Loyola University Maryland

Loyola University Maryland is a Jesuit liberal arts institution in Baltimore, 5 miles as the crow flies from downtown, and half a mile down the street from Johns Hopkins. It's a 5-minute walk to the train, and a 30-minute train ride to DC. Loyola has 4000 undergraduate students, most of whom live on campus, and 1000 graduate students.

The top 5 intended majors from applicants are Biology, Psychology, Engineering, Finance, and Nursing. Biohealth is a newer major that has become quite popular; it has 3 very specific tracks which I think are fascinating: Digital Health and Data Analytics, Biological Commercialization, and Biotech and Biopharma.

But let's talk about Nursing at Loyola! It's a brand new program and they received over 1000 applications to yield 40 students in this first cohort. The plan is to increase the cohort to 100 per class over the next 5 years. To support this, they are building a new $70 million, 30,000 square foot addition to the science center, and 1600 square feet of that will be for the nursing program, with state-of-the-art simulation labs.

46% of the most recent admitted class are students of color, and 24% are first generation. The mean GPA of admitted students is 3.74, and the university has been test optional since 2010. About 33% of admitted students submitted scores, and the range was 1250-1390 for the SAT and 28-32 for the ACT. They met, on average, 80% of need, and merit scholarships range from $30-40K. Students receive their full financial package within 24 hours of the admissions decision, and they eliminated the CSS Profile a few years ago to encourage accessibility.

The Wall Street Journal ranked Loyola #5 in the US for career development, and in fact, Career Services sets a goal to engage with at least 80% of freshmen.

Loyola calls itself a small-to-medium sized school with big school energy, and I cannot disagree. The campus is beautiful, as are the facilities, and the students seem happy and engaged. This is a regional institution that deserves to be on the national radar.