My son at this point has Baylor has his leading school. We came to visit last month and are coming from NorCal. I felt that the school, academics, traditions, athletics were all a very good fit for my son. The one thing is the remote-ness of Waco. I had been to TX before but only to large metropolitan areas (Dallas, Austin). We are also Asian used to diversity and living in the Bay area that is packed with people. So any feedback or concerns about spending 4 years in a place that is so remote? It seems super inconvenient to fly in and out of there with a two hour drive to the airport. They say there are a lot of out of state students so curious to hear others experiences. Any regrets?
We are also in same position for our daughter.Any input is appreciated.
Since you guys aren’t getting any feedback, I thought I’d respond. My daughter will be a freshman next year, so we haven’t gone through this yet, but are gearing up for it the way you are (or might be). We are from Northern Virginia (a suburb of Washington, DC), so also a highly populate (although not overly diverse) part of the world. I couldn’t tell by your post if you have actually gone to the campus, but we have been to Waco and the campus four times. From our perspective, Waco isn’t overly small. The city has malls, restaurants, movie theaters, lots of churches to choose from, etc. During her time looking at schools she came across several very small towns that she wasn’t comfortable with, but was fine with Waco.
Waco does have a regional airport that is about eight miles from Baylor that has American Airlines flights to Dallas several times a day for connections home, if you don’t like having to get to Dallas, Austin, Houston, etc. Our plan is to have our daughter use the Waco Streak, which provides shuttle service from Baylor to DFW for direct flights home. That allows her to sleep on the shuttle for a couple of hours before her flight.
My daughter has already made friends online with soon to be students and has plans to visit their hometowns during the school year as a break from being on campus. In talking to current students while visiting the campus, that seems to be very common.
Thanks a lot for your response.Does your daughter goes to Honors college?
We are from Des Moines, Iowa and plan to either have dd, incoming freshman next year, fly in and out of Waco (the cost of the shuttle to and from DFW airport to Waco seemed like it would be just as easy to fly in and out of Waco instead) or carpool with several of the local students. It’s about a 13 hour drive so a long one but if they share the cost of gas, it’s much less expensive than flying.
Our son is finishing his 4th year at a school in the Boston area so we are used to distance. Once you get past 12 hours driving, it’s pretty much about the same to fly to either coast (or in this case to Waco). You might want to get on here: http://matrix.itasoftware.com/ and price out flight costs into DFW and into Waco and then add the cost of the shuttle between DFW and BU. RT the shuttle can be up to $150/$75 one way. Either way works but just be taking that into consideration for the extra charges to fly straight into Waco.
The town is not super small with the greater Waco area population of 230,000. I can’t speak to the diversity of campus or within Waco nor the segregation among the different student populations since she’s not a student yet.
Good luck as you research and make decisions!
@stanford97 Yes, she will be in the Honors College. She will be a University Scholars major (a specific Honors College major) and do the Honors Program, as well. She is also going to be living in the Honors Residential College.
Thanks a lot.
Do you know how many students they will have in class for General ed classes like Bio 1,chemistry etc eventhough they are in Honors program.
@stanford97 My daughter’s major actually lets her skip Gen Ed classes, so we haven’t paid a ton of attention to class sizes in the Gen Ed classes.
The class schedules are actually available now online, so you can just go in and check every available class, max enrollment for the classes, etc. It shows the ones that are restricted to Honors Program participants, as well. The link is below…
This is very useful information.Will check it out.Thanks a lot for your valuable input.
Thanks for all the feedback. My son received acceptance to Boston Univ. and Chapman so he took Baylor off of his list. He just couldn’t get over the location after we visited in person. I guess that was the purpose of visiting which is to see if you could see yourself there for 4 years. Good luck to all!