Wake Forest University admission requirements for international students are simple on paper: a Common App or Coalition (Scoir) application, your school transcript, one recommendation, an English test score unless you studied in English, and a financial form. SAT and ACT scores are optional. The hard parts are the odds and the money. Wake Forest admitted 4,068 of 19,600 first-year applicants for fall 2025, an acceptance rate of about 20.8%, and it gives no need-based aid to foreign nationals. Your only route to funding is a merit scholarship.
For fall 2027 entry, Early Decision I closes on 15 November 2026, and that is also the date by which every required document must be in if you want merit scholarship consideration. Early Decision II and Regular Decision close on 1 January 2027. The 2026-27 cost of attendance is $98,730 a year, so read the money sections below before you pay the $85 application fee.
Wake Forest at a glance for international applicants
- Ranking: #34 National Universities, U.S. News 2027 edition, up from #51 in the 2026 edition.
- Acceptance rate: 20.8% for fall 2025 (19,600 applied, 4,068 admitted, 1,544 enrolled), from Wake Forest’s Common Data Set 2025-26.
- Undergraduates: 5,595 in fall 2025, of whom 223 were nonresident (international) students. The admissions office says its international students come from 38 countries.
- Testing: test-optional. Scores count only if you ask Wake Forest to review them.
- English tests: TOEFL, IELTS or Duolingo. Wake Forest does not publish a minimum score.
- Aid for international students: merit scholarships only. No need-based aid for foreign nationals.
- Application fee: $85, with fee waivers available on request.
- 2026-27 cost of attendance: $98,730 (tuition alone is $71,894).
Wake Forest acceptance rate and class profile
The figures below come from Wake Forest’s Common Data Set 2025-26, which reports the class that entered in fall 2025.
| Measure | Fall 2025 figure |
|---|---|
| First-year applicants | 19,600 |
| Admitted | 4,068 |
| Acceptance rate | 20.8% |
| Enrolled | 1,544 |
| SAT middle 50% (24% of enrolled students sent scores) | 1420 to 1490 |
| ACT middle 50% (22% sent scores) | 32 to 34 |
| In the top tenth of their high school class (of those with a rank) | 61.2% |
| International undergraduates (all years) | 223 of 5,595 |
The Common Data Set does not split the acceptance rate by citizenship, so Wake Forest has not published an international acceptance rate. It also does not report how many applicants were admitted through Early Decision.
Look at what Wake Forest rates as “very important” in its admission decisions: the rigour of your school record, your class rank, your academic GPA, the application essay, and character and personal qualities. Recommendations, the interview, extracurricular activities and talent are “important”. Test scores are only “considered”. For an international applicant, this tells you to put your energy into your grades, your essays and your interview, and to treat a test score as an extra.
Wake Forest admission requirements for international students
You apply as a first-year international applicant through the Common Application or the Coalition Application on Scoir. Wake Forest also keeps a print application, but it warns that mailed applications take two weeks longer to process.
Required documents
- Application: Common App or Coalition (Scoir), plus the $85 fee or a fee waiver request.
- Official secondary school transcripts: from every secondary school you attended, covering at least four years.
- Secondary School Report: completed by your school counsellor.
- One letter of recommendation: from a counsellor or a teacher.
- English test score: TOEFL, IELTS or Duolingo, unless you qualify for the waiver below.
- Early Decision Agreement: only if you apply ED I or ED II.
- Confidential Financial Information for International Applicants form: found in your application status portal after you apply.
Optional items
- Supplemental questions (the Wake Forest writing prompts)
- A virtual interview or recorded video, which Wake Forest calls optional but strongly recommended
- SAT or ACT scores
- A counsellor recommendation
- A mid-year school report
Do not skip this form
Wake Forest will not consider your application until it receives the Confidential Financial Information for International Applicants form, unless you are offered a merit scholarship. Bank statements, sponsor letters or affidavits sent on their own do not replace it.
English proficiency requirements
International applicants whose first language is not English send a TOEFL, IELTS or Duolingo English Test score. Self-reported scores are fine when you apply, but you must send official scores before you enrol. Wake Forest does not superscore English tests, and it accepts TOEFL iBT results from before and after the January 2026 test update. The TOEFL code is 5885.
Wake Forest does not publish a minimum TOEFL, IELTS or Duolingo score. The test is waived if English has been the main language of instruction at your school for at least three years. If your school taught in English, as many schools in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and other Commonwealth countries do, ask your counsellor to state this in the Secondary School Report.
Testing policy
Wake Forest is test-optional. You decide whether your SAT or ACT is reviewed, self-reported scores are accepted, and Wake Forest superscores across attempts. If you choose to have scores considered and you enrol, you must send official scores the summer before you arrive. The SAT code is 5885 and the ACT code is 3168.
I would send a score only if it sits at or above the middle of the admitted range (around 1450 on the SAT or 33 on the ACT). Below that, let your transcript speak.
