<p>I've narrowed my college choices down to five schools, which fall into two categories:</p>
<p>Full tuition schools (we don't qualify for any financial aid):
University of Notre Dame
University of Virginia
University of Southern California</p>
<p>Schools that gave me merit money:
University of Miami ($15,000 yr)
Tulane University (Honors, $25,000/yr)</p>
<p>My parents are willing to pay for whichever school I choose; however, the full pay schools would be a struggle for them (they could swing it, but there would be sacrifices). I'm planning to go pre-med, so there's med school costs on the horizon as well. Of course, the full-pay schools are the ones I like the best, so I don't know what to do. Everyone keeps giving me conflicting advice:</p>
<p>1) It'd be foolish to turn down merit money. Med school is expensive, so save your parents money and let them help you pay for grad school. It doesn't matter where you do your undergrad; you can always go to a "top school" for med school if you want (and can get in).</p>
<p>2) It'd be foolish to turn down a great school like ND, UVA or USC. You worked hard for those acceptance letters and you're lucky to have those opportunities. Your undergrad years are the fun ones and you only get one chance at it, so go where you'll be happiest. Don't wait until med school to go to your top choice - you'll be working so hard then that you'll never leave your room or the library anyway. </p>
<p>I don't know who to listen to, but I've got to decide soon!! What should I do?</p>
<p>Only you can decide if a fun experience is worth asking your parents to sacrifice. But the research is clear: in terms of quality of education, it matters hardly at all where you go to college. If you’re a determined student, you can get a great education almost anywhere. In my opinion, to turn down $25K at a great school like Tulane insurance fun city like New Orleans would be very hard to justify.</p>
<p>Tulane is a very good school. If you are gong to medical school, the consensus is it doesn’t matter that much where you go for UG. There are quite a few posters whose kid went to Tulane and had great experience.</p>
<p>Umm, have you researched how much med school costs? Have you researched how much you personally, or your parents, will have to borrow in order to attend med school? Have you researched what your monthly nut would need to be to pay back these med school loans? And how many years it would take to pay them back. Look at the facts and then decide which is best for you.</p>
<p>There is a great award letter comparison tool on the page listing all the calculators at [FinAid</a>! Financial Aid, College Scholarships and Student Loans](<a href=“http://www.finaid.org%5DFinAid”>http://www.finaid.org) Run all of your offers through that. Tulane is a great place, and it looks like the price may be the best, but without all the info. we really can’t say. If you are in-state for UVA, that might be the price to beat once you factor in travel costs.</p>
<p>hard to know without knowing what is left to pay rather than the merit awarded…tulane merit at 25k per year still leaves about 25K/yr to pay if i recall correctly?</p>
<p>Pick the one that you have the best chance of getting the highest GPA. That is first and foremost, then the MCAT, for getting into Med School. From the overall cost list posted, I would pick Tulane because the next rule is to get out of UG with little or no debt. </p>
<p>I don’t blame you for wanting to go to a school like Notre Dame, but is it really worth another $100,000 to attend. As much as I LOVE Notre Dame, I couldn’t justify coming up with $100,000 for UG when that would pay for a good portion of your medical school costs.</p>
<p>In the meantime-get on every scholarship website you can and apply for every scholarship you can-as a full pay student you probably should have been doing this all along. Maybe you can whittle down the costs by doing that and maybe make Notre Dame, etc. affordable?</p>
<p>Also remember that most people who start off pre med do not stay pre med. if you did not stick with pre med would that affect your choice of school?</p>
<p>Even if you’re not, it might be a good choice. It’s cheaper than the full-pay schools and not much more expensive than Miami. Only Tulane is substantially less expensive.</p>
<p>Top students in our town have gone to Tulane and done very well. They love/d it, and love/d New Orleans. It’s a great school. With the scholarship you go there, is there a reason you are resisting attending Tulane?</p>
<p>My d has a friend who studied at Tulane med school. ( she went to Reed for undergrad). She loved it and was grateful that it was relatively affordable.</p>
<p>Tulane is a very good school, equal to your other choices even without the aid. With the assistance, it should be a no-brainier.</p>
<p>Unless you are in-state at UVA, it really is a no-brainer. Tulane. You’ll get a great education, that your parents can afford, in a great city, fine pre-med program, (and if that doesn’t work out, lots of other good stuff as well),and some money left over for med school. </p>
<p>The academics at Notre Dame are certainly no better than they are at Tulane. So you are paying for the privilege of the football team, and to live in Indiana.</p>
<p>Is it safe to assume that you are instate for UT Austin? If so, it seems to me that you ought to be seriously considering it, especially if you may want to go to med school. If you were instate for UVA, that would be the obvious choice, but I assume you are not.</p>
<p>Other than that, if money were no object I personally would go for UVA on the theory that one never really knows what one will turn out to want to do, so it is wise to pick the best school with the broadest areas of strength. Since money is a factor, as it almost always is, I would strongly favor Tulane. Especially since you seem to prefer hot weather schools.</p>
<p>Of course, you should also look at the GPA required for keeping the merit money.</p>
<p>Since you say it will be a struggle for your family to be full pay, that’s a big concern. It’s unreasonable to think that a family can go 48 straight months without having several major unexpected expenses occur…major car repair, dental work, major appliance replacement, etc. Even a last minute emergency flight somewhere is likely to happen. Twice in the last two years, I had to fly out immediately when one parent died and the other was near death. Both of those flights were incredibly expensive. </p>
<p>Tulane is the best choice. Great for pre-med and great for many other majors if you change your mind.</p>
<p>What is the GPA req’t? You need at least a 3.5 GPA to be competitive for med school, so the GPA req’t for scholarship may not be much of an issue in the long run.</p>
<p>If UofT is in instate, the cost is roughly $25k a year (I think). Not very different than Tulane. Likely get more personal attention at the latter, I would think.</p>