We are writing to inform you that Baylor College of Medicine and Rice University have ended our discussions about a possible merger of our two institutions. At the same time, both institutions have agreed to develop further our existing academic and research relationship, which has grown significantly over the years.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.There were pros and cons to this merger to begin with, but now I’m glad that the haze has cleared, and we have a final decision. Baylor Med has an interesting future ahead of it! With a fiscally positive year, a recent sum of money given for research, and motivated students, I’m not worried at all about the end of merger talks. In fact, I’m quite optimistic. As an independent institution, BCM has come a long way in the 41 years since it broke off from Baylor University, and I’m confident we can go a lot further.

The Houston chronicle has a great article summarizing the situation.

Yes, as a student at Baylor Med, I’m inherently biased to promote a great image of the school. At the same time, when negative aspects of the school are expressed, I can usually appreciate/relate to them.

The following is a snippet from one of the comments left on the article.

“Sounds like Baylor Med is about down and out. If Rice doesn’t rescue them they can’t survive.”

The preposterous notion that Baylor Med will die without Rice is… ummm… a testament of how juvenile the reader’s knowledge is about the situation. Between a positive fiscal year in 2010 and a profitable outpatient clinic, Baylor is doing just fine. As a student, the idea of a Rice-Baylor merger is almost transparent as it hasn’t affected a single aspect of our education… except for the occasional: “Don’t worry if you break [insert furniture, lab equipment, etc] … Rice will fix it!”

Whether or not the merger goes through (which, personally, I think is just a matter of time), neither institution is facing its demise at the present moment.

• What’s the status of the Rice University and BCM merger?
• What can be said about the drop in BCM’s ranking?
• What will be done about the incomplete Baylor Hospital?

As a native Houstonian who has wished for this merger to occur for years, I was excited to hear about the latest news; however, come to find out, the ambiguity rooted in the rumors over the last few months has remained unchanged. Rice and BCM senior executives/board members are still trying to find a way to iron out how the transition will take place.

As for BCM’s rankings, Dr. Butler spoke my mind. People can base their assessment of a school on US News’ reports, or they can actually consider statistics which are never used in the evaluation. For example, BCM students have (on average) the 4th lowest debt for medical students in this country. That’s pretty amazing. According to Dr. Butler, BCM’s drop can be attributed to not including the research conducted at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in the records (roughly $100 million worth). Why? Well, he briefly mentioned that our friends/rivals in Dallas have something to do with it.

Finally, Baylor Hospital’s construction will be completed before summer of 2010. Unfortunately due to a gross underestimation of the costs (primarily due to the unexpected stock market collapse), the hospital will not be built out from the inside. This issue will most likely be a pivotal point of concern for Rice University upon merging with us.

The coming months should be rather exciting.

Dear Accepted Applicants,

We know that some of you may have heard about our recent discussions with Rice University concerning closer ties between our two institutions. Although these discussions are in their early stages, we are encouraged about our progress to date. We do not anticipate any changes in BCM’s tuition structure and/or admission policies. We will keep you informed as to progress in this exciting dialogue between our two outstanding academic institutions.

We continue to look forward to seeing you in July 2009.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.All of a sudden… July 2009 doesn’t seem all that far. I’m really excited to see what this merger does for BCM’s funding, ranking, and student life.

At this point, BCM is my main focus. To think that it lost one of its main teaching hospitals (Methodist) and that it currently has some financial problems in funding its new hospital is kind of depressing; however, this merger could quickly resolve that. Rice and BCM already have a lot of collaboration in terms of research and academics (MD/Ph.D. program, Medical Scholars program, etc.), but a formal unification would only augment the realm of possibilities. It sounds like a match made in heaven, but I can only imagine how competitive and biased admissions will become. BCM already accepts so many Rice undergrad students, and in the event that both institutions merge, Rice students will have even more of an edge on the competition when applying to BCM.

…why can’t I just get the acceptance phone call?