Founded in 1834, Wake Forest University is a private university located in Winston-Salem, N.C., with more than 8,000 students. The undergraduate population of more than 5,100 hails from 49 states and more than 50 foreign countries.
Ours is a vibrant and diverse academic community where students pursue learning in one or more of the 45 majors, 60 minors, and additional programs we offer within our six colleges and schools.
Wake Forest University aspires to:
- Emphasize exceptional teaching, discovery, and student engagement within a dynamic academic community.
- Integrate the intimacy of an undergraduate liberal arts college with the academic vitality of a research university.
- Become a crossroads of discussion on the critical national and international issues of our time.
- Attract a diverse community of the brightest educators and students from throughout the country and the world.
- Link intellectual curiosity, moral reflection, and a commitment to service shaping ethically informed leaders to serve Humanity.
Wake Forest is a distinctive university that combines a liberal arts core with graduate and professional schools and innovative research programs. The University embraces the teacher-scholar ideal, prizing personal interaction between students and faculty. It is a place where exceptional teaching, fundamental research, discovery, and faculty and students' engagement in the classroom and the laboratory are paramount.
The University continues to fulfill its ideal of a more diverse learning community, providing students an example of the world they will be called upon to lead. The University sustains a vibrant residential community with a broad-based program of service and extracurricular activities. The University recognizes the benefits of intercollegiate athletics conducted with integrity and at the highest level.
Central to its mission, the University believes in developing the whole person – intellectual, moral, spiritual, and physical. From its rich religious heritage, Wake Forest is committed to sustaining an environment where strong beliefs and faith traditions can engage secular thought in a climate of academic freedom and an unfettered search for truth. The University embraces the challenges of religious pluralism.
While national in scope, the University has been shaped by a culture that is distinctively North Carolinian. This history provides it with a sense of place and community responsibility. In extending its reach, the University has made a priority of international study and international understanding. Wake Forest seeks to be a place where a vibrant and diverse learning community weds knowledge, experiences, and service that lifts the human spirit.
There are four options to choose from when you are ready to apply to Wake Forest: completing our Wake Forest application online, completing the Common Application utilizing the Coalition for Access, Affordability, and Success Application, or submitting your application by mail. We have no preference. The choice is yours!
More than beautiful brick buildings, technology, or national rankings, people make Wake Forest the place it is. People who love the challenge as much as they love learning and the opportunity to engage all of who they are in search of what they were meant to become. Please make yourself at home.
Like the more than 56% of undergraduate students at Wake Forest receiving financial assistance, you have options. We are here to help you explore them. With more than 40 majors and 60 minors to choose from, you will be able to study what is important to you and earn a bachelor of arts or bachelor of science degree.
Nearly 40 undergraduate and graduate departments offer various majors and minors, interdisciplinary programs, service-learning programs, co-curricular programs, and research opportunities. Wake Forest is a collegiate university that balances a liberal arts college's attention with the academic vitality and broad opportunities of a research university.
At the heart of Wake Forest is the teacher-scholar ideal. In small classrooms and cutting-edge research labs, professors practice their art with a keen interest in students and their lives.
The Office of the Associate Provost for Research and Scholarly Creativity works to broadly support the research and scholarly pursuits of the faculty and students of Wake Forest University. Such support takes many forms, including faculty and student training, technical assistance in grant preparation, searching for funding sources or collaborators, direct internal research support, development of collaborative relationships, and interfacing with public and private groups regarding research. Additionally, we assure that faculty research and other creative accomplishments are widely publicized.
It is about us and the greater meaning of what it means to be human. Our motto, Pro Humanitate (For Humanity), is a calling to use our knowledge, talents, and compassion to better others' lives. It can mean donating time and resources to our communities or only a lifelong commitment to pursuing our best self. No matter your interpretation, it is an opportunity to leave the world better than we found it.
Getting lost can be a great way to find yourself. Wake Forest is intentionally designed to be a place where you can lose yourself in what inspires and interests you, in the company of others doing the same.
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