Baylor vs. Columbia

[rager1]

This is a decision I'm currently trying to make.

Anyone care to weigh in?


--Rager

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[rjhtamu]

I'm at Baylor right now, don't have time to reply here, but give me an email at [email protected] and we can talk all you want to about it.

 

[Jalby]

Why not wait til you get all your acceptances so we don't get bored by these continual X school vs. Y school threads.

 

[johnd]

I'm a Baylor MS4 and I think that Baylor is a great medical school. One of the great strengths of Baylor is the flexibility in scheduling rotations during your last 2 years which allows you to take as much time to study for USMLE as you need and to do research if you want. The Texas Medical Center is an amazing place to train as well.

Having just gone through interview season, both of these schools have very good reputations among residency directors. You may want to consider what area of the country that you want to do residency and ultimately end up in. If you want to end up in New England, you might have a slight edge coming from Columbia but it is certainly possible to end up there coming from Baylor as well.

 

[usmaple]

I have a similar choice. Can anyone talk about the level of competitiveness at Baylor? It's rumored to be very cut throat due to the grading set-up, but I was wondering if any current students there had some insight.

 

[lilycat]

I wouldn't call Baylor cut-throat -- for the most part, people can be helpful, share resources, etc. People can be pretty intense about their grades, but not in a way that necessarily comes at the expense of other classmates.

My only recommendation would be to talk to MS1 and MS2 students about their feelings with regards to the recent curriculum changes, and definitely ask the administration about this on revisit weekends, etc. They've had some problems with this, and my question is whether or not the administration really seems to be taking a proactive approach to fixing the problem.

 

[DW]

$$$$

wait for the financial aid, young grasshopper

 

[rjhtamu]

I would agree with what lilycat said. I'm an MSI and I would say that there is a general feeling of helpfulness not just from your own classmates but from the upperclassmen as well. There are a lot of people who posts notes, diagrams, and helpful websites to the listserve as well. You can kind of feel the competitiveness as far as grades go. I have no intention of going for a highly competitive residency. Firstly cause I don't really want to, but also because just to compete with the type of grades that a lot of my classmates are pulling in, I would have to completely lose every vestige of my life to spend in the books. I'm not at the point of doing that. I know of some who stay up at the school until 11 at night just studying. There's no way I could do that.

 

[johnd]

Originally posted by rjhtamu
I would agree with what lilycat said. I'm an MSI and I would say that there is a general feeling of helpfulness not just from your own classmates but from the upperclassmen as well. There are a lot of people who posts notes, diagrams, and helpful websites to the listserve as well. You can kind of feel the competitiveness as far as grades go. I have no intention of going for a highly competitive residency. Firstly cause I don't really want to, but also because just to compete with the type of grades that a lot of my classmates are pulling in, I would have to completely lose every vestige of my life to spend in the books. I'm not at the point of doing that. I know of some who stay up at the school until 11 at night just studying. There's no way I could do that.

RJH,

I would just like to point out that this is not true. People often get really caught up in their first year grades and how they are doing compared to the rest of the class. My advice would be to do exactly what you are doing - study the amount of time that feels right to you and not worry about where you are in the class. Your grades during the basic sciences (esp. 1st year) are really not that important in getting into a residency and at Baylor you don't have to be in the top 20 people in your class to get into a competitive residency.

I agree with the above in that Baylor students can be very intense about their grades during the basic sciences. Competitive isn't really the right word because I never saw any malicious activity going on and people generally help each other out.

This grade intensity decreases a lot every year.

 

[merlin]

why not just decide where you would rather live. both are great schools and i tend to think that people who post these threads are not really going to be swayed either way. i don't go to either school, but my personal choice would be Columbia due to a preference of NYC over Texas. there are a number of reasons there, but this thread is not about that...really, both are great schools and if you are smart enough to get accepted to both you should be smart enough to make this decision on your own...cheers.