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May 1 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. 
  • Please review the parents and families section of the New Students website. 
  • We need you to review and/or update your family record in Wake Network to be sure we have correct contact information for you
  • 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.
  • Family Weekend football game tickets are now on sale (registration for event tickets will begin on July 8)
  • 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.
  • Do you have a baseball, data, and/or coding-loving student? They should consider the Baseball Analytics program (application due May 9)
  • New Student Receptions: Virtual and In-Person
  • 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 2029! 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 begins.

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 ’29 students and their P’29 families. 

Pay special attention to the Parent and Family Checklist. That is your to-do list. There are some required items, and some strongly recommended items (please consider doing all of these too!)

You’ll note that there is a First-Year Student Checklist (and also a Transfer Student Checklist) on the New Students website. 

These weekly emails will alert you to upcoming dates and deadlines for families (and occasionally a student process of critical importance), but we will not share every student deadline here. Students receive their own messages during the summer with their action items, and it is important preparation for their college success for students to be in charge of their own deadlines (not lovingly reminded of deadlines by their family). 

Note that the New Students website will be active until the first day of fall classes (August 25); then, all parent and family information will be at parents.wfu.edu, and newstudents.wfu.edu will no longer be updated.

Review and/or Update Your Contact Information in Wake Network

Wake Forest uses email to communicate with families, and we need to ensure we have families’ correct contact information. If you have not already done so, make sure to review and/or update your family record in Wake Network.

The information in Wake Network came from your student’s admissions application (or your alumni record if you went to Wake Forest), so we need families to review your family record carefully to ensure that we have the correct email address and phone number for you (and your spouse/partner if applicable). 

In addition, the Common App no longer asks for parent/family job titles and employer; instead, the Common App asks your student simply to identify a job category for their parent/family. Please update your record with your correct job title and organization. There are times the University needs to connect with a particular company, or we have programs on campus looking to tap into parents/family members with specific job titles for events or programs, etc.

After you have verified your family record in Wake Network, you can use Wake Network to search for other families in your home area.

  • Note: families do not show up in Wake Network until their student’s admissions deposit has been received and processed; depending on how you paid your deposit (e.g., check mailed in via US Postal Service, etc.), that could take a week or two to be received and processed.

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; students doing Pre-Orientation programs move in early. We will share more information about travel planning in our May 13 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.

Family Weekend football game tickets are now on sale

Tickets for the Family Weekend football game (Sept. 27 against GA Tech) are now on sale.

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. 22 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 tickets 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 1 via Athletics, registration for Family Weekend events doesn’t open until July 8 (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).

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 P’27 college mom (at a different college), I joined the unofficial parents Facebook group for my ‘27’s school, 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 (and do!) 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. Any parent/family groups that require membership to join are not official WFU communication channels.

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. And remember that there are WFU staff and faculty members who are also WFU parents and may be in the group you are posting to. So I would be cautious about calling out individuals in posts, because they may be part of that group in their capacity as a college parent (not for their job).

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.

Do you have a baseball, data, and/or coding-loving student? They should consider the Baseball Analytics program (application due May 9)

Normally we do not share information about student activities this early, but we have an upcoming deadline for the Baseball Analytics program:

“Hi! I’m Peyton Polett, a junior at Wake Forest and a member of the Wake Forest Baseball Analytics Team.

We’re a team of 23 students who work directly with the Wake Forest Baseball program to collect and analyze data that supports the coaching staff. We’re currently looking for new members for the 2025–2026 school year, and we’d love to connect with incoming students and underclassmen who are interested in sports, data, or both.

Being part of this team has personally been one of the most rewarding experiences of my time at Wake, as it is a unique opportunity to work directly with a nationally recognized baseball program while building skills in analytics and communication.

Applications are open now and will close May 9. See more at this flyer.“

New Student Receptions (virtual and in-person)

  • All parents/families and their new students are encouraged to register for our Virtual New Student Reception on June 24 from 7-8:30 p.m. EST via Zoom. The event will be recorded and posted in the days following the event. The virtual reception will provide a glimpse into life at Wake Forest; University faculty and staff will review the New Student Checklist – covering everything from advising to residence life and housing, and everything in between!
  • There will also be regional, in-person New Student Receptions, and we invite you to sign up for one if convenient. Details, dates, and registration can be found here (this list will be updated throughout the summer as new locations are added).

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 any upcoming due dates and deadlines for families. After that, the bulk of the message will cover a specific topic or theme each week. 

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 (typically each Monday), as will faculty and other administrators once school starts. It will be best for your Deac to get in the habit of checking their WFU email on a daily basis now. See a list of emails sent to all new students.

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! You’ll hear from me again next Tuesday.

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

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