Weekly update for incoming WFU families
Bottom Line Up Front:
- The New Students website is now live! This website is your hub for all information related to incoming students and families and has due dates, deadlines, and more.
- There is a special parents and families section of the New Students website. Please carefully review all parent and family information at your earliest convenience.
- You may wish to delay making firm travel arrangements for Move-In until your student has had the chance to consider doing a Pre-Orientation program.
- Wake Forest University, per North Carolina state law, requires documentation of certain immunizations for students attending college. Forms must be completed inside the Deacon Health Portal, and all documentation must be uploaded by July 1. Please allow sufficient time for your physician to provide you with the necessary paperwork and/or to schedule any needed vaccines.
- Please do not ask for or use your student’s WFU login and password.
- Use WFU websites and offices for official information rather than social media or other sources.
- Ask your student before you share information about them on social media or in online spaces.
- What to expect this summer: each Tuesday, we will email incoming families with reminders of upcoming due dates and deadlines for families, as well as a theme topic for that week.
Dear parents and families of incoming students,
Welcome, family members of the Class of 2028! I am Dr. Betsy Chapman (’92, MA ’94), Executive Director of Family Communications, and I am responsible for family communications at Wake Forest. I’ll be emailing you each Tuesday this summer to share information about your student’s start at Wake Forest and will continue to share messages with you for the next four years.
Today’s message will share some critical information and best practices for your family as the summer progresses.
New Students website is your resource this summer
Our New Students website is now live! Newstudents.wfu.edu is the central location for all information about Move-In, Orientation, and required activities for incoming ’28 students and their P’28 families.
Please begin working through the section just for parents and families, including the New Families Checklist.
The New Students website will be active until the first day of fall classes (August 26); then, all parent and family information will be at parents.wfu.edu, and newstudents.wfu.edu will no longer be updated.
Making travel plans for Move-In
One of the first questions many new families have is, “When do I need to be in Winston-Salem? I want to make travel plans now.” We encourage families to delay finalizing your Move-In travel plans until your student has the opportunity to consider Pre-Orientation programs. We will share more information about travel planning in our May 14 message, so stay tuned.
Important medical information
While your student does not need to schedule a physical exam this summer, they do need to be up to date with required vaccines. Your student will need to attach health and immunization documents to completed questionnaire forms in their Student Health Portal, which is due July 1.
Please allow sufficient time for your student’s physician to complete their portion of this important paperwork and schedule any needed vaccines.
Please do not ask for or use your student’s WFU login and password
Students’ logins and passwords should not be shared with anyone, including their parents/family members. Please help us keep our information systems safe and do not ask for or use their login and password.
Use WFU websites for official information rather than social media or other sources
We know there are many ways that families connect to each other – you might have other Wake families in your hometown that you socialize with, you may have traded cell phone numbers with other Wake families and have a group chat set up, or you may have joined a parenting message board, Facebook group, online forum, etc.
As a new college mom last year, I joined the unofficial parents Facebook group for my ’27’s college, and it was a helpful way to connect with other families and seek support as we navigated the start of school.
As a Wake administrator, I want to stress that your best source for official information is from Wake Forest websites or administrative offices (and not rely on a group text, unofficial Facebook message board, or what your student heard from someone, as that information can be incorrect). Administrators do not review, moderate, correct, or manage information in private Facebook groups set up by individual parents/families; that information is not officially sanctioned by the University.
Processes and policies can change from year to year (and older families may not even realize there was a change!), so it is safest to use official WFU sites or social media accounts whenever possible if you have questions about policy, procedure, etc.
If you can’t find an answer on our website or via campus offices, you can email parents@wfu.edu for help. You can also follow our official WFU social media accounts or the Wake Parents and Families Facebook page. Note: our official Wake Forest parent and family site is not a group you need to be admitted to; it is an informational page anyone can access.
Related: Ask before you share details about your student on social media or in online spaces
Related to the above, it’s important to talk to your student about their comfort level with you sharing details about them on social media. Our young adults may not want us to ask [loving and well-intended] questions in an online/public forum (even if it is a closed group) about what may feel like sensitive topics to them: “Does Deacon Health fill prescriptions for acne medication, antidepressants, ADHD, birth control?” “Can anyone recommend a counselor at the counseling center?” “Anyone else have a super-shy student?” “I’m worried because it seems like everyone has found a friend group except my son,” or “Who else got assigned to Babcock Hall floor 3A?” etc. See what students at Tufts said about this.
Even if you think it is no big deal or you are trying to help them, it still might feel like a violation of privacy to your student. For sensitive questions your student might not want you to ask publicly, you can always email parents@wfu.edu, and we can help you (either by answering or directing you to someone who can), or you can use the Who to Contact for… website to find the right office.
What to expect this summer — and how to prepare
Each Tuesday during the summer, we will email incoming families. Every message will start with reminders of key upcoming due dates and deadlines. After that, the bulk of the message will cover a topic of interest. Our tentative schedule is:
- May 7 — New Student Checklist, New Families Checklist, and key things to know/do
- May 14 — Travel considerations
- May 21 — Pre-Orientation programs
- May 28 — June Advising Sessions
- June 4 — Get to know Winston-Salem
- June 11 — Safety
- June 18 — Meal Plans and Dining
- June 25 — Tentative Orientation schedule for students and families
- July 2 — Health and wellbeing
- July 9 — Academics and registration
- July 16 — Changing roles of families and students
- July 23 — Housing and The Forest
- July 30 — Additional add-ons and options
- August 6 — Social life
- August 13 — Move-In Guide
- August 20 — What’s Next?
Sometimes, our emails inadvertently are interpreted by Internet Service Providers as spam. You may wish to add parents@wfu.edu, returns@wfu.edu , and alumni@wfu.edu as contacts and check your spam/junk/quarantine folder to ensure no Wake Forest emails have landed there; if so, please mark us as a safe sender or move us to your Inbox.
Closing Thoughts
Please encourage your students to start checking their WFU email daily. The Orientation, New Student and Transitions Programs office will communicate with students via email, as will faculty and other administrators once school starts. It would be best for your Deac to get in the habit of checking their WFU email on a daily basis now. You can see a list of emails sent to all new students here.
There’s a lot of info out on the Parents and Families section of the New Students website, including a New Families Checklist of due dates and FYIs for you. We encourage you to start reviewing it at your leisure so that you can read all the sections this summer.
Questions?
If you have questions that are not answered on the New Students website, or if we can be of help to your family, please email parents@wfu.edu, and we will be happy to assist you.
Again, welcome to Wake Forest!
Betsy Chapman, Ph.D. (’92, MA ’94)
Executive Director of Family Communications