Hello - my daughter was fortunate enough to be accepted to many great places this fall. She is now left down to two choices (we struggled with deciding because of financial changes): a full-ride scholarship to in-state (UofA) or UCLA. We are out of state for UCLA. They have given her 20k need-based loan out of 70k price. They have also given her option to defer admission by a semester to do military bootcamp because the military will pay all her tuition off. She is interested in medical school but also research and biotech. Some people have advised us to take UCLA because the loans will be worth it and she will be given better preference for California medical school (which are very good medical schools) and jobs because UCLA is a well ranked school and have better work-life balance. Is it worth the cost in our situation or should she take the full-ride? She is first-gen so any advice helps.
Take the full ride. 1000%. UofA is an excellent school, and presumably she’ll have Honors College perks there that don’t even exist at UCLA. Medical training is long and expensive. She’ll need financial resources, and she will not need pre-existing debt hanging over her. Don’t take advice about what debts are “worth it” from people who aren’t going to pay your debts!!! A price difference that will ultimately amount to $300k plus the financing costs on the loan, for a pre-med? No!
I’m not even sure that assertion about preference for CA med school is true. A few do prefer in-state applicants who have residency (although those acceptance rates are still very low), but an OOS UC student isn’t a resident. @WayOutWestMom - is there any truth to this? Even if it’s true, it’s not worth it. Take the full ride and don’t look back.
I would agree – taking the full ride seems like the prudent option – especially with the potential of med school in the future.
Take the full ride. We are CA residents and my daughter has stellar stats (rising college senior), and we aren’t banking on a UC medical school admission. So don’t think a UC undergrad will help your chances. Competition is intense.
Which misinformed person/s gave you this inaccurate information?
(And, regarding those “jobs” which will come after 10 to 15 years of training, they will be all over the country because your child will be applying to schools all over the country to try to get “matched”.)
The UC Medical schools wipe the slate clean when accepting students. They look at the students to build a unique class. They don’t care if the student attended a UC for undergrad. They are going to look at what the student did within the college area where the student attended. They want to hear about what is going on in other parts of the US in medicine and public health.
Our daughter was fortunate enough to be accepted to UCSF for medical school but it was not an easy task.
Yes, she attended undergrad at Davis, but we paid instate rates for her undergrad. She also had to take time off to volunteer in clinics in farm communities with long commutes on dusty roads, being able to read, write, think and speak fluently in Spanish while saving money by working, studying for her tests, and interviewing for local internships.
When our daughter graduated with her BS, there were 1000 students, in her major, most of whom were trying to get into med school. That was at ONE UC school for their Spring graduation.
Now, picture the 9 UCs and their spring graduates vying for medical school (not even including the Winter graduations nor the 23 Cal States and private colleges in California. We have a LOT of private colleges including USC, Stanford, etc). Her med school class only accepted 120+ students.
Her med school colleagues came from every college in the US-large universities, small LACs, HYPS. I think there were about 10 students from California out of 120+ class. Many of them took out very large loans. So you are looking at $280K for undergrad and another $300K for medical school. Over half a million $$$ in loans. Those loans are sold and resold and some can become “pay as you go”.
I hope you are young, strong, healthy and well-off because you will be paying for these loans over 30 years. She wont make any money as a physician until about 20 years of practice because she will be paying a lot of fees, liability insurance and a host of other things.
She will have difficulty paying for a car and a home because those school loans have to be paid and will continue to accrue interest. If you are banking on a military career for her, she has to become a soldier and the government can send her anywhere in the world for 6 to 8 years because those military obligations come with a price for medical school fees.
This is very misguided advice. Don’t take debt because the next phase will be very expensive.
This is absolutely not true. California medical schools are amongst the most competitive for admissions in this country…with absolutely no preference given just because someone graduates from UCLA. CA medical schools get FAR more applicants than they can accommodate.
@WayOutWestMom what did I miss here.
What kind of loan is this? Please explain.
Take the full ride. In my opinion.
Who is going to pay for medical school?
Adding…did you get off of the UCLA waitlist? Otherwise, how are you making this decision now?
If so, your daughter committed to Arizona , and really shouldn’t change. The cost of UCLA will be staggering.
Also…just a couple of days ago, your daughter was considering UMKC and giving up her full ride to Arizona. You claimed then that she had decided to go with Arizona. And part of the reason was the cost.
Why all this hopping around? She will get a fine free education in Arizona…and as noted in that thread, there is even a new medical school opening there in the next few years.
No, she won’t. She will be placed in the OOS application pile unless she has graduated from college and lived independently for at least a year in California to establish in-state residency.
CA public med schools are extremely competitive. CA residents are at a disadvantage when it comes to med school admission because there are just so darned many of them. Med school applicants from just UCLA (over 1200 last year!) alone could fill every med school seat in CA and still have plenty of unsuccessful applicants left over. Only 17% of California med school applicants are accepted to any CA med school, public or private.
See: Applicants to U.S. MD-Granting Medical Schools by In or Out-of-State Matriculation Status, 2022-2023
Take the full ride if med school is her goal.
And “live independently” means she is fully self supporting.
And if she wants to support herself in CA for at least a year after college, to establish residency, she could equally do that after graduating from UofA.
My medical provider uses lots of residents from UC San Francisco, and it seems like they all went to out-of-state schools for undergrad.
There are only 2 CA public med schools that give admission preference to CA residents:
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UC Riverside–and only to CA residents who live in the Inland Empire area of California
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UC Merced/UCSF–and only to residents of the San Joachim Valley
Yes, this is where my daughter attended and the majority of her class were from OOS schools.
Please show some stability for your child by sticking with a decision that will be cost-effective and will help her to achieve her goals, without putting you, as well as she, in the poorhouse.
It doesn’t matter where she attends for her undergrad Bachelor’s because she needs to establish her own clinical pathways to medical school. You are not going to the university with her. You are not going to be doing her rotations. She will need to do everything on her own. Your job is to help her with emotional support and help her to pay the bills for school.
The UC’s will just make it really hard to compete with all of those thousands of promising medical students who will compete for grades, clinical placements and physician’s rounds.
Yes, she gave up UMKC but didn’t give up UCLA because they hadn’t yet sent us the updated aid offer. They just now notified us of the updated financial aid. I think her main concern is that if she goes into biotech/graduate school instead of med she will be disadvantaged.
She gave up UMKC 6 year program?
It was going to cost this family $600,000 in LOANS. Out of state costs are very high.
She is wrong.
If she pays OOS for a UC, your entire family will be at a disadvantage.
If her loan is sold, which happens frequently, some loans may require “pay as you Go” which means you start paying her loan the minute she steps onto the campus.
One of my daughter’s dorm mates had a loan for her tuition and she was also out of state. Her parents’ loan was sold and they were paying $1500 per month as the student started at her UC. That was an additional burden to the family who couldn’t afford the extra costs. The student stopped attending because her family couldn’t afford the surprising new monthly costs.
Please explain this aid offer. UCLA gives ZERO need based institutional aid to out of state students and precious little merit aid. The only aid your kid would have been offered by UCLA is the federally funded Direct Loan of $5500…and YOU would have been offered a Parent Plus Loan for the rest. Is that what you got?
In terms of merit aid, UCLA offers teeny merit awards…$3000 or so.
@Gumbymom do I have that right?
Your student has the gift of $0 debt if she attends University of Arizona. And you won’t have Parent Plus Loan debt either.