Top of page

May 6 Weekly Update: Family Checklist and major processes

Bottom Line, Up Front

  • Upcoming key dates or action items for families 
  • 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; buying textbooks from the Bookstore; consider Storage Scholars
  • Whenever possible, have your student do the work

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

There are two items from the Parent and Family Checklist to make note of this week:

  • 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.
  • Consider making lodging arrangements for Family Weekend (Sept. 26-28). 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 (View Current Classes, View Student Grades, and/or Generate Unofficial Transcript); 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 2025. 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.

To respect our students/patients and the confidentiality of their medical records, Deacon Health is not able to accept or rely on a “blanket” release or authorization form, including a power of attorney or similar document (power of attorney documents are for when a student is unconscious and unable to make decisions). Please do not upload such documents to the portal.

At each visit to Deacon Health, students are asked with whom their care providers can share information. This is how Deacon Health helps teach our students how to manage their healthcare privacy and navigate their healthcare – just like they will need to do in the “real world” once they graduate. 

Families are encouraged to have a conversation with their students about respecting their decisions and any family expectations. Your student 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 a gynecologic or sexual health visit, for example. We do not want students to refuse to seek needed treatment because they are afraid of their families knowing about it. So encourage your student to talk with the Deacon Health healthcare team about any healthcare-related topics.

You can talk within your family about what feels right to you. Best to talk about it now, not negotiate this at a time when your student is actively ill. 

Housing – As a part of the Housing Application, students are also asked to indicate who Residence Life and Housing may talk with regarding their housing assignments, charges, etc. Without this permission, Residence Life and Housing will still discuss general housing questions but will not be able to confirm or discuss any specifics for your student. Students can always make changes to this under the Information Update section of the Housing Portal at go.wfu.edu/housingportal.

Housing and dining application

Students are required to fill out a Housing and Dining Application by July 1. 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.

As part of the housing application process, your student will have the opportunity to purchase renter’s insurance from a partner vendor, GradGuard. Additionally, you may wish to check your family’s homeowners insurance policies. Many policies will cover loss or theft even if the policy is in your parents’ names and you are living on campus.

  • Wake Forest (including Residence Life and Housing) does not assume responsibility for theft, loss, or damage to students’ personal property. 

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 (please do ASAP, but no later than 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.

Buying textbooks from the Bookstore

Later in the summer, when your students know their schedule and it is time to buy textbooks, I strongly recommend they purchase textbooks from our Bookstore. 

Textbooks are available with many options to choose from: new or used, rentals (save up to 80%), digital, and a price match (check bookstore website for details).

In addition, often textbooks have various editions, and if you try to source your textbooks on your own, you may not find the right edition. But if your student buys from the Bookstore, they will get 100% of their course materials just by entering their Student ID. 

Consider Storage Scholars

We will talk about optional add-ons in a future message, but one is worth a mention now because there is a discount for early sign up: Storage Scholars is a company that began with a Wake Forest student in our entrepreneurship program, Sam Chason (‘10), and we are proud of the company he has built (see their Shark Tank episode!). The way it works is you send boxes with your student’s belongings over the summer; those packages will be delivered and ready in their room the day before they arrive on campus. Sign up online by May 9 for 20% off!

While Storage Scholars is an official partner with Wake Forest, whether you choose to use them or not is up to your family.

Whenever possible, have your student do the work

Pro tip: whenever possible, let your student be the one to contact an office, ask a question, give feedback, or research how to accomplish something on campus. Our students need to develop relationships with campus offices, and they will be building real-world problem-solving skills when they do the work themselves.

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. They should also read carefully all emails that they receive.
  • 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 Parent and Family Checklist.

Where to find these emails online

We will continue sending messages to our new families each Tuesday 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

Recent Posts

Archives