Why Baylor is Home

We received more than 200 applications this year for Legacy Scholarships. Thanks to the generosity of many Baylor family members, we were able to award 82 scholarships for the current school year – a 50 percent increase over last year! We asked each applicant to write an essay about growing up as a member of the Baylor Family. They were inspiring, funny, and in some cases, heartbreaking. We’re sharing these essays, which were written at various stages of the application process, over the course of the school year in hopes that you’ll feel great about Baylor’s future with students like these. We hope you will also consider donating to this program. All you need to do is go to our website, click on the legacy scholarship button on the right-hand side of the page, and make a secure credit-card pay

Baylor has run through the Blood of my family for generations. It has become more than a school or degree, evolving into something that defines one’s self. When deciding what university I wanted to attend, I was concerned that Baylor had more to do with my family than it had to do with me. However, I realized that many of the people who I cherished and looked to for guidance were shaped by their time and education at Baylor. 

I believe that Baylor can provide an environment to enrich students not just academically, but spiritually. To be a part of a university that represents my beliefs only increases my own strength and potential. I was raised with a strong faith, and I feel that Baylor can surround me with influences to further strengthen that bond. 

There is a passion that I have inside of me to be a part of this family. I desire to be an active member of the Baylor community, apply myself to the high academic expectations, and live in a manner that exceeds the standards that are set for me. All of this excitement has made my move from Montgomery to Waco a lot less difficult. I have decided to major in medical humanities. This major looks to be something that can enrich my experience as a pre-med student, and I want to be someone who Baylor is proud to claim as its own. 

Ever since I could remember I felt as though I was a Baylor bear. My dad was a graduate of Baylor and he is part of the reason why I want to attend. Throughout the past years every time I stepped foot on campus. I felt like I was at my second home. Just by attending the numerous football and basketball games I saw how strong the community at Baylor really was. My dad played football here at Baylor as a defensive lineman. The connection that my dad created while he was at Baylor has guided me in the direction of wanting to go to Baylor. Whenever we would attend Baylor events I saw how the people treated my dad whenever they saw him. They were always happy to see him. It did not matter how long it had been since they had seen my dad there was always a positive and happy moment. There were people that we had never met before that my dad knew that would treat our family as if they had known us all of our lives. Those moments made me want to go to Baylor even more. Although it was just my dad who went to Baylor, being a part of his legacy at Baylor has created a major impact on my life. 

Daniel Berry

Anticipated Graduation: May 2019

Current Major: Business Fellows, Finance, Pre-medical

Hometown: San Antonio, TX

“SILVER AND GOLD, SILVER AND GOLD, EVERYONE wishes for silver and golf, how do you measure its worth? Just by the pleasure it gives here on earth.” This first stanza of this beloved Christmas song “Silver and Gold” as sung by Burl Ives speaks of the immeasurable worth and joy that these precious metals bring to people. 

Similarly, I have seen the valuable significance which the legacy of “green and gold” has provided me. Greater than precious metal, I have treasured the Baylor family legacy from a young age. It has instilled in me a firm foundation on which I will continue to build, not only striving for academic excellence but also spiritual formation as I affect those in the Baylor community and beyond. 

I inherited from my family a love for Baylor, its traditions, and for the opportunities that it provides. I recall my first experience with Baylor through homecoming traditions where the largest bonfire I have ever seen came to life, in a strikingly bright fashion. I observed the homecoming parade and heard the euphonic conglomeration of sounds of laughter, music, and cheering for the accomplishments and acknowledgements of bright individuals of Baylor and Waco. Furthermore, I have seen the personal growth of my family in observing my siblings pursue their academic interests at Baylor. They were not only blessed with academic opportunities, but also connected with other students, formed lasting friendships with professors, and impacted those whom they served while in leadership positions. While the appearance of Baylor may have changed over the many years of its existence, the core values and vision of Baylor are held together by its family legacies.  

One of the wonderful blessings of inheriting a family legacy here at Baylor is the fostering of Baylor’s spiritual mission. From its inception, Baylor has been committed to integrating not only academic excellence but also strengthening the Christian character within its students from generation to generation. This character building is initiated by professors who spend time engaging students and forming enduring relationships in and outside the classroom. I am honored to champion this vision as I follow in the footsteps of those in my family who set a precedence of both academic and spiritual excellence. As a result I have been inspired to lead organizations such as the “Christian Pre-Health Fellowship” and an apologetics organization which aim to further the spiritual growth and character excellence of individuals. Though the worth of silver and gold may be measured by the “pleasure it gives here on earth,” I am proud to live by Biblical values as I fling my green and gold afar, impacting others for the pleasure it gives not only at Baylor and throughout the earth, but also eternally. 

Kevin Malone

Anticipated Graduation: 2019

Current Major; History (with a minor in Japanese)

Hometown: Bolivar, Missouri 

GROWING UP, WHENEVER WE CAME BACK TO America for a summer, we would often visit Baylor. I always loved walking around campus, especially the bear put. I never really realized it, but throughout the first 18 years of my life, for some reason or another, I kept coming back to Baylor, to the point where it always felt like a kind of home away from home. 

