I even applied for a faculty position there and got an on-site interview. I came away even more impressed with what they are doing there. I didn’t end up getting an offer, but am not sure I would have accepted (I had two other offers) even if I had. While their undergraduate programs were awesome, compared to the other schools it really felt like a primarily undergraduate education school that wishes they were a major research institution. Granted, I think during the interview and the interview prep materials it said in the mission statement something like “primarily an institute for world class undergraduate education, with pockets of research excellence”. However, it the departments that represented the pockets of excellence, the time demands of the research and teaching seemed way higher than other schools.

I actually only have one other criticism of BYU and that has do with how much it is subsidized. I wish they would subsidize it a little less and give larger YM and YW budgets. It a pretty hard to run a fun YM program for 32+ active boys on $800 per year (not counting our fundraiser that brings in $1200-1600 per year). They could reduce the subsidy a little bit (still leaving it one of the best deals in the country) and double the ward budgets for YM/YW and benefit a lot more youth. Not my decision, and the Church is free to use its funds however it sees fit, but I really wish YM/YW had larger budgets.