Wake Forest is reasonably well-known and well-regarded in the Southeast, but not say at the level of Duke (another private NC university), and definitely not na

Wake Forest is reasonably well-known and well-regarded in the Southeast, but not say at the level of Duke (another private NC university), and definitely not nationally. For Ivy Leagues and similar top tier (Berkeley/Caltech/Duke/MIT/Stanford/), you can go there to study anything and the school name will carry you even if your particular program is not as well-regarded as its counterpart at large state universities. But if your choice is between an expensive mid-tier private university or a state university, then your best strategy is figure out what you want to study and which option has the most well-regarded program for that course, both among academia and industry. But that takes some real due diligence and digging for a high schooler to figure out.