5/7 Weekly Message for New Families

Bottom Line, Up Front

  • Upcoming key dates or action items for families 
    • Be sure to talk to your student’s medical provider to ensure they are up to date with the list of required vaccines and can fill out required medical forms, including disabilities documentation (if applicable)
    • Consider making lodging arrangements for Family Weekend (Sept. 27-29)
  • Information on processes of interest to families: students granting their family members access to financials, grades, etc.; housing and dining application; disabilities documentation; verify your family record in Wake Network; Family Weekend registration and football tickets
  • Encourage your student to consider optional programs: Pre-Orientation; Storage Scholars; Wake Wash

Dear parents and families of incoming students,

We hope you have had a chance to begin reviewing the information on the New Students website and its special parents and families section. This week’s message is going to cover a wide variety of critical processes to be aware of as we look ahead to the summer. Bear with us.

We will always begin these weekly messages by highlighting upcoming key dates or action items for you or your students. Here are the ones you need to know within the next week:

Upcoming key dates or action items for families

  • Medical info: While your student does not need a physical to attend Wake Forest, they do need to be up to date on the list of required vaccines. Students and their healthcare physician need to complete the health information and immunization forms (HIIF) available in their Deacon Health Portal. You will want to allow ample time for your student to get needed vaccines and get their documentation from their physician, so begin planning for those now.

    NOTE: If your student is having trouble accessing the Deacon Health Portal, please note that there is an issue with uploading the health record. Please be patient, as the vendor is working on the issue. 
  • Consider making lodging arrangements for Family Weekend (Sept. 27-29). For a list of local hotels, check our hotels page or  visitwinstonsalem.com. Please also consider Airbnbs, VRBOs, etc. as well as hotels outside the immediate near-campus/downtown Winston-Salem vicinity; there are some great hotels in Greensboro and High Point (about a 30ish minute drive from campus).  

Information on processes of interest to families

Today’s message will focus on some of the processes that might be of special interest to families.

Students must grant their family members access to financials, grades, etc.

Wake Forest University complies with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) with respect to security of and access to student records. As such, students must be the one to grant access to their parents/family members in most cases.

Academics: In order to access a student’s academic record, your student must grant Third Party Access and related Third Party Permissions; students can see instructions here. 

Financials: Students can add parents/family members to Workday, our financial system. This will allow you to see bills and financial information. I strongly, strongly recommend that they grant you access. If they do not, and they miss a payment deadline, they may find themselves unable to register for classes until their bill is paid. Access to financial activity will be available (and viewable) in Workday early July 2024. Providing third-party permissions now will allow seamless access to view account activity and make payments. 

Healthcare: If your Deac is over 18, their healthcare information is private, just like yours and mine is. However, students can give Deacon Health permission to talk to parents/loved ones during each particular visit/health care concern. 

Please talk to your student about whether you will want to be able to talk to Deacon Health – but understand that your student will grant that access on a visit-by-visit basis, not carte blanche for the whole semester. Why? They may be fine to give you permission to talk to their care provider when they have the flu, but they may feel differently if it is an OB/GYN matter, for example. We do not want students to refuse to seek needed treatment because they are afraid of their families knowing about it. You can talk within your family about what feels right to you. Best to talk about it now, not negotiate this when your student is actively ill. 

Housing and dining application

Students are required to fill out a Housing and Dining Application by June 14. The Office of Residence Life and Housing recommends letting students answer the housing application questions on their own. It is important that students be honest about their answers to make as successful a roommate match as possible.

As they consider their answers, students should not think about how they have lived in high school but how they intend to live at college. In other words, their answers will be most helpful if they reflect the students’ natural inclinations and how they want to live in college, such as when they go to bed, not what their high school schedule required them to do.

Disabilities documentation

If your student has a disability that could impact their housing and dining needs or their academic needs, there are processes in place to request accommodations:

In the event your student needs to see a care provider to get the appropriate documentation, you might want to schedule those appointments soon. If you are uncertain about what documentation might be needed, please contact the CLASS office with any questions or review Residence Life and Housing’s guidelines for documentation.

