Safeties: Indiana State, Alabama (hoping to get Alabama scholarship with 32 ACT)
Matches: Purdue-West Lafayette, Indiana-Bloomington
Reaches: Not sure what to put here, my stats don’t seem good for any elite schools.
My essays will probably be pretty bad, I’m a very “here are the facts as they are” kind of person. A textbook about the thermodynamics of fluid will be more interesting than my essays. I have a very good upward curve, and I think I may very well have a 4.0 at the end of this semester in my classes which is an AP, a dual credit, and 3 honors courses.
My family is unlikely to help pay for college, so cheap is good. I’m in all likeliness going to be pre-med with a major in STEM, and Alabama looks to be the cheapest even with financial aid. My only fear is that in Alabama it’d be very hard for me to get into a medical research university such as Perelman or Prtizker, etc if I do not perform my absolute best 24/7/365. For medical schools in-state I have Indiana, but that’s very expensive even in-state for pretty average rankings.
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My only fear is that in Alabama it’d be very hard for me to get into a medical research university such as Perelman or Prtizker,
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doesn’t matter where you go, getting into Pritzker or Perelman…even if you went to an ivy for undergrad. UChi SOM is ridiculously unpredictable (I know that all med schools can be unpredictable, but Pritzker is just crazy/weird with admissions).
That said, Bama grads have gotten into Yale Med, Columbia Med, and other tippy top med schools. And, my own son went to Bama and he’s at a research med school.
Do you realize that all US MD schools are excellent? Are you planning on going into Academic Medicine (however, if your current GPA is 3.6 and your ACT is a 30, the likelihood that you’d have an MCAT & college BCMP GPA and cum GPA that is favorable for an MD/PhD program is very iffy. )
and, if you’re not going into Academic Medicine, who cares about UChicago’s or UPenn’s SOMs?
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My family is unlikely to help pay for college, so cheap is good.
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Is your family low income?
If your family is not low income, then how will you cover the EFC or other costs that you don’t get in aid??
Do you have a non-custodial parent?
<<< For medical schools in-state I have Indiana, but that’s very expensive even in-state for pretty average rankings.
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First off, you are being naive for dismissing IU SOM that way. Any student is lucky to get into IU SOM.
“pretty average rankings” ??? lol What are you talking about? IU SOM is a well-ranked med school!!!
Again, all US MD schools are EXCELLENT. We don’t have any ‘so so’ MD med schools here. Any ANY ranked med school has a ranking because it is a top med school. The unranked med schools are still excellent and WORTHY of any med school applicant.
Do you understand how hard it is to get into med school? Do you realize that it’s amazing to get into ANY US MD school?
when you say that your parents want to pay as little as possible (in another thread)…how much WILL they pay? Please try to get a figure from them, otherwise it’s hard to tell what is a safety for you.
Even will full tuition from Bama, there will be about $13k-15k per year (depending on dorm choice). How will THAT get covered? You can only borrow $5500 per year.
For income, I am not low income. My parents just don’t believe I need help. Pushing the bird out of the nest kind of thing. I do have a NCP, but we’re more likely to meet in a bar fight than in a civil manner. As for paying for college, that remains an enigma. My parents just refuse to help. I honestly have no idea how to pay.
For grades, my STEM scores are about a 3.8-3.9 while my English grades pull me down.
I’m not dismissing IU. I’m just stating that $33,000 a year in-state is a very big investment from me when I could pay for a few thousand less for schools that are ranked the same. From my perspective, why pay more when I can get the same thing elsewhere for less?
I did take the PSAT and my score was terrible. I’m willing to wager I’d have scored higher by drawing a picture on the sheet.
Basically, this means that you will have to build a merit-seeking application list, since your family’s income and presumably-uncooperative non-custodial parent will prevent you from getting enough need-based financial aid. You need full ride or close to it (net price under about $10,000, which is the reasonable maximum you can self-fund with federal direct loans and work earnings; lower is better).
Start your list with automatic full ride safeties. For match and reach schools, make the match and reach determination based on the chance of getting the full ride merit scholarship, not the chance of admission – admission without the scholarship is equivalent to rejection. (Look in the links in reply #1 for lists of schools to get started with.)
I got Alabama State, Florida A&M, Arkansas-Monticello, Louisiana Tech, Louisiana-Monroe and Prairie View A&M. I’m not familiar with any of them, which one of them should I be looking into?
Yes, medical school can be self-funded by student loans, because lenders assume that MDs will make enough money to repay the loans. However, an MD with essentially a house’s worth of medical school debt may have to live frugally for an extended period of time, and may also feel pressure to go into a higher pay specialty even if s/he really prefers a lower pay specialty.