Baylor School - Review #4

Baylor School helped me get to where I am today. Without the culture of success that Baylor produces, there is no way I would have been able to survive being a college athlete. It seems like at Baylor everyone has some amazing talent or incredible story to tell you. The most unique thing about Baylor has to be the culture. Everyone is not only included, but they are welcomed. No matter what you believe or what you look like, Headmaster Scott Wilson does a great job at maintaining a campus that is elite without being pompous.

The best part of boarding school for me was how much it prepared me for what was ahead. College life was not a hard transition. I remember thinking my freshman year of college was a lot like Baylor but with worse dorms. The best thing the school has to offer is how it treats it's students. I was expected to be mature and competent at Baylor, the same expectations I would carry as a college athlete and an employee. Baylor expects more of it's students than they often realize they have in themselves, which is part of why I loved my time there so much.

I would have been less lazy. It took me a while to get with the program when I first got to school. I had problems focusing and committing myself 100% to a task. These were things I quickly found didn't cut it at The Baylor School. I wish I would have made more of my time at Baylor, that would be my one regret.

I loved the atmosphere Baylor offered. You were around the best. The best teachers, the best school, the best location. I loved everything about the school and my one regret would be not attending all four years.

Go to Miss Kitty's Grill under the dining hall. Get a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich. Now get one every morning for the next 4 years. If you are a male upperclassman, I suggest Lupton Hall 3rd floor. It was an awesome place to live.

Academics at Baylor were very serious. The school has won numerous awards for it's Science program and it offers plenty of help for students who are having trouble. Baylor does a good job of not catering too much to any one type of student. There was no favoritism towards the future Ivy-Leaguers as opposed to students that would go on to attend state schools, this is something I always cherished about the school. Baylor School helped me improve my academic commitment by a lot. My teachers at Baylor genuinely treated their class as an opportunity to learn, not just hoops to jump through.

I was a two-sport athlete at Baylor, participating in football and wrestling. Football was my main sport and it is what I devoted most of my time to. But my junior year I got the privilege of joining the school's wrestling team, headed up by Coaches Ben Nelson and Shaack Van Deusen. Being a member of such a historically dominant program was something we all took a lot of pride in. My senior season was particularly special because it was Coach Van Deusen's final season coaching after 40 years of service for the school. The best part of playing sports at Baylor was the high level of competition. This isn't a school where the coaches are content to take a beating and then say "well maybe next year".

I never took part in the Music or Theatre programs, but I had a very good time in my Art class, taught by Mrs. Willet. I don't have an artistic bone in my body, but Mrs. Willet helped convince me that even I could make something that looks good. The facilities are first class as well.

During my time at Baylor I helped with Red Circle, which was the group at the school responsible for hosting and showing around potential new students. This experience was awesome because it gave you the opportunity to show others what your school has to offer as well as learn more about the schools history and mission.

The dorms at Baylor were amazing. I lived on the 3rd floor of Lupton Hall, "L3" as we called it. It was a great experience, guys who were strangers soon became close friends. Living so closely to my classmates helped me mature a lot and helped my interpersonal communication skills greatly. Boarding was a great experience that helped me transition more easily to college life.

The dining options at Baylor were top-notch. The kitchen staff did an outstanding job of creating a menu that was diverse as well as consistent. There were no "bad days" to eat at the dining hall. Below the dining hall was Miss Kitty's Grill. Any Baylor alumni will tell you that a large part of their time at the school was spent hanging out around the student center. This means that Miss Kitty was a close, motherly figure in many of our lives. Some of my favorite memories of Baylor aren't from the football field or the wrestling mat, they are from messing around with my friends and playing pool in the Student Center.

The Town of Chattanooga itself was one of the best perks of attending Baylor School. Chattanooga is a vibrant, growing city that sits in a beautiful valley. The city is host to plenty of activities for high-school age students. The downtown area is awesome and very safe. The local baseball team, The Lookouts are always a good way to spend the evening.

Social Life was great. I had no problem making a great group of friends at the school. Bing a border, I was naturally pretty nervous about how I would fit in with my classmates but the school makes it a point to encourage students to treat each other with respect. There were the average high school cliques, but they didn't clash as often as at other schools I had attended. Baylor students, for the most part, all maintained a mutual respect for each other. The school sometimes pried into student's social lives by checking Twitter for party details, but that is common at most schools now.