When I came down here for the first time as a committed future Baylor Bear, I had a bit of an awakening about just how much of a part of me Baylor is. I was here for registration last summer, and I had just gotten back from McLane Stadium, where they had taken all the incoming freshmen for dinner and a tour around the facilities. I had made a few friends over the evening, and when we got off the bus in front of Waco Hall, one of them was trying to figure out how to get to the bookstore. As I led a few people across campus to their intended destination, I realized that Baylor, its campus, and its traditions, have meant a lot for me for a long time, and that wasn’t yet true for many of my fellow freshmen. 

Growing up in a Baylor family, I knew and loved Bay;pr’s campus and traditions, and when I was considering where to go, I thought to myself, “Can I really go to a school this important, with all its great history and traditions?” Over the last few semesters I’ve realized that, yes, Baylor has this deep fantastic past, and yes, it’s an amazing center of both faith and academics, but that’s not all Byalor is. Now, Baylor is my home and its people are my family, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. 

Sherilyn Hardy

Anticipated Graduation: 2019

Current Major: Business

Hometown: Keller, Texas 

THE EXCITEMENT IS BUIDLING AND THE RUSH is here! It’s hot, sweaty, and I’m thinking, “I love this!” I’m here with over 3,000 Baylor freshmen who make up one of the greatest, most qualified freshman classes in Baylor history and I could not be happier. In a matter of seconds we are off. The roar is deafening as we enter McLane Stadium. It’s unbelievable! I made it and I couldn;t be prouder! That moment, that exhilarating monet, will forever be unmatched and indelibly imprinted in my mind and in my heart. I’m a Baylor Bear, a legacy. My parents, both Baylor alums, are in the stands, standing next to their Baylor classmates who have  known and held me since birth, all were incredibly proud and extremely happy. To know that I have made them proud by completing the family circle of Baylor students, makes me feel so complete and overjoyed. It means I’m a part of this incredible mix of academics, athletics, Greek sisterhood, Christianity, and service, ready to make a lasting impression in our world. That Baylor line will continue to march on through me! People on the outside don’t understand it, those of us on the inside can’t explain it! It’s Baylor! The legacy ties continue to amaze me daily as I meet professors and staff who knew my parents. That’s the Baylor way and it’s priceless! March on BU!

Thomas Vinson

Anticipated Graduation: 2020

Current Major: Medical Humanities

Hometown: Lubbock, Texas

AS I BEGAN TO FILL OUT THIS APPLICATION, I ASKED my mom if she could help me with finding our Baylor Legacy information. After a few phone calls and a look back at an extensive list my grandmother had written down on a legal pad, we realized that by these next four years, I will be the 70th Baylor graduate in my immediate and extended family. As I look forward to running the Line, participating in Homecoming festivities, or going to Dr. Pepper Hour every week all while receiving a world class education, I can’t help but feel a sense of history that will always follow me around on campus. Knowing that a century’s worth of graduates’ names on buildings and in Baylor annuals brings me an even deeper feeling of family and community, something I admired more and more as I spent time on campus. Throughout my childhood, surrounded by family, I have heard stories at dinner tables and living rooms about Baylor classes, professors, and friendships and as I enter Baylor this upcoming year, I am more than excited to partake in such a family tradition. 

In the fourth grade for my annual English state testing prompt, I was asked to “Write an essay about your favorite place,” While I was surrounded by my friends who undoubtedly wrote about Disney World or Chuck E. Cheese’s, I was busy writing about Waco, Texas. I never felt as if I were pressured by my family into going to Baylor to further my education, but only a few months ago did I realize it has always been the place where I need to be. The 69 brilliant, Christian leaders who have graduated from Baylor and whom I am lucky enough to call family have always been the role models in my life and I am ready to follow suit and become myself. Baylor has always been a part of me, whether I realized it or not, and I want to continue the rich tradition of earning a prestigious degree while growing in my faith, as so many before me have already attained. 

Madeline Bandy

Anticipated Graduation: 2020

Current Major: Communication Sciences and Disorders

Hometown: Temple, Texas

TO GROW UP SURROUNDED BY A BAYLOR LEGACY family means that I understood that family isn’t defined by the dictionary. Growing up less than an hour away from campus, I have been able to visit both the campus and facilities numerous times for various events to witness this. Being a descendant of two alumni, the traditions have been imprinted in me as strongly as they were in my parents. Such traditions create an atmosphere of unity that spans ages, races, and genders in a way that has always drawn me towards Baylor.

But by far, the biggest influence is the way that the Baylor alumni community so strongly resembles a family. On a family trip to Washington D.C, my family met three Baylor alumni, simply because of my father’s BU cap. Each of them was very enthusiastic to see fellow Bears and took the time to get to know us. As a Baylor hopeful, the smiles on their faces and encouraging words furthered my determination to be a member of Baylor Nation by my own accord.