a large, brick home in Hampstead for its London program. The house, a gift from Eugene and Ann Worrell, was named in their honor. Formerly known as Morven House, the building served as the home and studio of landscape painter Charles Edward Johnson. Hampstead is primarily a residential neighborhood and home to Hampstead Heath, Regent's Park, Primrose Hill and the Keats House. Each fall and spring semester, a group of Wake Forest undergraduate students and a resident professor live and study together here. Wake Forest law students also spend a summer session here along with a resident law professor.
In 2008, Karyn and Tom Dingledine provided a donation that enabled Wake Forest to purchase Casa Dingledine, a 6,600-square-foot (610 m) conference center on 5 acres (2.0 hectares) of land with a view of Lake Managua in Nicaragua. The facility provides a venue for the exchange of ideas between and among not only Wake Forest constituents, but also the university's Nicaraguan partners, other academic institutions and corporate entities. The center is critical to the mission of the Nicaragua Nexus, which is to accomplish the Wake Forest motto of Pro Humanitate by working with Nicaraguans to enhance their quality of life through collaborative partnerships with local and international organizations in Nicaragua, while providing transformational experiences for students and faculty. Casa Dingledine was dedicated in February 2011.
Undergraduate admission to Wake Forest is rated as "most selective" by U.S. News & World Report. For freshmen enrolling in the fall of 2023, the university received 17,479 applications and admitted 3,768, or 21.56 percent. 1,385 students enrolled, making the yield rate (percentage of accepted students who then enrolled) 36.75 percent. Approximately 55 percent of the class are women and 45 percent are men. Wake Forest University does not require applicants to submit a college entrance exam score; of the 26 percent of applicants who did submit SAT scores, the middle 50 percent for total scores were between 1410 and 1500. Of the 22 percent of applicants who did submit ACT scores, the middle 50 percent composite score was between 32 and 34. The median family income of Wake Forest University students is $221,500, with 71% of students coming from the top 20% highest-earning families. Over the past couple of years, Wake Forest has been consistently ranked as one of the most expensive institutions in the state of North Carolina, with its total undergraduate tuition for the 2024–25 academic year being $91,266.
In May 2008, Wake Forest made college entrance exams optional for undergraduate admissions, becoming the first national university ranked in the top 30 by the U.S. News & World Report to adopt a test-optional policy. Being test-optional means Wake Forest's admissions process does not require applicants to submit their SAT or ACT scores, and students can decide if they want their standardized test scores to be considered. Wake Forest University does not publish any explanation of how its admissions process compares applicants with submitted scores to those without.
Wake Forest offers 49 undergraduate majors and 60 interdisciplinary minors across various fields of study. Students initially declare a major the second semester of their sophomore year.
In order to graduate, a Wake Forest student must finish three requirements for 120 hours of credit: a core set of classes, a course of study related to a major, and electives. The core set of classes includes basic requirements (a first-year seminar, a writing seminar, health and PE classes, and foreign language literature) and divisional requirements (at least two classes in each of the humanities, social sciences and math/natural sciences and at least one in the fine arts and literatures).
Wake Forest also offers an "Open Curriculum" option, in which a small number of students, approved by a committee, may design a course of study with an adviser that follows a liberal arts framework but does not necessarily fulfill all the core degree requirements.
In order to attend the School of Business, students must make a special application to its program, which offers an accountancy program whereby a student earns a BS and an MS in Accountancy and qualifies to sit for the CPA exam after five years of combined undergraduate and graduate study. The School of Business also offers undergraduate programs leading to degrees in business and enterprise management, finance and mathematical business.
Wake Forest supports a number of centers and institutes, which are designed to encourage interdisciplinary curriculum and programming. Currently, there are three institutes (Humanities, Pro Humanitate, and Eudaimonia) and eleven centers (including Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials; Enterprise Research and Education; Translational Science; Bioethics, Health and Society; BB&T Center for the Study of Capitalism; Energy, Environment and Sustainability; Molecular Communication and Signaling; and Interdisciplinary Performance and the Liberal Arts).