Fall 2027 application deadlines
| Plan | Application deadline | Decision | Binding? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Early Decision I | 15 November 2026 | Rolling | Yes |
| Early Action (first-generation students only) | 15 November 2026 | By 15 January 2027 | No |
| Early Decision II | 1 January 2027 | By 15 February 2027 | Yes |
| Regular Decision | 1 January 2027 | Around 1 April 2027 | No |
| Merit scholarship consideration | All required materials by 15 November 2026 | Signature finalists told by 1 March 2027 | No |
Early Action is open only to first-generation students. Wake Forest counts you as first-generation if your parents do not hold a bachelor’s degree, or if they were educated abroad, immigrated and are now underemployed. If you fit this, EA gives you an early, non-binding answer.
Tuition and cost of attendance for 2026-27
Wake Forest publishes this estimated cost of attendance for 2026-27.
| Item | Per year |
|---|---|
| Tuition | $71,894 |
| Housing | $12,900 |
| Food | $7,396 |
| Books and supplies | $1,720 |
| Fees and other expenses | $4,820 |
| Total cost of attendance | $98,730 |
The “fees and other expenses” line includes transportation, the new student orientation fee and personal costs, according to the admissions affordability page. The Common Data Set lists required fees of $1,276 and a maximum meal plan of $10,530, so your food bill can run higher than the estimate if you choose a bigger plan.
Scholarships and financial aid for international students
Wake Forest states plainly that it does not offer need-based financial aid to foreign national students, so if your family cannot pay close to $98,730 a year, a merit scholarship is the only Wake Forest money you can get.
Merit scholarships open to international students
International students are eligible for most merit scholarships, including the full-cost Signature awards: the Carswell, Gordon, Reynolds and Stamps scholarships. Wake Forest also lists Graylyn and Leadership and Character among its Signature Scholarships, plus smaller named awards for areas such as writing, community service and entrepreneurship. The scholarships page says merit awards go to fewer than 3% of first-year applicants.
- How to apply: your admission application is your scholarship application for most awards. Some awards ask for more; the Farr entrepreneurship award, for example, asks for an extra recommendation and a short letter by 15 January.
- Deadline: a complete application by 15 November 2026.
- Interviews: finalists for awards that need interviews or auditions are contacted in spring. The international page says Signature finalists hear by 1 March.
Wake Forest does not publish award amounts for most named scholarships, and the scholarships page does not say which smaller awards international students can hold. Email scholarships@wfu.edu if a specific award matters to you.
How many international students get aid?
The Common Data Set 2025-26 reports that 40 undergraduate nonresident students received institutional aid, with an average award of $20,528. Set that against a cost of $98,730 and you can see that most international students at Wake Forest pay most of the bill themselves.
Financial forms
International first-year applicants do not file the CSS Profile for aid, because there is no need-based aid for them. You file the Confidential Financial Information for International Applicants form, which shows that your family can cover the cost. If you win a merit award, the form is not needed before your application is reviewed.
International transfer applicants receive no financial or scholarship assistance.
Majors and academic strengths
Wake Forest offers more than 50 majors and more than 60 minors across its undergraduate college and School of Business. The admissions office points to its undergraduate business programme, which Poets&Quants places in the top 20 in the US. Wake Forest is mid-sized for a research university, with about 5,600 undergraduates, so classes are smaller than at most big universities.
Campus and city
Wake Forest is in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, a mid-sized city in the Piedmont region of the state. The campus is residential and most undergraduates live on campus; most merit scholarships also require on-campus housing. The university competes in the Atlantic Coast Conference and has over 300 student organisations.
How to write the Wake Forest supplemental essays
The 2026-27 Wake Forest application lists these writing prompts:
- Why Wake Forest: why you decided to apply.
- Five books: list five books that intrigued you, with authors, and mark whether each was required reading.
- Intellectual curiosity (150 words): what piques your curiosity or helped you understand the world’s complexity.
- Maya Angelou quote (300 words): choose one of Dr Angelou’s quotes and connect it to your life or to how you would contribute at Wake Forest.
- Top ten list: pick a theme and rank ten items.
Wake Forest marks the supplemental questions as optional. Wake Forest rates essays and character as “very important”, so I would answer every prompt.
- Be specific about Wake Forest: name a programme, a professor’s field or a campus tradition you have actually read about. Generic praise reads as a copy-paste.
- Use the book list honestly: a mix of required texts and your own picks shows range. Admissions readers notice when every title is a famous classic.
- Pick a quote that fits a real event: the Angelou essay works best when you start from something that happened to you, then bring in the quote.
- Have fun with the Top Ten list: it is the one place to show humour. Ten ranked jollof rice spots, bus routes or proverbs from your grandmother say more than ten famous scientists.
A short opening for the curiosity prompt, for illustration only:
“The generator outside our flat in Ibadan coughs every evening at seven. At fourteen I started logging the minutes it ran, then the price of diesel, and found my family spent more on light than on school fees.”
