My son has been accepted into both Marquette & Loyola as an undergrad, Communications/Journalism major.
Academically, they both “appear” fairly similar. I do know Marquette is a larger school, and he was admitted directly into the Diederich College of Communications there (which is a plus). Both schools are close-by rather large metropolitan areas with their share of crime issues; although what large city does NOT have crime issues – both Milwaukee & Baltimore are frequently listed among highest murder rate per capita.
My son is partial to an urban type city setting, where he can hop on the train/subway, and not be isolated on a self-contained campus.
We do plan on visiting both campus over winter/spring break, but I was just wondering if anyone has any thoughts, or experiences on either of these schools, and/or input on how they might compare? Anything from student life to campus to surrounding area to academics would be great.
We visited Loyola Md this summer. It’s not in the city, more on the outskirts. It’s a beautiful campus and it’s in a nice residential area, but not where you can walk to a lot of shops. When we left, we thought “I would feel comfortable having her attend this school” . Our friend’s daughter attends. She calls UBER and gets to downtown in about 15-20 minutes. Nice dorms and food services too. Baltimore and the waterfront are very pretty- have a great visit.
My impressions are generally consistent with the preceding post. Loyola Maryland is actually within Baltimore city limits, so technically it is “in the city”. However, it’s in an affluent residential neighborhood near the edge of town; it feels suburban, rather than urban. I don’t think safety is a problem on campus or in the surrounding neighborhoods to the north, west, or south; the crime rate probably does increase to the east.
In the past, I think the campus location was considered attractive and safe, but also isolated and boring. Since the campus is in a residential area, there isn’t much to do within walking distance; furthermore, the campus isn’t particularly well connected by public transportation. However, my impression is that ride sharing services, like Uber and Lyft, have really changed the game for Loyola students, and that the cool fun parts of Baltimore are now much more accessible.