Monday roundup

In this Issue:

• PrezBall photostory
• WakeWare laptops and 10% Savings on Apple laptops and iPads Monday-Friday 4/15-4/19
• Letters So Dear for our ’27s – plus a great story for everyone!
• Clarification on P’28 Orientation dates
• Troubling editorial about teenage trends

Happy Monday, Deac families! It looks to be a beautiful weather week:

And the countdown to LDOC (Last Day of Classes) is on! We are at t-minus 15 days. If you like, you can keep an eye on the timeline using this counter I made.

Students are probably juggling spring fever, projects, bucket list items before they return for the summer (or graduate), and more. It’s a lot. Give your Deac a little extra grace 🙂

PrezBall photostory

The President’s Ball (or PrezBall for short) was this past Friday night. Yours truly was there working the early shift of the event, and let me tell you, your students looked fab, fab, fab! So many students in pretty dresses, tuxedos, snappy suits, etc. I hope they all had a blast.

You can see the photostory of PrezBall here. And if you want to subscribe to photostories, you can do so here.

WakeWare laptops and 10% Savings on Apple laptops and iPads Monday-Friday 4/15-4/19

Wake Forest requires students to have a laptop. Some of our incoming P’28 families may wish to purchase a new laptop for their student as a graduatiuon present, to celebrate other achievements, etc. If you are in that boat, I wanted to let you know about WakeWare, the official Wake Forest laptops which are sold online and on campus at the Wake Forest Bookstore.

Beginning today (Monday, April 15) and running all week, the Bookstore in Taylor Hall will offer 10% off all Apple laptops and iPads through their Apple Appreciation event. The savings will also apply to Apple laptops in our WakeWare program.

WakeWare is the Wake Forest laptop program, with Macbooks and Microsoft Surface laptops chosen by the Information Systems team and available to purchase for home delivery or pickup through the Wake Forest bookstore. WakeWare laptops are specially priced and bundled with four years of onsite Safeware damage and repair coverage (handled through The Bridge IT support desk at ZSR). During repairs, WakeWare students have preferred access to loaners so their work can proceed without disruption. Peruse models and learn more at wakeware.wfu.edu or stop by the Wake Forest Taylor bookstore to view and purchase. 

Note: some students have access to special technology grant funding. Students receiving this aid are notified through their Wake Forest email account, as well as through their financial aid portal.

So here’s my take on WakeWare: 

WakeWare is certainly a great value, cost-wise, but in my opinion, its greatest benefit is your peace of mind. WakeWare laptops are chosen specifically to work with Wake Forest academic software, and bundled with four years of repair and damage protection by our partner at the Wake Forest bookstore. Each semester, this saves so many of our students from having to navigate lengthy processes and repair bills with other repair shops or vendors. When a WakeWare laptop needs a repair, the student brings it to us at The Bridge in ZSR library on campus. Our in-house tech shop takes it from there. In the meantime, the student has a loaner laptop so their studies can proceed on schedule. In the vast majority of cases, a student with WakeWare does not see a bill for these repairs.

When we had to get our ’27 a laptop for NC State, we bought it through NC State’s equivalent of WakeWare, just because I did not want to have to try to manage latptop repairs from a distance. It was money well spent for us to buy the school version and if anything goes wrong, we know our ’27 has a place to get help. I have never regretted that decision.

I don’t have a dog in the fight about what you choose to do. I only want you to know that Wake Ware is an option. You can make the choice that makes sense for your family.

Letters So Dear for our ’27s – plus a great story for everyone!

Monday is Letters So Dear day for our first-year students. Today’s edition is one that all families might want to read, because the letter is from Ellie Howell (’25), who had the amazing good fortune to be chosen to sing a duet with Kristin Chenoweth when she was here for Face to Face. If you didn’t see the video, you can watch it here, or read the news story.

Clarification on P’28 Orientation dates

I had a few families email me this morning with screenshots of some family Orientation dates they’d seen in a Facebook group, asking which dates were correct. The screenshots in question were from a presentation that was being made to student advisers, so the dates on there were meant for students.

There was an error in that slide show/screenshots; Orientation dates for P’28s are from Weds., Aug. 21 through late afternoon/early evening Thurs., Aug. 22, as outlined on our Incoming Families page. 

My best advice to all families is that it is always safest to get critical info like dates or deadlines from official WFU pages, not Facebook groups, texts with other families, or even your student. Because sometimes people share information (with the best of intentions) without realizing that a process has changed from year to year, or there is typo/mistake in what is shared, etc.

Be aware that while there are private Facebook groups organized and run by parents and families, the info that is out there is not reviewed or moderated by Wake Forest administrators.

Don’t get me wrong: those groups can be very helpful – I joined several at NC State when my ’27 enrolled. The caveat to such groups is that they can be great for things like hotel or restaurant recommendations, or finding other families in your home area, etc. – but not necessarily for official dates, processes, or policies. For those, I always go to the school website or office in charge of a process.

Troubling editorial about teenage trends

I’ve been working hard on the edits to our New Students website for the Class of 2028 and P’28s and one of the bits of advice we always give is “have the hard conversations with your student.” Over the weekend, a friend shared this editorial with me about a troubling trend in teenage sex, and that might be something to add to those hard conversations.

I suspect that many of us do not want to imagine our children as sexually active, much less active and engaging in something potentially dangerous. Do with this – or not – as suits you and your family’s norms. I am sharing only for awareness, because this was absolutely news to me.