<p>I've just assumed that nearly all med students pay their costs with big loans and/or family funds.</p>
<p>However, I read a post here on CC where a med student referred to a good scholarship he got from Georgetown Med. Is that unusual? Typical? </p>
<p>What other med schools give scholarships? I'm guessing that any such scholarships are incentives for students with top/top stats to choose that med school over - say - an ivy.</p>
<p>What stats would be needed for these merit scholarships?</p>
<p>so...please enlighten me on various funding methods for med school.</p>
<p>It’s rare to get a merit-based scholarship and criteria for merit-based scholarship is usually not driven by stats alone. Often a school only has a handful of merit-scholarships and they make offers on an individual basis. </p>
<p>Most med students pay for med school by a combo of family funds + loans.</p>
<p>Recently, several SDNers were discussing how a particular medical school, UT-SW, decides to distribute their money for scholarship. It appears no one knows the criteria. I suspect that, like NCG posted above, it is not driven by stats alone.</p>
<p>I see the major differences for students between med and UG as:</p>
<p>the availability of funds (the money is actually there in many cases). </p>
<p>a much closer relationship with your final resting place , i.e. a medical degree and actually being a medical doctor, makes it more reasonable to go into some debt. </p>
<p>But one thing is the same. Folks don’t always agree on the use of the term “scholarship”. For some it means merit based aid only. For some it can also mean grant aid based on need. No med school awards full need based aid in the form of grant. They all have a unit loan (@$20-25K a year) that every student has to take out regardless of need, AFAIK. </p>
<p>Few med schools grant substantial merit aid. </p>
<p>Few schools grant substantial need based grant aid. </p>
<p>Most schools are primarily loans. </p>
<p>I’d guess a majority of traditional (recently graduated) students’ families pay something, but very few pay it all.</p>
<p>It is different from school to school. There are good % of medical student who have Merit $$. How big/small they are, I do not know yet. One of D’s schools is sending Merit scholarship status with acceptance. I believe it depends primarily on stats (at this specific school).</p>
<p>So, would this be a med school that is hoping to lure your D away from a higher ranked school. </p>
<p>I was just looking at some state med schools and I did see that in one state, a lower ranked med school is giving money which I’m guessing is to lure some top stats students away from the higher ranked med school in the same state.</p>
<p>^No, it is very highly ranked private school. As of now it is highest ranked among the ones that have accepted my D. I believe that it has to do more with available resources at each school. D. will not decide based on $$$ or ranking. She does not have preference so far and still hoping for more acceptances although she is very happy with the once that she has. She is also planning to go to second visits sessions.</p>
<p>My DD applied for some merit awards offered via her school and/or other local businesses (like our health insurance company) and has garnered $6k plus $3k from the school, a state med school</p>
<p>I’ve seen that our state med schools give some merit to instate students…but it doesn’t look like a whole lot…but some is better than nothing! :)</p>
<p>Merit aids are rare, but they do exist – I won a pretty substantial one from a strong, if not quite the very topmost tier, school (ultimately turned it down).</p>
<p>Since med students = grads/professional students, only student assets (not parents) are used on the FAFSA to determine financial need, so consequently most students qualify for grants. The average grant award to my school is about $6k/year (it’s my state school, so tuition is ~$22k, and total cost of attendance is like…probably in the high 30s.) </p>
<p>Additionally, there are many small merit-based and need-based scholarships available through the school. For these scholarships, parent financial information is used, so it can be more difficult to qualify for need-based scholarships. The average scholarship award is about $2k.</p>
<p>So tuition of ~$22k (first 2 years, last 2 years are more expensive) ends up averaging out to about ~$14k after taking into account grants and loans. I couldn’t find this information anywhere except from the director of financial aid that presented during my interview.</p>
<p>I’ll be taking out loans for the remainder of my tuition and my parents have generously agreed to continue paying for my apartment, insurance, groceries, utilities, etc.</p>
<p>I informally noticed that there seems to be an inverse relationship between school’s rank and merit aid available: Mayo Clinic, arguably my highest ranked interview, provides nearly a full-ride for each student; Northwestern, while expensive, gives impressive financial aid (and I’ve heard Duke’s similar); and Missouri gives very little compared to the others. Anyone else noticed this?</p>
<p>“So, would you think that the merit is because it’s a pricey private and the hope is to bring the cost down more inline with a state med school?”</p>
<p>-Well, school is known to give lots in Merit $$ in UG. It is pricey. I do not think there is any logic or reason or if Med. school funding is connected somehow to UG funding. It is just different from school to school. D. was offerred a lot when she applied there for UG, about $25,000 / year out of $33,000. She went to different UG for different reason.</p>
<p>Kristin,
You are stating $22k / year in tuition. Does it jumps in 3rd and 4th year? At state schools that D. was accepted, tuition jumps a lot in 3rd and 4th year.</p>
<p>Yep Miami, it jumps. I think I noted that in parentheses in my post but I am happy to elaborate (I also happen to have the paper with all the financial info on my desk by my computer, haha).</p>
<p>Looks like my memory’s a little faulty: M1 and M2 tuition is $24,800 for Missouri residents. M3 and M4 tuition is $27,600 for Missouri residents. After factoring in things like USMLE tests, room & board, travel, various equipment/tech needs, health insurance, etc, my office of financial aid estimates that the cost of attendance for M1 and M2 years is about $47k and for M3 and M4 years is about $49k.</p>
<p>So the difference, at least in Missouri, isn’t that big.</p>
<p>^That explains it. So, when I looked at total price over 4 year, difference between schools was not significant enough to make it high priority item in decision making.</p>
<p>Elaborate for me? Because when I compare tuition, I do notice a huge difference between my state’s school and privates. Here are the ones I’m looking at–sticker prices only, because aid’s tough to estimate.</p>
<p>Mizzou: $25k for 4 years = $100k (+ moderate cost of living in Columbia)
Northwestern: $45k for 4 years = $180k (+ high cost of living in Chicago)
Duke: $35k for 4 years = $140k (+ moderate cost of living in Durham, similar to Columbia?)</p>
<p>40k or 80k difference would be enough to sway me toward Mizzou over the others, unless one of them came through with phenomenal aid in addition to an acceptance (which they mention is possible, though somewhat unlikely).</p>
<p>How’d you get it down to $15k? Big merit award from the private? (I’ve read about a merit scholarship for your kiddo out there…)</p>
<p>kristin, exactly. I think it has to do with the fact that the privates end up giving out a lot more merit aid than the IS schools. By the end, there may be no significant difference between them. Of course, this will depend on the specific schools in question.</p>
<p>At least, that is what i noticed with some friends of mine who got in last year.</p>