Including the professional schools, the university has 1,996 faculty members, of whom 84.5 percent are full-time employees.
Ninety-three percent of undergraduate faculty have doctorates or other terminal degrees in their field. Wake Forest ranked tied for 10th best undergraduate teaching in the U.S. by U.S. News & World Report in its 2016 report, and the school maintains a faculty-to-student ratio of 1 to 11.
Notable faculty include:
According to the Institute of International Education's 2012 Open Doors Report, Wake Forest ranked third in the country for undergraduate participation in study-abroad programs among doctoral research universities. According to the IIE's methodology, 72 percent of Wake Forest undergraduates received credit for studying abroad in the 2010–2011 academic year, with students spending anywhere from a few weeks to a summer to a full academic year visiting countries around the world. In January 2013, the university received the IIE's Heiskell Award for Study Abroad for its emphasis on providing foreign-based educational opportunities to first-generation college students.
Wake Forest offers more than 400 semester-, summer- and year-long study abroad programs in 200 cities in more than 70 countries worldwide through Wake Forest-sponsored programs and through Affiliate programs (approved non-Wake Forest programs).
Wake Forest program options include:
In addition to the Undergraduate College, Wake Forest University is home to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and four professional schools.
The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences offers 25 programs of graduate-level study as well as 11 certificates. Degree programs include 11 areas of PhD study in the sciences, as well as 24 master's degrees in the arts and sciences. The school also offers nine joint degree programs in conjunction with the other professional schools and the undergraduate college.
The Wake Forest School of Business was founded in 1969 as the Babcock School of Management, and the school now houses both graduate and undergraduate programs in the new Farrell Hall facility on the main Wake Forest campus. The school also maintains a campus in Charlotte, North Carolina, which houses an MBA program for working professionals.
The School of Business offers seven Master programs and four joint-degree programs, including full-time and part-time Master of Business Administration, Master of Science in Accountancy, Master of Science in Business Analytics, and Master of Science in management. The school offers a Bachelor of Science (BS) degree program for undergraduates. This is a four-year degree with majors in accountancy, business and enterprise management, finance, and mathematical business.
The School of Divinity, accredited by the Association of Theological Schools, offers a Master of Divinity degree as well as dual-degree programs in bioethics, counseling and law. The school also offers a certificate in Spirituality and Health in association with the Wake Forest School of Medicine.
Gail O'Day was appointed in 2010 as dean of the school and professor of New Testament and preaching. The school has 18 faculty members, five adjunct faculty and 12 associated faculty from other university departments. According to its mission statement, the school is "Christian by tradition, Baptist in heritage, and ecumenical in outlook." In April 2019, Jonathan L. Walton was appointed as the new dean of the divinity school.
Planning for the school began in April 1989. In May 1996, Bill J. Leonard was appointed the school's first dean, and in March 1998, the school selected its 14-member board of visitors. The first faculty members were named in April 1998, and additional faculty were hired that October. In August 1999, the first 24 students enrolled in the program. The university's first Master of Divinity degrees were conferred May 20, 2002.
In 2012, the school established the Food, Faith, and Religious Leadership Initiative to equip religious leaders with the knowledge, skills, and pastoral habits necessary to guide congregations and other faith-based organizations around food issues.
The Wake Forest University School of Law is a private American Bar Association-accredited law school and is a member of the Association of American Law Schools. The school was established in 1894. U.S. News & World Report consistently ranks the school among the top 50 law schools in the nation. The current dean is Andrew Klein. Wake Forest University School of Law has a faculty of 52 Resident Faculty Members and 40 Extended Faculty Members.
