This week’s Message for First Year Families is called Grade Expectations. Please give it a read, families of all years. Here is a brief excerpt:

So many students feel pressure – real or imagined – to replicate their high school grades, and this can add a tremendous weight onto their shoulders.  Striving for straight As (or even As and Bs) can come at a price – and to get the grade, you might have to give up a lot of less tangible, but equally important things, in the process.  Dr. Christy Buchanan says it well:

“It’s much more helpful for parents and families to expect their students to ‘do their best’ in class while also striving for a healthy and well-balanced life that includes sleep, exercise, and healthy involvement with friends and extracurricular activities.

Students do not thrive when they study all the time, and they do not thrive when they feel pressured to get higher grades than those that naturally result from a strong effort in the context of a balanced lifestyle.   Our students get good jobs and get into graduate programs with a range of GPAs.

Fear of parent/family reactions to grades is real. Please consider your Grade Expectations and how to help your Deac have a nuanced understanding of the balance of grades and wellbeing.

Do you have a sporty Deac who wants to be more involved in crafting the student fan experience? If so, I got information about this opportunity. Share if this would be of interest to your Deac!

Seeking Applications for Athletic Student Leadership Council – As we build the Best Fan Experience in North Carolina, we are seeking Wake Forest students to join the Athletic Student Leadership Council.  The 20 members of the Council will fully engage with the athletics department to provide ideas and initiate strategies with a Council mission of creating a best-in-class student experience at home athletic contests.  If you are a Wake Forest student who is interested in participating, please click here to apply.

A Daily Deac reader shared a link to a story in the New York Times Magazine last week: I Was a Low-Income College Student. Classes Weren’t the Hard Part. It sheds light on the fact that not all college students – even at elite universities – fit the profile of the “typical” student, and may have some challenges others can only begin to imagine. It definitely gave me some food for thought.

Today our first-year students received an email from the Office of Academic Advising with Letters So Dear, which is advice from upperclass students; read it here.

— by Betsy Chapman ’92, MA ’94

Recent Posts

Archives