Baylor & Waco (Dallas, Austin, Frisco: neighborhood, schools, university)

[Bloomfielding]

I posted this thread in Texas forum by mistake but it recived no response so I'm posting it again.

I ran into my long time tax accountant this afternoon at Starbucks and we started chatting about things. He was concerned about his daughter wishing to attend Baylor University. She wants to go because she likes their scholar program and all of her friends are going there.

He has no objection as Baylor is a good school but he was wondering if it's even safe for a head covering Arab girl to go to a zero diversity institution as Baylor and live in a town like Waco. She was born and brought up here in Frisco but town and schools are very diverse here.

I don't know much about Waco or Baylor but it is common knowledge that it's a VERY conservative school and Waco is a rough town. Any opinions?

[DeerRidge]

Baylor is only considered conservative amongst the criminally uninformed. Please read my response on the Texas board.

[Bloomfielding]

Baylor may have AA kids but it lacks intellectual/religious diversity. I understand that it is a baptist school but higher educational institutions are supposed to be places of debate and learning, not agreeing unanimously.

[BigDGeek]

Originally Posted by Bloomfielding

I posted this thread in Texas forum by mistake but it recived no response so I'm posting it again.

I ran into my long time tax accountant this afternoon at Starbucks and we started chatting about things. He was concerned about his daughter wishing to attend Baylor University. She wants to go because she likes their scholar program and all of her friends are going there.

He has no objection as Baylor is a good school but he was wondering if it's even safe for a head covering Arab girl to go to a zero diversity institution as Baylor and live in a town like Waco. She was born and brought up here in Frisco but town and schools are very diverse here.

I don't know much about Waco or Baylor but it is common knowledge that it's a VERY conservative school and Waco is a rough town. Any opinions?

As another religious minority, I never considered Baylor. Not even for a second. I didn't think it'd be like School Ties or anything...didn't fear having my car daubed with swastikas...Baptists aren't scary...I just didn't think I'd have much in common with the largely conservative, Christian student body.

And she will make new friends in college. My school was small, and very few of my school friends OR neighborhood friends (in Preston Hollow) ended up at UT-Austin with me. It wasn't hard to make new friends since many of us were in the same boat. Some cliques from huge suburban schools persisted into college, but even those largely fell apart after freshman year. People change a LOT in college. Most freshman are still dumb, scared kids. They get over it sophomore year.

Also...and no offense to anyone who went to Baylor...but there are better schools in Texas that are much much cheaper. (UT and TAMU leap to mind.)

Just my $0.02.

[DeerRidge]

Originally Posted by Bloomfielding

Baylor may have AA kids but it lacks intellectual/religious diversity. I understand that it is a baptist school but higher educational institutions are supposed to be places of debate and learning, not agreeing unanimously.

We are talking about Baylor in Waco, right? Because the place you are describing only exists in your head.

Willie Nelson went to Baylor. Ann Richards and Bob Bullock went to Baylor. The largest Democratic donors in the State of Texas went to Baylor. On the other hand, Tom Delay was EXPELLED from Baylor.

[DeerRidge]

Originally Posted by BigDGeek

As another religious minority, I never considered Baylor. Not even for a second. I didn't think it'd be like School Ties or anything...didn't fear having my car daubed with swastikas...Baptists aren't scary...I just didn't think I'd have much in common with the largely conservative, Christian student body

Also...and no offense to anyone who went to Baylor...but there are better schools in Texas that are much much cheaper. (UT and TAMU leap to mind.)

Just my $0.02.

1. Baylor and its students would have appreciated your unique point of view.
2. I'm sorry we keep beating you in football.
3. Ok, number two is a lie.

[BigDGeek]

Originally Posted by DeerRidge

1. Baylor and its students would have appreciated your unique point of view.
2. I'm sorry we keep beating you in football.
3. Ok, number two is a lie.

*shrug* We walked over you guys when I was at UT-Austin. When we lose, it doesn't ruin my day. I went to a total of two football games as a student and a total of 0 afterwards.

[LeagleEagleDFW]

Waco is pretty miserable, and Baylor is stifling conservative.

But if her friends are going and she wants to go, there are worse places.

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by Bloomfielding

I posted this thread in Texas forum by mistake but it recived no response so I'm posting it again.

I ran into my long time tax accountant this afternoon at Starbucks and we started chatting about things. He was concerned about his daughter wishing to attend Baylor University. She wants to go because she likes their scholar program and all of her friends are going there.

He has no objection as Baylor is a good school but he was wondering if it's even safe for a head covering Arab girl to go to a zero diversity institution as Baylor and live in a town like Waco. She was born and brought up here in Frisco but town and schools are very diverse here.

I don't know much about Waco or Baylor but it is common knowledge that it's a VERY conservative school and Waco is a rough town. Any opinions?

My son is a Baylor graduate.

IMO Baylor is a great school for certain majors bio, math/physics, engineering, nursing and some others. Baylor also has vast amounts of scholarship money to entice strong students. That said I can't imagine sending a kid there and paying full boat for him/her to study education, sociology or religion etc. Baylor is a great school for very serious students less so for others.

Conservative or not.
Baylor is conservative but it's nothing like it was 25/30 years ago.

Diversity.
The idea that Baylor has zero diversity is absurd.

The town.
Waco varies from really dumpy to awesome and much of the town is gentrifying. The campus is very nice.

[Kosmonova]

I'm a Baylor grad... Coincidentally, I chose Baylor because at the time I was dating a Jewish girl from Dallas. Me being from SF, I had no idea how far Waco was from Dallas and I naively thought it would be "nice" to be close to her... Ahh the choices you make for young love.

Anyway, Baylor was a slap in the face of conservativism for me (again, coming from SF) and at the time a lot of the student body was evangelical Christian. My freshman year began just a few months after "The Miracle on Fifth" and the cultural transition was a little difficult at first. One thing that really stuck out for me was there were so many kind people at Baylor -- I mean REALLY nice and welcoming people. It was pretty overwhelming actually.

Since I have returned to Texas in 2010 and visited the campus quite a bit, Baylor has changed dramatically. Demographics are part of it, the revitalization of Waco is part of it, surely the rise of their football program helps and not to mention their new stadium... All of these things help promote Baylor to a much wider geographical area than their evangelical Christian base. But what has remained the same is the warm hearts of so many people at Baylor.

Not sure if any of you have seen the HGTV show FixerUpper, but Chip and Joanna represent so many good qualities of what Baylor and Waco are all about.