<p>Through an early action application process, i was recently admitted to Boston College, Georgetown University, Case Western Reserve University, and U of Oregon Clark Honors College. I want to go to medical school, and I got a close to full ride to CWRU and a full ride scholarship to the honors college at U of O (I am an Oregon resident). I got little or no money from BC and Georgetown.
Obviously, from the options I have so far, the prestige, name-value, pick would be Gtown or BC. However, I want to make the smartest choice, and that makes U of O very appealing.
I am torn. What would be the best decision to make for myself and my future as a med school student?</p>
<p>You are going to take on hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt for med school. Now is the time to keep your costs low.</p>
<p>^ True. Go where you can save $ for med school and where you can get a good GPA (to be competitive for med school).</p>
<p>Agreed. You will still get a top-notch education at either of your two cheapest options.
But your state school will still be a better deal especially after you factor in transportation costs.</p>
<p>Visit Case and UO to see which one fits YOU the best and pick between the two of them. Med schools will be happy to see either on your app (assuming you do your part of the GPA/MCAT/EC deal).</p>
<p>There’s no way I’d ever recommend paying a considerable bit for either of the other two schools. They are decent schools (of course), but they won’t help your med school aspirations more than the other two and the cost difference is significant.</p>
<p>The university that will really matter is where you go for med school. Getting into med school will depend upon test scores and grades – not the prestige of your undergraduate school. Georgetown will cost you $250K to graduate and then you will add med school on top of that? You will be $500K-$600K in the hole before you graduate if you go the “prestige” route from start to finish. Right now would be a good time to really get it drilled into your brain that you need to minimize costs at every opportunity if you want to be a doctor. I am a financial planner by trade and I cannot tell you how many depressed and despondent young doctors and dentists that I have met. They get deep into debt for school and then when they finally finish their residencies and they get that first real money job then they take on loans to buy a house and get a Mercedes as a “I finally made it” present to themselves. A lot of these poor unfortunates collect a wife and kids during their residencies and since they are doctors they of course want to send the kids to the best schools, etc. I can not tell you how many doctors I know that make six figure incomes and live paycheck to paycheck with almost no savings due to debt burden. It is wonderful to aspire to be a doctor – go for it! But you are embarking on an extremely expensive 10+ year journey where you will be working you tail off and getting little income. The only way to do this intelligently is to get a financial education starting now and avoid the addiction of taking on too much debt for school. The quality of your education is very important – but don’t set yourself up for financial failure from day one. Take the full ride and base your choices on schools now and in the future on cost as well as prestige. A good state school will serve you very well. Plus you can brag for the rest of your career that you turned down Georgetown, etc.</p>
<p>i think going for the full ride would be better. applying to med school, you want high gpa and higher class rank. that would be harder to accomplish at Georgetown</p>
<p>Thank you all for the great input. Definitely leaning towards U of Oregon. We will see after I hear back from my regular decision schools.</p>
<p>Their rationales were great for going to your cheaper schools. If you do end up deciding between BC and Georgetown I’d go with BC. They’re both amazing schools, but having lived in both MA and DC I’d say that BC would be better because there are some very reputable hospitals in the area at which you could take on an internship or co-op! Good luck!</p>
<p>You definitely want to keep your costs down for undergrad if you are considering med school. Med schools puts more value in your GPA than the ranking of your undergrad school.</p>