TCU- The SMU Junior College

[White Helmet]

I applied to all 3 schools; Baylor, TCU, and SMU and was accepted to all 3, along with Washington U in St. Louis. In the end I got the same amount of scholarship money from each, except Washington, relative to tuition costs. I decided upon SMU due to the smaller class sizes and the fact that the Biology program, one of my majors, had active research, I spent 3 years as an undergrad doing faculty research and even got to author some articles, something that wouldn't have happened at TCU. As for Baylor their Science facilities were crap when I was applying though supposedly they have a nice new building, but then so does SMU.

[Deep Purple]

I decided upon SMU due to the smaller class sizes and the fact that the Biology program, one of my majors, had active research, I spent 3 years as an undergrad doing faculty research and even got to author some articles, something that wouldn't have happened at TCU.

Actually, it does -- a lot. Many TCU science and engineering undergrads receive co-author credit for articles published by faculty in the refereed journals. And this is hardly unique to TCU and SMU. It also happens quite a lot at Vandy and a few other private schools.

The Biology program at TCU is extremely rigorous, mainly because it is the anchor of the pre-med program, which is the best in the state. It has a 75% washout rate, but those who complete it are the crème de la crème. They get admitted to med school at 2x the national average, which is the highest admission rate in Texas.

[White Helmet]

My main point really was that without an active Graduate program research is less frequent and less on the "leading-edge" in most cases. Also the program at TCU is more focused to "classical biology", plants and animals and the like, where as the program at SMU is more of a Molecular Program, which is where my research interests are- and more NIH funding.