<p>I want to be a doctor, and I am trying to decide whether or not it's worth it to drop the big money on UPenn. I got into a special program at UPenn that guarantees me two summers of paid research and I will graduate with a masters degree, Uconn on the other hand is free. Will success at one or the other situate me in a better position when applying to med school? I want to go to a top school, and am confident that I most certainly will if I go to UPenn. All I am wondering is whether or not this is still possible with Uconn. What say you? What should I do? Any insight is welcome, especially with only 9 days left before decision is due!</p>
<p>Can your family afford to pay 58k this year and 58k plus whatever tuition and fee increases there are for each of the following three years - a total of more than 240k? If so, and they are happy to do so, then Penn would be fine.</p>
<p>If however, Penn would result in more than the amount of debt permitted for Stafford Loans over the course of four years, then Penn would not be fine.</p>
<p>Med School is ridiculously expensive. The standard advice is to do your undergraduate degree as inexpensively as possible, so that you don’t start out Med School with a bunch of debt already hanging around your neck. Med School admission is also very numbers dependent - your overall GPA, your GPA in the pre-med courses, and your MCAT scores count for much more than the name of the college on your diploma. Students from UConn get into top Med Schools every year. If you go there and do well, there is no reason why you couldn’t be one of them.</p>
<p>True, Penn is offering you a combined BS/MS program. Do you want/need that MS on route to your medical degree? Has Penn offered you any aid at all? Run the numbers here and see what they look like: [FinAid</a> | Calculators | Award Letter Comparison Tool](<a href=“Your Guide for College Financial Aid - Finaid”>Award Letter Requirements - Finaid) You also might find it useful to compare the overall costs of that joint degree program at Penn with a BS for free at UConn followed by a traditional two year MS program at UConn. I expect that UConn will still be less expensive!</p>
<p>How well off is your family? That’s a big part I mean depending on who it is 58k is a big/not a big deal. Personally, I would not spend that much on undergrad, esp if I was planning on being a doctor.</p>
<p>Having read some of your other posts, it appears that your parents have four more kids to put through school, and have said they can only cover 30K each year. That leaves a lot left over for you to finance. I don’t even think Penn should be on your radar if this is the case. You have said that ‘med school is on me’, so you should not be starting med. school with a whole lot of debt.</p>
<p>There is another thread going about someone who finished med. school with significant debt, and then couldn’t (or at least didn’t) keep up with the loan payments, and now has a really messed up life.</p>
<p>I don’t know much about UConn, and I see you have been accepted to some highly regarded schools, but since you have said you don’t dislike UConn, and since most state flagship universities do a good job of providing what their top students need, UConn seems like a good choice.</p>
<p>There is nothing shabby about UCONN, it is #27 on US NEWS’ Top Public Universities.</p>
<p>If you were my kid, it would be a no-brainer - UCONN.</p>
<p>UCONN! That is way too much $$$</p>
<p>Penn. for sure. Appeal your financial aid.</p>
<p>I recently chatted with a guy who went to Penn and thought it would open all doors for him to have gone to an Ivy. He found this was not true, much to his surprise and disappointment.</p>
<p>UConn free? vs. full pay? That alone would suggest UConn. But when you add in med school, which is another oh say 200k in cost, it’s a pure no brainer. You don’t want to come out of med school with 300k+ in debt do you? I can tell you right here right now that if you’re unsure of the answer to that question then the answer is no, you do not want to come out of med school with that kind of debt.</p>
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<p>Some Ivies do open some doors in some fields. I would not expect UPenn to do that for medical school. High GPA and MCAT scores are the “Open Sesame” of med school admission.</p>
<p>I do not agree with this quick rush to UConn. If you are full pay at Penn I will assume your family has significant income/assets and paying for an ivy league education is something they can afford. If they will not cover the full cost (someone mentioned $30K/year), perhaps you will take on some debt until a younger sibling enters college. Your peers at Penn will be of a different caliber than those at UConn and you will benefit by being surrounded by highly achieving students. There is reason to think that if you will be eligible for medical school financial aid, that number will be influenced by what loans you start with from college. Even if you took on an additional $100K in debt, that is a nominal amount to pay over the first 10 years of medical paractice assuming current physician income levels. I’m ready for the “elitist” and “college education doesn’t matter - just GPA and MCAT score” replies.</p>
<p>YaleGradandDad -</p>
<p>The only loans the OP can take on his/her own are the Staffords. Anything over that would require a co-signer. If the parents have set their contribution limit at 30k, the OP will need 28k from somewhere else. Unless he/she has a sizable college fund in addition to what the parents are paying, chances are that he/she is considering taking out loans widely in excess of the Stafford limit. Few people are willing and able to co-sign for private educational loans in the range of 20k each year for 4 years (roughly 80k total). Even if the co-signer can do this for one year, there is the possibility that in future years the application would be rejected because the co-signer will have run out of available credit.</p>
<p>Yes, the overall student body at Penn is different from the overall student body at UConn. But in the OP’s case as described here, the additional expense does not look like it can be worked out. Unless there are hidden resources that the OP has not mentioned, Penn is not a viable option.</p>
<p>midmo:</p>
<p>The fact that he “doesn’t dislike Uconn” is not a compelling reason to choose that school even for free. A Penn acceptance (and other highly competitive acceptances) suggests that UConn is not a great fit except in a financial sense. Students like this get free rides at other schools specifically because they are academic outliers.</p>
<p>I would be interested in looking at that post you mentioned about the indebted med school graduate if you recall that link. Thanks.</p>
<p>happymom:</p>
