<p>Hi! Thanks for such an interesting post. This is the million-dollar question for me as I complete my first year as a college counselor. Please bear in mind that my reply is necessarily steeped in my own faith tradition, which is also Christian. I bear no feeling that Christians are better people than anyone else–to the contrary, one could argue, by definition. Sort of.</p>
<p>Of the 16 colleges I visited this year, probably 3 or 4 are “intentionally Christian” in their mission (vs. traditionally or historically founded by Christians but no longer asserting a Christian mission). What strikes me is the quality of life for the students on Christian campuses. They are patently…happier. Generally speaking, the work ethic belies more balance. Some have weird rules, for sure. But curfews and sobriety–not to mention religious teaching and role models–keep things looking pretty good to me. I have started to believe that debauchery and insanity are NOT inevitable during the college years and have little to offer the student in the long term.</p>
<p>One of the best books I read in the past decade or so is Kevin Roose’s memoir, The Unlikely Disciple. He left Brown University, enrolls at (Jerry Falwell’s) Liberty University under false pretenses, and prepared to write a salacious tell-all about what he suspected were the pitiful and ignorant Christians he was to meet. Instead, he found a whole lot to like about the “Mayberry” environment and even more to love about the individual students who befriended him. Interestingly, his book is not evangelical; he’s not a Christian, to my knowledge. It is bracingly honest and includes a lot of adult themes–and, in the end, it advocates the Christian school model while not endorsing specific doctrine. </p>
<p>So, one the one hand, rah, rah, Christian schools! One the other, that’s easy for me to say. While my own alma mater, Vanderbilt, has resources for kids of most faiths, it is less identified as a Christian institution than as one which would no longer admit the likes of me and my ACT score from 1984. VU has become incredibly competitive academically. I got a good education there. I’m proud to be an alum and I think my degree has opened some doors for me along the way…not as many as a Yale degree, but more than a degree at many schools. </p>
<p>It is my conviction that God wants us to pursue excellence. The rub is that excellence seems to be a slippery condition which must be defined by each student, because their character and mental health will ideally be as healthy as their intellect when they graduate.</p>
<p>Are there valedictorians in college and class rankings based on GPA? I was under the impression that because of the class size and widely different curriculum based on majors, there aren’t.</p>
<p>Baylor is a good school, academically. I personally would never go there because of the religion aspect, which is taken way further than at a place like Notre Dame. Baylor will not hire openly gay faculty, and they’ve had different tolerance of people being gay in general. (Their sexuality policy used to say that homosexuality was a violation; now it says homosexual acts).</p>
<p>I agree that going to college and living among people who are different can be a good thing, and I certainly don’t believe in religious intolerance. That said, many schools have chapels, and services in them, and churches nearby, and people are certainly free to go and practice. I doubt she would have found intolerance at Harvard or Yale, just less students and faculty who were part of her specific religion. Schools like Baylor and Liberty and BYU basically hold all of their students to the values in one religion.</p>
<p>Which is fine if that’s what you want – and I’m assuming that that was the culture that this student grew up in and felt comfortable in. I just have issues, say, rooting for Baylor or Liberty’s basketball teams because I disagree with their policies.</p>
<p>Although we don’t know all the considerations that went into her decision, I wonder about the Michigan valedictorian’s choice for reasons that have nothing to do with diversity, religion, or political leanings. By virtually any quality measurement that matters, Harvard is a stronger school than Baylor, by far. I’m not talking about prestige. I’m talking about objective factors like the qualifications of entering students and faculty, class size, 4-year graduation rates and debt loads, the level of research investment, or student achievement outcomes.</p>
<p>…Harvard …Baylor … (Source)
med SAT CR … 690-800 …540-650 (USNWR)
in HS top 10% … 95%… 36% (USNWR)
4yr graduation … 87% … 50% (USNWR)
avg debt @ grad … ~$10K … ~$40K (Kiplinger’s; ISI College Guide)
classes < 20 … 75% … 48% (USNWR)
research spending … $450M … $10M (Washington Monthly)
Bachelor’s to PhD … #9 … #59 (Washington Monthly)</p>
<p>She wants to be a speech pathologist. That’s wonderful. I’m sure the world needs more people with her brains to figure out the nature, causes, and effective treatment of speech pathologies. Harvard (with its neighbor and partner, MIT) seems to have a first-rate research program in this field. Maybe Baylor does, too. If so, I hope that was a factor in her decision, because universities aren’t churches. The main way they make the world a better place is not by running soup kitchens or spreading the Gospel. They do it by developing and spreading knowledge. Will she learn to do that better at Baylor?</p>
<p>People do not always choose schools that are, by objective measures, the best school on their list. Yet again, the question of “fit” raises its pesky head. Harvard being in the equation, to my mind, is a bit of a red herring. When the idea of choosing ANY SCHOOL over Harvard comes up, the question might as well be, “Would you like to be in a federal penitentiary for four years or spend the same time in a resort on the Mediterranean?” Mind you, I know that most people who get into Harvard choose to go there. But someone who feels she will be more comfortable socially and philosophically at another school should go to the other school. There are plenty of happy, healthy, intelligent, productive Baylor graduates. As a left-leaning atheist with a rather open perspective on alternative lifestyles, I don’t expect I’d be happy there (theoretically; it’s only in my dream world that I am choosing colleges, since I graduated 30 years ago). I would also go insane at a school where there were a significant faction of people who are anti-religion or where people are not comfortable questioning liberal orthodoxy. I also think @Maroons post (#42) is terrific.</p>