Important note: Some students want to try college without those accommodations and later discover they wished they’d had the accommodation from the beginning. It is much easier to complete this process over the summer vs. once the semester begins.

We need families to verify their Family Record (i.e., provide contact information) in Wake Network

Please be sure to verify your family record in Wake Network (due June 1). This will ensure that we have the correct contact information for your family in our alumni and family record system. It is especially important to have an email address, phone number, and physical mailing address for every family.

Family Weekend (Sept. 27-29) football tickets and event registration

Tickets for the Family Weekend football game (Sept. 28 against Louisiana) will go on sale on Tuesday, May 21 at 10 a.m. Mark your calendar. 

NOTE: Students can get a free ticket to sit in the students’ football section with the Screamin’ Demon Rewards App (ticket claims open at noon the Monday before the game: Sept. 23 at noon ET). If your student wants to sit with you, you will need to purchase a ticket for your student.

For inquiries or to purchase Family Weekend premium or season ticket options, please call the Wake Forest Ticket Office at 336.758.3322 ext 1 or complete this form to be contacted. The below premium options sell out quickly:

While you can order your football tickets on May 21 via Athletics, registration for Family Weekend events doesn’t open until July 11 (more details on events will come later this summer, but generally speaking the weekend begins on Friday early afternoon and concludes with brunch on Sunday).

Encourage your student to consider optional programs: Pre-Orientation; Storage Scholars; Wake Wash

There are a number of optional programs that your students might want to consider this summer. These optional programs may – or may not – be right for your student and your family. We offer these to let you know they are available, but you should make the choice that is right for your family’s needs.

Pre-Orientation programs

Pre-Orientation programs allow new students to meet each other in smaller groups around a shared interest. They can be a great way to ease into college life gently. However, programs can fill up quickly, so urge your students to take action promptly if they are interested. 

Students are encouraged to register for up to three program choices and will be asked to rank those choices. If your student does not get into their first-choice program, they may be placed in one of their other choices. 

While we cannot guarantee your student a spot in their program of choice, we can guarantee them a spot in one of the eleven programs.

A note about the Pre-Orientation Medical Form: A medical form is REQUIRED of all participants. The attached form is designed to be used in Adobe and will allow for a digital Adobe signature. The completed form will be uploaded during the Pre-Orientation application process. The upload process allows for two pages if needed.

The Medical Form for Pre-Orientation 2024 can be found here.

NOTE: The Pre-Orientation medical form is in addition to the required health and immunization forms for Deacon Health (those forms are listed as May 2nd tasks on the new student checklists and have a submission deadline of July 1st). 

Storage Scholars

The Office of Residence Life and Housing collaborates with Storage Scholars, a WFU student-founded and operated company that eases the burden of moving, storage, and shipping for our families. Notably, Storage Scholars gained recognition on  Shark Tank last year, securing an investment from Mark Cuban, and now serves over 140 campuses nationwide.” Read about Storage Scholars. 

Housing assignments will not go out until late July, but if you are interested in potentially using Storage Scholars, you can begin that conversation now if this might be something you are interested in pursuing.

Wake Wash

Wake Wash is Wake Forest’s exclusively licensed alumni-owned and student-operated laundry delivery service. They provide laundry bags for students who leave their dirty clothes outside their residence hall room, which Wake Wash picks up and returns, washed and folded. In addition, they offer a full pick-up and drop-off dry cleaning service.

This may be an attractive option for some families, and others not. But we want you to know it exists.

Parting Thoughts

  • Your students should regularly consult the First-Year Student or Transfer Student checklist as applicable to ensure they are completing all tasks assigned to them.
  • We want students to get in the habit of managing their due dates and action items independently, as they will need to be self-managing when school begins in August. Let them do the heavy lifting on deadlines and action items. 
  • Parents and families should be regularly checking the New Families Checklist.

Where to find these emails online

We will continue sending messages to our new families each week this summer with reminders of key action items and other information we hope will be helpful. In case you missed one of our weekly messages, they will be archived here.

With best wishes,

Betsy Chapman, Ph.D. (‘92, MA ‘94)
Executive Director of Family Communications

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