Wake Forest Law offers the following degrees: the JD, the JD/M.Div., the JD/MA in Religion, the JD/MA in bioethics, the Master of Studies in Law, the Master of Laws in American Law, the SJD and the JD/MBA in conjunction with the university's Schools of Business. Class sizes are limited to sections of 40 in the first year, with legal writing classes limited to sections of 20.
The Wake Forest School of Medicine has one campus on the Bowman Gray Campus in the Ardmore neighborhood of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and a second campus downtown which opened in July 2016. Founded in 1902, the School of Medicine directs the education of about 1,800 students and fellows, including physicians, basic scientists and allied clinical professionals each year. It is clinically affiliated with Wake Forest Baptist Health and Wake Forest Community Physicians and, with its research program, forms the integrated academic medical center, Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center.
In addition to MD, PhD and MS degrees (including an MS for physician assistants), the School of Medicine has five joint-degree programs, nurse anesthesia and medical technology teaching programs, and is the clinical site for 10 Forsyth Technical Community College programs.
In its 2016 edition, U.S. News & World Report ranked it tied for 52nd best in research and tied for 74th in primary care. The nurse anesthesia program is ranked 10th nationally.
The School of Medicine ranks among the top third of American medical schools in total funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In the 2012 fiscal year, the school was awarded nearly $185 million in research funding from federal and state agencies, industry and other sources. In November 2023, the School of Medicine pledged $100 million to help fund research.
In the 2023 U.S. News & World Report America's Best Colleges report, Wake Forest ranked tied for 31st for "Best Undergraduate Teaching", 64th for "Best Value", and tied for 47th overall among national universities in the U.S. Forbes ranked Wake Forest as 33rd in Research Universities and 46th in Private Colleges. As of 2024, U.S. News & World Report also ranked Wake Forest 3rd among best national universities in North Carolina behind Duke University and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Wake Forest is also considered and described as a Southern Ivy, due to its comparable academic quality and social prestige to Ivy League universities.
In the 2014 BusinessWeek Undergraduate Business Schools Rankings, the School of Business ranked 11th overall and achieved the No. 1 rank for the sixth consecutive year in Academic Quality. In 2012, students in the MSA program achieved the No. 1 pass rate and the highest average score in the nation on the Certified Public Accountant Exam among candidates from nearly 800 colleges and universities. Wake Forest MSA students have earned the No. 1 CPA pass rate ranking ten times since 1997.
According to the Institute of International Education's 2012 Open Doors Report, Wake Forest ranked third in the country for undergraduate participation in study-abroad programs among doctoral research universities.
Wake Forest University Press was established in 1976 by Irish scholar Dillon Johnston with the support of provost Edwin Wilson and president James Ralph Scales. It has a strong focus on Irish poetry with published poets including Ciaran Carson, Thomas Kinsella, Michael Longley, Medbh McGuckian, John Montague, Eilean Ni Chuilleanain, and Irish language poet Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill.
There are over 225 chartered student organizations of all sorts. Student sports organizations are highly visible on campus. Special interest organizations range from the academic, such the Model United Nations team, to the artistic, such as the handbell choir. In spring of 2006, the Mock Trial team was notable in qualifying for the national tournament while only in its 2nd year in operation. Religious organizations are also numerous. Both the College Republicans and College Democrats have active chapters at the university. Historic student organizations such as the Philomathesians, an artistic literary magazine, are also present. Students are entertained by numerous performing groups, including The Lilting Banshees Comedy Troupe, The Living Parables Christian Drama Troupe, and The Anthony Aston Players.
The Office of Student Engagement, oversees all student organizations and fraternities and sororities. Student Engagement also organizes leadership oriented student activities such as CHARGE (Formerly called LEAD), a semester long course in campus leadership.
The event-planning arm of Wake Forest is an undergraduate student-run organization known as Student Union. Student Union events include Homecoming, Family Weekend, Special Lectures, Concerts, the Coffeehouse music series and other weekly events such as movie screenings and Tuesday Trivia nights. Its signature event is the annual "Shag on the Mag" where a big tent covers Manchester Quad (formerly the Magnolia Quad) during Springfest and students shag dance to a live band. It started in 2005 under then Springfest chairman Joseph Bumgarner.