<p>I have traded PMs with this kid about trying to visit some of the schools before making a choice just based on what she thinks it is vs what is true. I told her about the beautiful chapels (?) at both Yale and Duke and the existence of divinity schools at most of these schools. Along the way she did drop UT Dallas from consideration after a visit. </p>
<p>She was not this eloquent in the PMs about her faith. I almost got the feeling that she was unsure if she deserved these top school admissions. Based on the valedictorian story, she seems like a very well rounded kid with a great set of values. This won’t be the last time we will be hearing about her.</p>
<p>Baylor is a fine school. I work with many of their graduates and have never had a complaint. Mark Hurd, once chairman of Hewlett Packard and currently president of Oracle went there on a Tennis scholarship and he never seems to have gotten another degree. So those of you who think only Harvard grads make it, think again. </p>
<p>Agree with avid student on this. Maybe turning down Harvard is the New Prestige? But then a headline that read “Student Chooses College Based on Best Fit” wouldn’t get many lookers since it lacks any reference to the words religion, elite, prestige or values.</p>
<p>“My impression is that religious institutions do not acknowledge the aspects of reality/society they don’t agree with. But I could be wrong because I have never attended one.”</p>
<p>You need to get out more. There are plenty of professors at religious colleges who are not religious themselves, or who have differing religious views (plenty of Jewish professors at Catholic colleges, for example). And even if a professor is religious, it doesn’t mean he/she is going to act like non-religious theories don’t exist…you can go to a Christian school and learn all about evolution, Communism, abortion, Islam, etc.</p>
<p>The issue of gay rights is a significant one. Mainline Protestant (Christian) churches have divergent social policies in this regard. Episcopalians will ordain openly gay/lesbian clergy, and have gained some members as a result. In some of the Protestant denominations, church policy still opposes the ordination of gays, but many of the clergy and regular church members are working very earnestly to change this stance. I do not think that it would be hard to find a pastor who would officiate at the marriage of a gay or lesbian couple in a church. </p>
<p>On the other hand, Baylor is connected with the Southern Baptist Conference, which takes a stance in opposition to homosexual activity. My guess is that it will take a combination of forces from the outside and forces from the inside to change this point of view. I hope that the change will happen.</p>
<p>eireann raised the question about whether the student would have encountered intolerance at Harvard or Yale. I think that she would have encountered a number of people with the view expressed by wis75 in post #26. I don’t know whether people would consider that viewpoint intolerant or not, but I could understand if a student became a little tired of defending a Christian worldview against comments of that type.</p>
<p>The Div School at Harvard is not very visible on campus, from what I could tell. The Div School at Yale is a bit more evident. Historically, I think that the Div School at Harvard became affiliated with the Unitarian Church at some point, and that may continue to the present.</p>
<p>Indeed. One Prof at Boston College, who is Jewish, teaches a Core theology class. (And yes, the syllabus covers a lot more than just Catholicism.)</p>
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<p>Perhaps because her reason for the turn down was religious (and many can’t fathom that…)</p>
<p>I also did trade some PM’s with this student also, and I know that she agonized over the decision. For her age, she appeared to be very mature, knew what she wanted in life and made a well reasoned decision based on her career aspirations, and they are not mentioned in this article. It was clear that she had a yearn for Texas, but there were other aspects also. Her HS school did not appear to very happy as she would be one of the few who made it from that school to the ivy’s.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t characterize her reasons as “dumb” … but let’s try to quantify “plenty”.</p>
<p>For Harvard’s class of 2015, the admission yield was almost 77%. So more than 3 in 4 admitted students took up Harvard’s offer. Where do the remainder go? According to the Yale Daily News (09/21/2010), among students who turn down Harvard, more choose Yale than any other rival school.</p>
<p>The same article cites a 2004 study showing that, of students admitted to Yale and Harvard, 65% chose Harvard. Of students admitted to Yale and MIT, 41% chose MIT. Of students admitted to Yale and Cornell, 7% chose Cornell. Of students admitted to Yale and UCLA, 2% chose UCLA. (ledailynews.com/news/2010/sep/21/harvardyale-cross-admits-explain-their-decisions/)</p>
<p>Avery et.al. (2005) calculated that the probability of a student refusing Harvard, for a school with a preference ranking just 10 rows below, was 7%. In their study, that school was Dartmouth.</p>
<p>So how many do you suppose turn down Harvard or Yale for Baylor (or any other private, national university outside the top ~50)? I’m guessing this really is rather rare.</p>
<p>tk: Harvard and MIT do research related to the field of speech pathology, but don`t have departments for study. there are probably SLPs hired at their medical facilities. The research being done is probably done through linguistics or neuropsych departments. Only at Columbia (In the Ivy League) can you actually major in speech pathology.
I don`t think you can underestimate the religious factor or the draw of family. 30 years ago, i turned down a full ride scholarship to Northwestern for my masters degree in speech path, for St. Louis University. My parents family were all from there and the draw to have regular contact with them was a significant factor for me. Foolish? Probably.. Do I regret my decision? Nope.</p>
<p>Allright. If there is no difference between the curriculum at religious colleges and secular colleges, what is the point in going to a religious college? Is it to be surrounded by students who share your beliefs? Why is that needed in an academic context?</p>
<p>Idk about the Div School, but the Memorial Church is prominently located in Harvard Yard across from Widener Library. According to my D (who attended H), there are numerous activities and services offered at the Church that are well-attended.</p>