<p>roberthhid, Congrats to your S!</p>
<p>Back in October I posted this little story:
“A funny interview story:
DS2 drives to Albert Einstein for an interview. He stays overnight with a student host. The next morning he puts on his suit packs his bag and walks to the admissions building. On the way he meets an Orthodox Jewish man (hat, payot) who approaches him.
Man: Are you going in for a medical school interview?
DS2: um, yes
Man: Are you Jewish?
DS2: yeah
Man: Would you like to pray with me before the interview?
DS2: I guess so.
So they stood together and prayed for a couple of minutes. He went into the interview which he thought went really well.”</p>
<p>Well his prayers were answered as he was admitted today. He is currently leaning towards Einstein as his top choice but is going to attend second look days at his accepted schools. He has withdrawn a bunch of apps and cancelled an interview elsewhere.</p>
<p>Congrats!</p>
<p>and, thank G_d. :)</p>
<p>That is great news, roberthhid, congrats! It’s nice to have choices.</p>
<p>We would all love to have prayers answered. Congrats again!</p>
<p>Congratulations! Sounds like he will a many wonderful choices when it comes down to decision time this May.</p>
<p>roberthhid - Congratulations to your S and your family! 
</p>
<p>Congrats! The same with my D., she was on full tuition at UG, so we are supporting her now. More so, I told her disregard the price tag and go to the one that she wants, and it happened to be the most expansive one. Well, in regard to retirement $$, I am happy that I can spend them on something valuable. I do not think about my 401k in any other way. By the time I am kicked out (I will not leave my employment on my own), I am sure, these paper will be diminishe to nothing</p>
<p>
But unless you have a very good pension (e.g., maybe mostly government employees these days?), I think you may still need to rely on your retirement savings as a part of the source of your income after retirement.</p>
<p>A coworkers once told me that he believes that 401k/IRA is still a more reliable source than the social security. </p>
<p>We may take distributions from our IRA to pay for DS’s tuitions & fees in his last year. For other years, we would try to help pay for the interests at least, so that the loan amount will not grow exponentially. Also, the med school is not shy about asking us to pay our fair share of COA.</p>
<p>We think we are unfortunately not in a good position to deplete most of our restirement savings for his med school education. I think DS would understand that we only chip in whatever we can. After all, we paid a lot during his first two years of college and even before his college.</p>
<p>MODERATOR NOTE: Per CCs Terms of Service, discussions/comments about politics not directly related to the college process are not permitted.</p>
<p>“But unless you have a very good pension (e.g., maybe mostly government employees these days?)”
-No such thing in my casem and frankly, I do not miss it. There is no reliability in anything, will try to work for as long as I could. My job is my biggest entertainment anyway, I do not know how I fill these 8 hours in any better way. It is a great fun and most people around me are feeling this way and many of them are not retiring and many many are very old.<br>
Well, this is way beyond our topic though. Thank goodness, not thank you, my D. that we did NOT “pay a lot during his first two years of college” but we did pay a lot before her college, but again, she was also on academic Merit Scholarhip at her private HS, but it happened to be the most expansive by far in our area. But on the other hand, it was our choice to send her to private k - 12, we live in the district with some of the best Public schools in our area, she could have gone to one of them…except none of them would take her, because we sent her to kindergarten before she turned 5 y o, could not risk sending later because of our ancient age. And in addition, she tested very low in whatever the kindergarten readiness test they give them. Just shows how accurate all these testing is, haha!! The girl ended up with straight As all from kindergarten thru graduating from college, not a single B ever.<br>
But anyway, that is how she ended up being outside of public k -12, but we had no problem sending her to state public UG. Got to tap into our tax money one way or another!!</p>
<p>As the moderator noted (thanks for reminding), we should pull the discussion back to the college/med school admission/education. What we were (at least we were trying to) discussing about is the funding of child’s college/med school education, especially when the parents are near their retirement age.</p>
<p>BTW, I remember seeing somewhere that the statistics has it that the average retirement age for Americans is 62, whatever reason it may be. So, even though it may not be an issue for you to keep working “till you drop”, it may not be feasible for at least 50 percents of the people to do the same.</p>
<p>The issue is that, given the same amount of limited financial resources, when the parents should part with their money to help their offsprings to get into their career when their chosen career requires a lot of years (and therfore money) just to get into it, like becoming a physician.</p>
<p>I think there is no universal answer to this question, as every child is different and so is every family. You could see some example that a child always goes the most “economically sound” way and is still successful but you can also see the opposite outcome (I happen to know one particular parent whose child is already over 30 yo still needs to support her financially!)</p>
<p>I think a CCer (maybe texaspg since he is from Texas?) mentioned that one top graduate from a high school went to Harvard and came back to UT-SW, and another graduated from the same high school and went to UT and then went to UT-SW also. Unless the former’s family is relatively poor, you could argue that the latter saves money by choosing a “cheaper” route. (But what if the students change their mind – a lot of students do change their mind in college – and all of a sudden they want to choose the i-banking/consulting career path that likely requires the name of college to help them?)</p>
<p>Some child may happen to need a lot of parents’ financial support even when they are still in elementary. For these kinds of children, if the parents wait till they are in med school to spend money, the parents may not have a chance to spend their money on their offsprings because they may not be competitive enough by the time they apply to med school.</p>
<p>All I am saying is that every family/child is different. There is no one magic solution that is good for all. When your family happens to have the choice of a cheaper way when your child is at a certain stage of his/her education, count your blessing but do not think other family which needs to choose the other way is not smart. (Of course, the hind sight is always 20/20 and it is easy to be a Monday Quarterback.)</p>
<p>To me it all goes forward, I mean what do I want for my grandkids. I want them to have more opportunities than I had. I believe that if my kid has a loan of some $150k ±, then my grandkids would have less opportunities. This is my reason. But people have different goals and reasons. So nobody should listen to anybody and pursue their own personal goals, IMO.</p>
<p>mcat2 - I did refer to the two students. I don’t know much about the first student but I do know the student and parents in reference to UT/ UT-SW. I suspect the one who went to UT got almost a free education since UT used to hand out national merit money and also dept scholarships to cover all expenses back when this kid joined. I really can’t say if the Harvard person got a lot of money or had to pay some out of pocket. If the second kid had to go to an expensive school without merit money, it would have been a full pay. Essentially the joke was that all undergrads who went to any school eventually get back to Texas for medical school because this is where the seats are!</p>
<p>^I wonder how many California kids go to Texas. They are definitely flooding Med. Schools around Midwest.</p>
<p>We only have about 10% OOS allowed which is why texas residents go to the big name schools but come back to Texas for medicine because they can get a seat at home even if they dont elsewhere. The exception is Baylor where they are probably closer to 20+% OOS. </p>
<p>I know someone right now going to a big name school outside of Texas but has been admitted to most of the state schools. Not sure where the kid is going but there are plenty of admissions!</p>
<p>What I’m curious about is how many of the people from Texas who went out of state for med school come back for residency. There are more Texas med students than available residency program slots.</p>
<p>trapezius. Interesting question. Maybe some of the students who stayed home choose to go elsewhere and vice-versa. I know mine is thinking “south” for residency. Which, of course, means Minnesota or Maine probably.</p>
<p>And btw. It may be an anomaly but 4/99 are from Texas at my D’s school. And all but my kid did UG in Texas. TTU, UT, and Baylor.</p>
<p>Since residency is a national matching scheme, do people track who is from which state?</p>
<p>Are there any State quotas for residency?</p>