Baylor vs Tulane

<p>Which do you think is better for premed? My situation is I would have to pay around ~10K for Baylor and that includes housing, but I would have to pay around $6K for Tulane without housing, and around $16K for Tulane with housing (I will have to stay on campus for my sophomore year, and I will need housing for my junior/senior years since my parents are leaving the state).
My third choice is LSU for around $10K, but I think Baylor has LSU beat in the premed department.</p>

<p>Since the financial situation is about the same as Baylor, I’d rule out LSU. Baylor is going to be more of an academic minded campus in my opinion partially due to the size and partially due to the fact that it’s not a public university and can thus be more selective. </p>

<p>Tulane vs Baylor is a tougher choice. Obviously you should minimize your pre-professional school debt but around $6k a year is not a huge difference. The schools are strikingly similar and Tulane is not that much more selective. Tulane is going to have much more geographic diversity in its student body but that might be a bad thing, it really depends on you. There are a lot of differing personalities and it can be more difficult for you to meet people that you share interests with. </p>

<p>For instance, at Tulane a large percentage of the student body is indifferent to college football. You’ll run into less of that at Baylor. But on the flip side, as a Tulane alum, I have a place to crash in 20 different cities around the US plus a few more overseas because that’s where all of my good friends from college live, all over.</p>

<p>Waco may or may not be entertaining enough of city. New Orleans may or may not be too distracting. </p>

<p>I wouldn’t worry about the rep of Baylor either. Baylor, not unlike Tulane, has continuously been under-ranked the last decade. Baylor has gotten it worse since Tulane has so many kids from Chicago, LA, and NY, along with the North East. That has helped TU in the rankings some and stay a little more selective too. Reputation-wise, Baylor has a very good one in my opinion. </p>

<p>I would visit both. Baylor will most likely be more conservative. It will also probably have more school spirit (again though this is due to where the kids are from). I find Tulane kids are very spirited about how much they love New Orleans but much less so about the school. They still like and support the school, but they probably love the city more so than the school. New Orleans is such an integral part of the Tulane experience though that this makes perfect sense. </p>

<p>I always hate to tell people this because it’s not terribly helpful but you really can’t go wrong with either. I highly doubt one would be more advantageous in Med School admissions or one would make it easier to earn a higher GPA.</p>

<p>Just visit, and make a point to notice the types of students that go there. Where do you feel most comfortable, ect. The endowments, athletic teams’ performances, size, cost, ‘quality’ of student body are all so similar that it really should come down to where you can see yourself enjoying your time living, making friends, and of course doing well in school. Best of luck!</p>

<p>As an aside, I had originally done pre-med at Tulane before realizing that medicine was not for me (and vice versa) after working at a hospital during the summers. I switched to finance and found the math involved was much less depressing than dealing with terminally ill people. Granted, that’s only a portion of medicine but it was enough to steer me away and I changed my direction completely. I definitely enjoyed the experience of my pre-med classes at TU and had good access to research opportunities ect. I just didn’t like the field where the rubber met the road and found patient care too mentally and emotionally draining. Finance is certainly stressful at times, particularly the field I practice in, but I enjoy it much more than I would have enjoyed practicing medicine.</p>

<p>Check out: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/tulane-university/914991-post-destination-tulane-great-visit-4-20-10-a.html?highlight=tulane#post1064699308[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/tulane-university/914991-post-destination-tulane-great-visit-4-20-10-a.html?highlight=tulane#post1064699308&lt;/a&gt;
It’s a great description of someone’s destination Tulane experience.</p>

<p>The author mentioned how apparently Tulane is one of only 2 schools in the US where undergrads can dissect a cadaver. While not appealing to me in the least, lol, you might be interested in that.</p>