Founded in 1923, Wake Forest Student Government (known as SG) works under a semi-Presidential system. Four executive officers (Student Body President, Speaker of the House, Secretary and Treasurer) are elected each spring. The President appoints a Chief of Staff. The Executive Officers coordinate with the Cabinet, formed by the Co-Chairs of the seven standing committees. The seven committees are Academic, Campus Life, Diversity & Inclusion, Judiciary, Public Relations, Physical Planning, and The Student Organizations Council (SOC). The executive committee and Cabinet work with members of the Senate to pass legislation and advocate on behalf of students.
The Senate, which acts as a student legislature, is made up of about 60 senators, chosen in fall and spring elections each year. The legislators are assigned to one of seven committees focused on an area of student needs. The student trustee is an ex-officio member of Student Government and acts as a liaison between the board of trustees and Student Government.
WFDD is an NPR-affiliate which was founded in 1946. The station has a signal strength of 36,000 watts and broadcasts to 32 counties in North Carolina and Virginia. The station has been broadcast on 88.5 FM since 1967.
The Wake Forest Debate team has won the National Debate Tournament in 1997 and 2008, made the finals in 2006 and 2009 and has had six semifinal teams: 1955, 1993, 1994, 1995, 2017 and 2019. Wake Forest has had two winners of the "National Coach of the Year" award: Ross Smith (1997) and Al Louden (1988). The award is named for Smith.
Notable Debate alumni include: Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, the director of the Center for the Study of Terrorist Radicalization at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies; Larry Penley, the former president of Colorado State University; John Graham, the former regulatory czar for George W. Bush; and Franklin Shirley and Martha Swain Wood, both former mayors of Winston-Salem.
In 2010, Wake Forest became the first top-tier debate team in the country to go "open source" and share all its evidence and arguments online through a wiki accessible to other debaters.
The Volunteer Service Corps (VSC) is one of the most popular student organizations. It coordinates volunteering in both the local and international/national setting via service projects and trips. The organization has annual service trips to Russia, Vietnam, and Latin America. In light of the disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina, VSC sent 30 Wake Students on a Wake Alternative Spring Break in the Spring of 2006.
Wake Forest University offers an Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps (AROTC) program. In 2006, the AROTC program was awarded the MacArthur Award by the United States Army for having the best medium-sized ROTC battalion in the nation. There are about sixty cadets in the program, and about half of each military science class finishes Leadership Development Advanced Camp (LDAC) as a "Distinguished Military Graduate", the top 20 percent of ROTC graduates.
The minimum service commitment of a contracted cadet who graduates from ROTC is four years active duty and four years of inactive reserve duty after that. Alternatively, a cadet can choose to forgo active duty service and serve eight straight years in the active Reserve or National Guard. Other alternative service plans are available for those who intend to be an army doctor, lawyer, or chaplain with source of commissioning via ROTC.
At Wake Forest contracted ROTC cadets are given full scholarship, a monthly stipend, and book money by the US Army. The university extends the scholarship with free room and board.
The program also serves students from Winston-Salem State University and Salem College.
With 25 chapters, fraternity and sorority membership consists of around 45 percent of the undergraduate student population. Wake Forest requires that all new members of fraternities and sororities complete at least one semester of full-time studies, so the primary recruiting time is during the spring semester.
Most fraternities and sororities have lounges in campus residence halls, with surrounding rooms being reserved for the chapter. One fraternity, Delta Kappa Epsilon, has a residence off campus.
All fraternities and sororities at Wake Forest belong to one of three councils – the Interfraternity Council, the National Pan-Hellenic Council and the Panhellenic Council. Each of these councils has an executive board that provides resources and programming to its member organizations.