<p>Your response makes sense if the family is unwilling to pay the tuition or sign necessary loans. In that case there is no discussion here - he can’t afford Penn. He started the post wondering if Penn were worth the money so I’ll assume he felt it was a financial possibility/option. My issue is more with those posters who feel like it is foolish to pay for a top-tier education. Too often I read that it is fine for a talented student with full financial need to go to a school like Penn but if there is no need and the student is full pay, they are idiotic not to take a merit full ride that they can get somewhere. This is especially popular when it comes to pre-med students because of the expectation that additional loans will be needed despite the fact that physicians have high incomes to service those loans.</p>
<p>YaleGradandDad - The issue of when it makes sense to pay more for which institution is discussed over and over here at CC. Most often you will find the threads on that subject in Parents and in Financial Aid. One of my favorite threads this year has been the one started by dumbparent: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1121952-fafsa-efc-47k.html?highlight=dumbparent[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1121952-fafsa-efc-47k.html?highlight=dumbparent</a> When I first started reading CC three years ago, the “better school vs. cheap school” arguments were running heavily in favor of “better” now the ratio has nearly reversed. For sheer “better” enthusiasm and vituperation against those who argue in favor of “cheap” there is nothing to beat momfromtexas’s thread: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/148852-what-ive-learned-about-full-ride-scholarships.html?highlight=momfromtexas[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/148852-what-ive-learned-about-full-ride-scholarships.html?highlight=momfromtexas</a> Clearly, much of the current trend favoring “cheap” has to do with the national economic climate. Parents who three years ago could access money through a HELOC and/or were ready, willing, and able to take out Parent Plus loans, now are sitting in homes with mortgages that are underwater and in near daily fear that their jobs are going to vanish. Even those who don’t face those challenges certainly have friends/neighbors/relatives who do. While families have always measured the possible future returns for a child who faces four years of college before even applying to med school, where families feel their comfort zone falls really has changed.</p>
<p>I think you should be pragmatic. A Penn education may have a slightly more elite “cachet” but it will cost you dearly and may actually not help you getting into medical school. </p>
<p>If you look at the numbers, $100K of additional debt as an undegrad will be at least double by the time you finish med school. If you add the $200K-$300K for med school you are be talking $500K-$600K of debt before you start practicing. This amount of debt is no small change for any physician. The field is nowhere near as lucrative as it was a decade ago and the most attractive specialties such as radiology or orthopedic surgery are also the hardest to get into. </p>
<p>Sure, Penn has a higher admission rate to medical school (71% vs 50%), but the higher rate is a direct result of the higher selectivity in admission at Penn not the result of a secret “Ivy” formula. If anything one could easily argue that the high selectivity of Penn supports its reputation as an intensely competitive place for premeds. With classes graded on a curve at both institutions, assuming you are in the middle of the pack at Penn you may only be able to eek out a 3.5 GPA while at UCONN you may be able to get a 3.7-3.8 for the same level of effort, simply because you would more likely be in the top quartile. This could be the difference between getting into a solid medical school and barely getting any offers at all. And UCONN is no slouch, with the top candidates annually get into some the best medical school such as Johns Hopkins, HMS and others. </p>
<p>Additionally, assuming your are a CT resident, UCONN undergrad applicants fill over a third of its own med school which is well rated and would cost you less than half what a private med school would. Many of its med students get into selective residencies. In the end, the difference in debt could be as high as $400K to $500K with absolutely no difference in career paths.</p>
<p>Happymom:</p>
<p>Thank you for your inciteful post and the links to other threads I will check out later when I have more time.</p>
<p>Cellardweller:</p>
<p>I can’t imagine that anyone would have anything close to the debt you mention before you start practicing. Debt of even half the amount you mention must be in the top 10th percentile. The medical field may not be as lucrative in current dollars as it was a decade ago because incomes have stagnated. Nevertheless, no one is throwing a benefit yet for physicians who as a group probably have incomes in excess of $250K. That includes a range from lower paid psychiatrists to higher paid orthopedic surgeons but that number I quote is on the conservative end. In my specialty, recruitment letters are sent out to new graduates with income guarantees of $400K+ in desirable low cost of living locations.</p>
<p>Finally, although UConn undergraduates and medical school students may make excellent medical students and doctors, and surely can enter similar career paths with less debt, I am troubled by your last sentence. Penn and other selective schools are not trade schools and there is value in attendance and obtaining a liberal arts education regardless of whether it makes available career paths that would be unobtainable with a less expensive education. I look forward to looking at Happymom’s threads and recognize that the luxury of paying for an education when you have insecurity about your job is a problem for increasing numbers in this economy.</p>
<p>Check this out Yalegradanddad: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1131682-omg-555-000-student-loan-burden.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1131682-omg-555-000-student-loan-burden.html</a></p>
<p>^^^YaleGradandDad, the link in the post above this one is the one I was referring to.</p>
<p>Obviously, the particular MD in that story had larger problems than a lot of debt, so the story is not necessarily relevant to all who graduate with debt.</p>
<p>^ Interesting article but the total loan amount was only $250K and an AAMC link embedded in that thread showed only 13% of medical school graduates had debt in excess of $250K in 2010. The average debt of students trained at a private school was $180K vs. $150K in public schools. Since most public school medical students are in-state with much lower tuition, it does not seem like those lower cost schools are saving students that much debt. It would be interesting to see how two students with similar family incomes would fare one entering medical school with $75K in undergraduate debt and the other entering debt free. My guess is the former doesn’t finish school with anything close to $75K of additional debt at the end of med school.</p>