Interviews
Interviews are optional but strongly recommended. Wake Forest offers a virtual interview or a recorded video, and a limited number of applicants may be contacted to share more about themselves this way. For an international applicant with no chance to visit campus, the interview is your best way to show the character qualities Wake Forest weighs heavily.
What happens after you apply
- Portal access: you get a Wake Forest application status portal. Check it for missing items.
- Financial form: upload the Confidential Financial Information form from the portal. Without it, your file waits.
- Interview: book or record one if you can.
- Mid-year report: if you apply Regular Decision, ask your school to send mid-year grades.
- Scholarship finalists: if you are a Signature finalist, Wake Forest contacts you in spring.
- Decision: ED I decisions roll out; ED II by 15 February 2027; RD around 1 April 2027.
- Visa paperwork: once you commit, you will need an I-20 from Wake Forest to apply for an F-1 student visa, and the financial information you already submitted is part of that process.
Common mistakes international applicants make
- Applying ED without the money: Early Decision is binding. Since Wake Forest gives you no need-based aid, apply ED only if your family can pay the full cost without a scholarship.
- Sending bank letters instead of the form: Wake Forest only accepts its own financial form.
- Missing the 15 November scholarship cut-off: an RD application on 1 January is not considered for most merit awards.
- Skipping the optional prompts: a thin file loses to applicants who wrote all of them.
- Ignoring the interview: it is rated “important” in admissions.
- Assuming a minimum English score: none is published, so a low score is not “safe” just because it passes elsewhere.
Costs scholarships may not cover
- Health insurance, which international students in the US normally need; Wake Forest’s estimate does not list it separately
- Flights to and from North Carolina
- The $85 application fee, plus SAT, TOEFL, IELTS or Duolingo fees and the cost of sending official results
- The F-1 visa fee and the SEVIS fee
- Winter clothing and summer housing if you stay for research or work
Who should apply
Wake Forest suits you if you can pay the full cost from family funds, or if you are a top student who can compete for the full-cost Signature scholarships and you want a mid-sized university with strong business and liberal arts teaching. If you need need-based aid to attend, put your time into colleges that offer it to international students, such as Yale, Duke or Amherst. Our list of the best American scholarships for international students shows more options.
How Wake Forest compares with similar universities
| University | U.S. News 2027 (National Universities) | Location | Aid for international first-years |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wake Forest | #34 | Winston-Salem, North Carolina | Merit only; no need-based aid |
| Emory University | #23 | Atlanta, Georgia | Merit Scholar Programs plus limited need-based aid |
| Tulane University | #59 | New Orleans, Louisiana | Merit awards up to full cost; need-based aid up to $30,000 |
| Duke University | #8 | Durham, North Carolina | Limited need-based aid; Karsh merit scholarship |
Also see our guides to Boston College and Georgetown admission requirements for international students.
Graduate admissions at Wake Forest
Graduate and professional programmes at Wake Forest admit separately from the undergraduate college. You apply directly to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the School of Business, the School of Law, the School of Divinity or the School of Medicine, and each sets its own tests, English scores, deadlines and funding. The undergraduate rule of no need-based aid for foreign nationals does not automatically apply to doctoral funding, so check the programme page.
FAQs about Wake Forest admission for international students
What is the Wake Forest acceptance rate for international students?
Wake Forest does not publish a separate international acceptance rate. Its overall first-year acceptance rate for fall 2025 was 20.8%, with 4,068 admits from 19,600 applicants.
Does Wake Forest give scholarships to international students?
Yes, merit scholarships only. International students can win most merit awards, including the full-cost Carswell, Gordon, Reynolds and Stamps scholarships, but Wake Forest offers no need-based aid to foreign nationals.
Is Wake Forest test optional for international students?
Yes. SAT and ACT scores are optional for all first-year applicants, and they count only if you ask Wake Forest to review them.
What is the Wake Forest deadline for fall 2027?
Early Decision I closes on 15 November 2026, which is also the merit scholarship deadline. Early Decision II and Regular Decision close on 1 January 2027.
Sources and updates
Checked on 29 October 2026 against Wake Forest’s International Students admissions page, its How to Apply page, the 2026-27 undergraduate application form, the admissions affordability page (2026-27 cost of attendance), the financial aid scholarships page, and Wake Forest’s Common Data Set 2025-26 published by its Office of Institutional Research. The ranking comes from U.S. News Best Colleges, 2027 edition, National Universities. Wake Forest does not publish minimum English test scores, an international acceptance rate or amounts for most named scholarships; we will update this guide if it does.
I am Jude Chinecherem, a final-year MBBS student at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. I know what it feels like to want an education your family cannot afford. When my parents could not pay for my schooling, I had to learn how to find scholarships and work the system out on my own, with nobody to guide me. I came out the other side, and now I share everything I learned so the next student does not have to figure it out alone. This is the advice I wish someone had given me back then.