Fraternities on campus: Alpha Epsilon Pi, Alpha Phi Alpha, Alpha Sigma Phi, Chi Psi, Kappa Alpha Order, Kappa Alpha Psi, Lambda Chi Alpha, Omega Psi Phi, Pi Kappa Alpha, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, Sigma Chi, Sigma Pi, and Theta Chi.
Sororities on campus: Alpha Delta Pi, Alpha Kappa Alpha, Chi Omega, Delta Delta Delta, Delta Sigma Theta, Delta Xi Phi, Delta Zeta, Kappa Alpha Theta, Kappa Beta Gamma, Kappa Delta, and Kappa Kappa Gamma.
Professional or Academic Fraternities and Sororities on campus: Alpha Kappa Psi, Alpha Phi Omega, and Kappa Kappa Psi.
Wake Forest is also home to the Sigma Delta chapter of Order of Omega, an honor society for members of Greek organizations. Members are selected from the top three percent of Greeks on campus based on high standards in the areas of scholarship, leadership, and involvement within their respective organization and within the fraternity/sorority, campus and local communities.
In the mid-2010s, fraternities at Wake Forest began to come under more public scrutiny for claims of sexual assault, racism, and violence.
Wake Forest offers classes in yoga, Pilates, High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), Zumba, BodyPump, and indoor cycling. Wake Forest students field 36 club sport teams that compete against other colleges and universities at the regional and national level. Over half of the student body participates in 18 different intramural sports. The university's fitness and recreation center, Reynolds Gym, is the oldest gym in the ACC. It was renovated in March 2018 and renamed the Wake Forest Wellbeing Center. The project includes the addition of the Sutton Center which opened in January 2016.
Wake Forest undergraduate students living on campus are required to sign up for a meal plan in coordination with the Office of Residence Life and Housing and Aramark. Several dining rooms, a food court, bar and grill, Starbucks, and convenience stores are available.
The Wake Forest University Police Department (WFUPD) is mostly compromised of properly trained police officers, security officers, communication officers and their support staff.
Students are guaranteed housing for four years. As of 2010, students were required to live on campus for their first three years as a full-time enrolled student.
The three main community areas for the 2013–2014 academic year are:
In 2009, President Nathan Hatch outlined in his strategic plan a campus culture in which personal and career development would become an integral component of the undergraduate student experience. Later that year, he created a cabinet-level position and appointed Andy Chan as the vice president for personal and career development.
Chan's work has included hosting a national conference in 2012 ("Rethinking Success: From the Liberal Arts to Careers in the 21st Century") featuring Condoleezza Rice, and issuing "A Roadmap for Transforming the College-To-Career Experience" in 2013. Wake Forest quadrupled the size of the staff, integrated personal and career development into freshman orientation, and added "College to Career" courses.
Every student takes at least one course in the arts (art history, studio art, theatre, dance, music performance and music in liberal arts) before graduating. In 2011–2012, more than 500 Wake Forest students were directly involved in performances on campus, and 110 public exhibitions in theatre, music dance and visual arts held in Scales Fine Arts Center in 2012–2013. The university's home, Winston-Salem, calls itself the "City of Arts & Innovation".
Students also can take advantage of a number of other art-related opportunities:
Notable among the songs commonly played and sung at events such as commencement, convocation, alumni reunions and athletic games is the alma mater, "Dear Old Wake Forest", and the fight song "O Here's To Wake Forest".
Student attendance of Wake Forest Football and Basketball games is high, in part due to the program known as "Screamin' Demons". At the beginning of each respective athletic season students on the Reynolda Campus can sign up for the program whereby they pay $40 for each year; in addition to the best seats at the games, this gets students a football shirt in the fall and a tie-dye T-shirt in the spring along with a card that serves as an automatic pass to the sporting events. They lose this privilege if they miss two of the games. Through the planning of Sports Marketing and the Screamin' Demons program, basketball game seats in the students section are difficult to attain without participating in the Screamin' Demons program. The arena can seat only 2,250 of the 4,500 undergraduate students at Wake Forest. At least 150 seats are always set aside for non-Screamin Demons, who sit behind the 2,100 member group.
