http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/1403885-2013-2014-applicants-their-parents.html
I used post here a few years ago when my first son was going through his application process. He is now an M3 at Yale. Now its my second son’s turn to go through this craziness called medical school application process. He is doing pretty well so far with a GPA of 3.9+ and an MCAT of 525.
Good luck everyone!
congratulations @kal123. What is he majoring in?
Public Health at JHU.
He’ll do well!
I’m here for round #2 as well! Oldest is finishing up her first year of med school She loves it, and has done very well. She’s already helped deliver several babies… which is crazy to me. She’s applied for a very competitive summer internship with the medical examiner, hoping to hear back soon! My middle graduates May 12th and is pretty much done with classes. She has 1 test and one paper to write, but this is the easiest semester end yet! She has all her LOR’s and is ready to apply. Her GPA is not as high as her sister’s, but MCAT is the same. Her extra curricular are very good. Hoping she’ll go to school with her sister : )
Joining in for round 1 for med school apps for our house, just wrapping up S17’s college app process which I think ended well, but ever so glad to have it in the rear view mirror. S14 (high school) is just finishing up his jr year at college and is in the endgame as far as mcat prep which he plans to sit for in May. He has met with the college premed committee and I think has his LORs together. Just buckling in for the ride and hoping he will be the bus driver more so than the the college app process. Any advise from those thru the process previously will be much appreciated.
First off AWESOME obviously much grey matter in between the ears coupled with tons of ethic!
Your posts are like that high school student that says “I guess I did okay, I got a 99.87, I mean considering I didn’t study or anything. That’s pretty good right?”
525 MCAT is higher than the avg matriculated Harvard applicant as is the 3.9gpa I would say AWESOME is a better word! No guarantees, but awesome!!
Thank you. As you pointed out, there are no guarantees in this process.
Thanks. I hope so too!
My son felt that AAMC section banks were very helpful and the AAMC full length tests, though easier than the real thing, were closest in predicting in his real score. Good luck.
do medical schools give merit scholarships
It depends on the school. But merit awards are rare and many are quite modest. (A few thousand $)
It’s not like undergrad where there are guaranteed merit for stats scholarships.
As @WayOutWestMom said, med schools don’t dole out too many merit scholarships. However, they are given by some schools and range from full COA to a portion of the tuition. UPenn offers nearly 20 full tuition and/or COA merit awards. WashU, UChicago, Emory, and NYU are also known to offer some full tuition scholarships.
My first son was awarded 75% tuition by Vanderbilt and 20% from by UMD. He didn’t wait long enough to know what he could have gotten from our state schools. Unfortunately, he spurned those and ended up going to Yale with no assistance. But then he didn’t care much, because he knew dad was going to pick up the tab 
@kal123 @WayOutWestMom My daughter is applying to med school this year. She is already in Uconn bsmd program. uconn med school is in our home town only 15 minutes drive. But she wants to apply out. She has 4.0 gpa and got 522 in mcat and tons of extracurricular activities Let’s see if she gets any scholarship
@kal123 The few medical schools which offer scholarship, are they normally merit or need based?
@GoldenRock, Almost all schools give mostly need based aid. Many schools give some merit aid. Very few schools give substantial merit aid ranging from full cost of attendance to full or a substantial portion of the tuition.
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Almost all schools give mostly need based aid.
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I do not think this is true, unless you’re counting huge loans as “need based aid.” The only med schools that I know that give true need based aid are the very wealthy heavily endowed ones (ivys, maybe Stanford). And even if you’re poor, there is often a 3 way split…school gives 1/3, child borrows 1/3, and parents borrow 1/3 (or child borrows 2/3).
Most med schools do not give out grants of any significance based on need…simply because most med students are low income.
The reason med students often graduate with huge loans $200k-300k+ is because most are not getting need-based aid.
a number of med schools will give some merit for a high stats or highly-desired student, particularly if he/she is holding multiple acceptances. Merit for poaching.
The Ivy financial aid is quite tricky compared to undergrad.
They expect the students to start with a unit loan (around 27-30k?) upfront since they are now considered adults who can borrow on their own.
Then they evaluate how much the parents can afford (I heard Yale gives full aid at about 95k parental income but I dont know that for certain) and tack on the rest on parents. if parents wont pay then the student needs to borrow.
From personal experience it is a very messed up process.
I had a kid starting undergrad at Columbia - they said pay in full - we dont consider the other kid doing a masters as a dependent to account for those expenses (it is considered a parental choice apparently).
Yale said we consider the graduate student has access to parental funds so borrow or get from parents but pay in full for medical school (30k unit loan and rest from parents). One of the financial aid consultants told my daughter that based on the value of our home, there was no way she would get any aid even if she protests. Here we are thinking home is out of the equation.