<p>Ok i was accepted to both of these schools and i dont know which would be best for acceptance to medical school. I know that Baylor has a pretty good medical program but what about villanova?</p>
<p>Also, how is the campus atmosphere and everyday life with these schools?</p>
<p>Thanks! :)</p>
<p>I can answer for my DD, and my impressions of Baylor:</p>
<p>to give you context, we are from Santa Monica, CA. DD got into Berkeley, UCLA, Baylor, TCU, Miami, Tulane, Fordham, George Washington, and a couple more UCs. The large number of apps is related to ROTC programs, and application for scholarship to those programs.</p>
<p>UCLA and UCB are prestigious RESEARCH publics with huge athletic programs and school spirit. Their graduate student populations are huge. They also have an alarmingly high student/faculty ratio, which is exacerbated by the fact that most of the faculty at both of these schools are there to research and mentor graduate students, while teaching undergrads, generally, to the minimum contracted amount. Having myself attended both public and private HS, and public and private colleges, I am particularly aware of the value of personal attention/mentoring, and the problems that can endure in a self-serve public model.</p>
<p>DD liked but did not love either CA Public flagship. She has friends at both. We’ve visited both multiple times. She actually preferred the atmosphere at UCSB , but that’s another story.</p>
<p>We visited TCU on Wednesday, and Baylor today. </p>
<p>She enjoyed TCU very much. So clean, planned looking, newish looking, friendly students, TONS of school spirit exhibited everywhere… Met a couple of sorority members that were quite enthusiastic. However she left with a nagging feeling that TCU might e a little small for her, and the Biology department is not very large.</p>
<p>Today was Baylor. After a 90 minute drive down the interstate, we arrived. We took the tour, sat in on an intro Bio class (with about 125 students in it), met with a Bio major academic counselor (who also teaches Honors Bio classes from time to time), visited financial aid, and walked around the campus.</p>
<p>There are Christian schools by foundation/history, and Christian schools by operation. Baylor is the latter. My DD is fine with this orientation. I’ll bet at least 50% of the students at Baylor embrace its Christian traditions, while the rest at least appreciate it. This is not like TCU (Christian Church), SMU (Methodist), or most other protestant historically religious colleges where most of the students in attendance do not place a lot of importance on religion. At Baylor, you hear the word “blessing” a lot, which sticks out when you’re from CA and most of the people you know are not religious in any way.</p>
<p>It took her all of thirty minutes to declare that Baylor was the school for her. She was looking for a school larger than an LAC, but smaller than UCLA/Berkeley. Baylor’s campus was about twice the size of TCU’s, wasn’t divided by a major thoroughfare, and gives a more historic, settled in feeling than TCU’s did. The Biology dept. at Baylor is huge. I think about 650 graduate each year within the Bio major. it was EXACTLY what she was hoping it would be.</p>