Originally, Wake Forest's athletic teams were known as The Old Gold and Black or the Baptists, due to its association with the Baptist Convention (from which it later separated itself). However, in 1923, after a particularly impressive win against nearby rival the Duke Blue Devils, a newspaper reporter wrote that the Deacons "fought like Demons", giving rise to the current team name, the "Demon Deacons".
Wake Forest's Athletic teams have won a total of ten NCAA team national championships in five different sports. The women's field hockey team has won three (2002, 2003, 2004), the men's golf team has won three (1974, 1975, 1986), the men's soccer team (2007), the baseball team (1955), and men's tennis (2018), women's golf (2023) have won one each. Wake Forest has a 96% student athlete graduation rate. Wake Forest is sometimes referred to as being a part of "Tobacco Road" or "The Big Four", terms that refer to the four North Carolina schools that compete heatedly against each other within the ACC; these include Duke, North Carolina, and North Carolina State, as well as Wake Forest.
The Wake Forest Demon Deacons participate in the NCAA's Division I (in the Bowl Subdivision for football) and in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Men's sports include baseball, basketball, cross country, football, golf, soccer, tennis, and track & field; women's sports include basketball, cross country, field hockey, golf, soccer, tennis, track & field, and volleyball.
Wake Forest plays its home football games at Allegacy Federal Credit Union Stadium. The Demon Deacons have won two ACC Football Championships. The program also have had four players named as ACC Player of the Year, three consensus All-Americans, including 15 bowl appearances.
Wake Forest is generally regarded as a competitive program in men's basketball, having won four ACC tournament titles and frequently qualifying for the NCAA tournament (23 times in the school's history). They reached the Final Four once, in 1962. The school's famous basketball alumni include Billy Packer, a guard on the 1962 Final Four team who became far more famous as a basketball broadcaster; Tyrone Curtis "Muggsy" Bogues, the shortest player ever to play in the NBA; Randolph Childress, MVP of the 1995 ACC tournament; 2006 NBA Rookie of the Year Award and 12-time NBA All-star Chris Paul; two-time league MVP, five-time NBA champion, and three-time NBA Finals MVP Tim Duncan, John Collins of the Utah Jazz, and 2015 NBA all-star Jeff Teague.
Wake Forest Demon Deacons women's basketball team also boosts a competitive program. In 2012, Jen Hoover took over as coach from Mike Petersen, the program's all-time winningest coach. Hoover (then Jenny Mitchell) is the program's all-time leading scorer and rebounder, was a three-time All-ACC selection and was a member of the ACC's 50th Anniversary Team in 2002. Hoover was part of the program's only NCAA tournament appearance in 1988, when Wake Forest beat Villanova and lost to Tennessee. Wake Forest has appeared in the Women's NIT four times, all under Petersen. In 2015, Dearica Hamby was drafted 6th overall in the WNBA draft by the San Antonio Stars (now Las Vegas Aces). Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum is the home venue for the Demon Deacons basketball teams.
Recent athletic honors include three consecutive NCAA Field Hockey national championships in 2002, 2003, and 2004 under Head Coach Jennifer Averill. In 2005, the Deacs were defeated in the semifinal round by Duke University, and in the 2006 championship game by the University of Maryland.
Wake Forest has had several successful golf teams, winning national championships in 1974, 1975, and 1986. Several well-known players include Jay Haas, Billy Andrade, Gary Hallberg, Robert Wrenn, Scott Hoch, Bill Haas, Will Zalatoris, Cameron Young and majors champions Arnold Palmer, Lanny Wadkins, Darren Clarke, Curtis Strange, and Webb Simpson.
