fo shizzle said:
just out of curiosity...those of you who are waiting, why do you like baylor so much? i understand its a good school but what is it about baylor that so many of you are restlessly waiting for the phone call?
i interviewed there and i liked it but i withdrew my acceptance pretty soon after i got into southwestern (i am a little biased because i am from dallas)...the curriculum seems very innovative but no matter where you go you will still be expected to know the same material so i dont understand how thats a factor...the TMC itself is awesome but i believe that baylor students primarily only rotate at ben taub and the VA, and neither is in the top 50 in anything...
as far as boards are concerned, i hear that baylor scores very high but if you look at the match list, schools like southwestern have a significantly greater number of harvard/columbia/duke/washu/ucsf residencies with its avg being 229...and personally, the critical factor in my decision was the location, houston is not the most attractive city to spend four years of your life in, im from texas and even i think the humidity in houston is unbearable...
i really dont mean to hate on baylor in any way, in fact i consider it to be a great medical school but i just feel so terrible for those of you who are staring at your cell phones hoping for "the phone call"...i am sure you must all be very intelligent and compassionate to have made it this far and i just hope that the disappointment doesnt ruin the experience for you...many of you seem to already hold acceptances at other schools and i just hope that you can enjoy this tremendous accomplishment and be happy at your respective schools despite putting your lives on hold for all these months while waiting for baylor...
You bring up an interesting point. I'm not going to lie, after my interview at Baylor, I used to check my phone and messages probably 3-4 times a day to see if I had any messages from Baylor. The wait drove me crazy, but I was fortunate enough to find out relatively soon after my interview so then everything was cool. But I find the same attitudes prevailing in not only SDN folks but also people from my university who have gotten into other schools but are waiting on Baylor. They will talk a lot about how excited they are to be at XYZ school, but qualify their statement by saying that if Baylor still happens to call, they will be there! I think Baylor on the whole is just a amazingly well-rounded institution. It definitely has a really big, established reputation. Here are the few reasons I have posted earlier why I think Baylor is so popular as a medical school:
1)The clinical affiliations (Ben Taub, Houston VA, St. Luke's, Texas Children's Hospital, Menninger Clinic, TIRR, etc.) in the world's largest medical center, Texas Medical Center, are all awesome
2)1 and a half years of basic sciences and 2 and a half years of rotations rock (apparently this helps your residency applications and helps you to do better on Step 1 USMLE)
3)Baylor students I've met all seem really smart but at the same time pretty laid back (I can't say the same about Southwestern)
4)BCM has that "great school" reputation amongst residency directors, which will be useful when we apply for residencies
5)Baylor students have top 5 in the country board scores, another residency boost
6)Tuition,especially for a private school, is an amazing deal
7)I think nearly 50-60 out of the 149 people that matched for residencies from Baylor in 2005 ended up staying there for residency, showing that they like to take back their own for residencies; Match lists are also impressive, with traditionally hard to get into specialties like dermatology, ENT (11 last year!), ophtho, etc. doing well
8)Cost of living in Texas is really cheap
9)Classes are mostly 8-12 PM; all lectures are recorded on video, and can be readily downloaded in real media format to view at your leisure
10)Community service options as med students are also really good
11)Multiple tracks you can take within the curriculum: Research, Ethics, International Health, Geriatrics, Care for the Underserved
12)Dr. Michael DeBakey, world famous heart surgeon, has earned his name while being at Baylor and in the process put Baylor on the map
I still think you can get an awesome education anywhere you go(Southwestern, etc.). Remember, most of your medical education, and most of life for that matter, is what you personally make out of it. This being said, good luck to everyone still waiting to hear from Baylor, and if you don't happen to hear from them, remember that you will still be getting an awesome medical education wherever you go.