Wake Forest is a consistent national title contender in men's soccer. In recent years several players from the program have played professionally in Major League Soccer, including Brian Carroll, Will Hesmer, Justin Moose, Michael Parkhurst, Pat Phelan, James Riley, Scott Sealy, Matt Taylor, and Wells Thompson. In 2006 the team advanced to the final four of the NCAA tournament where they were defeated in a penalty kick shootout by UC Santa Barbara. They captured the 2007 NCAA Men's Soccer Championship defeating Ohio State 2–1, with the winning goal scored by Zack Schilawski. The Demon Deacons returned to the final four of the 2009 Division I Men's College Cup, losing to Virginia 2–1 in overtime in the semifinals. The Demon Deacons reached the NCAA Championship game again in 2016, losing to Stanford in the College Cup Championship.
Wake Forest won the 1955 College World Series in baseball. In 2009, the team began playing at David F. Couch Ballpark, in Winston-Salem, NC, moving to this field from their former home at Gene Hooks Stadium on campus. In 2017, eight players were selected in the 2017 MLB Draft, the most in the Wake Forest Baseball history.
Noah Rubin played for Wake Forest; he had won the 2014 boys singles championship at Wimbledon, and the US 2014 boys' national championships in singles and doubles. In 2014–2015 for Wake Forest he was an All-American and the runner-up in the 2015 NCAA singles championship.
On May 22, 2018, the Wake Forest Men's Tennis team won its first ever NCAA National Championship. This feat was accomplished on their home courts, as they defeated the Ohio State Men's Tennis team 4–2. Wake Forest had been ranked as the number one team for most of the season leading up to the tournament.
Wake Forest has over 82,000 living alumni, with 39% living in North Carolina and others residing in 97 foreign countries. Alumni include 18 Rhodes Scholars, including 13 since 1986, five Marshall Scholars, 15 Truman Scholars and 62 Fulbright recipients since 1993.
Notable alumni in the sporting arena include, NBA player Muggsy Bogues (B.A. 1987), Tim Duncan (B.A. 1997), Five-time NBA Champion, Two-time NBA MVP, member of Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, Legendary PGA golfer Arnold Palmer (B.A. 1951), NBA all-stars Josh Howard (B.A. 2003) and Jeff Teague, twelve-time NBA all-star Chris Paul, and NFL players Norm Snead, Billy Ray Barnes, Bill George and Brian Piccolo
Alumni in the world of politics and government include Richard Burr (B.A. 1982), United States Senator, Ted Budd (M.B.A. 2007), junior United States Senator of North Carolina,Bob Ehrlich (J.D. 1982) former governor of Maryland, Donna Edwards former U.S. House Representative of Maryland, U.S. diplomats David Funderburk and Robert S. Gilchrist, Kay Hagan (J.D. 1978), former US Senator, D-NC (a graduate of Wake Forest Law School), Jennifer M. Harris (B.A.), economics advisor to the Biden Administration, and Robert Wilkie, former United States Secretary of Veterans Affairs
Wake Forest alumni in the entertainment and media field include actor Marc Blucas (B.A. 1994), Cheslie Kryst (J.D., M.B.A. 2017), (Wake Forest Law School graduate), Miss USA 2019 Melissa Harris-Perry (B.A. 1994), and Al Hunt (B.A. 1965) of Bloomberg News, and Dagen McDowell of Fox News.
Business alumni such as Charlie Ergen (M.B.A. 1976), co-founder and chairman of EchoStar and Dish Network, David Farr (B.S. 1977) CEO of Emerson Electric Company and board director of IBM, Joseph W. Luter III of Smithfield Foods, G. Kennedy Thompson of Wachovia, and Eric C. Wiseman of VF Corporation.
Many Wake Forest alumni such as James Archibald Campbell, Spright Dowell, Michael Maxey (B.A., M.A.), and George M. Modlin have gone on to become presidents of numerous colleges and institutions.