<p>Well, I don’t know where “trollinon” (■■■■■■■■ on?) has gone, or if he has made a decision yet. I forgot to comment earlier on a couple of his reasons for leaning toward Penn. First, the guaranteed summer research is nice, but top students at flagship universities can usually find paying work over the summer–sometimes it is real research, sometimes not, at least at first. Second, if trollinon has significant AP credit, it may well be possible to finish with a master’s degree in four years, although I’m not sure why it matters if medical school is the goal (even if MD/PhD is the goal, it may not matter). Have you (OP) checked with UConn to ask about summer research possibilities? Or investigated the AP rules?</p>
<p>Don’t even waste your time spending the extra money for UPENN. Its not worth the extra money particularly after the debt you’ll most likely accumulate for medical school. UCONN is fine. Your grades and MCAT scores matter the most.</p>
<p>@YaleGradandDad</p>
<p>The average debt for students graduating from med school is now approaching $200K on graduation. COA is currently above $70K and will be closer to $80K/year by the OP graduates. Assuming OP has to fund med school on his own, which appears likely, he could easily have $300K + $125K (from the original $100K compounding) or $425K by the time he graduates from med school. Very few students can pay back their loans during residency so the OP could easily have over $500K by the time he effectively can start paying back his debt. Every dollar he borrows as an undergrad will result in at least 2 dollars in debt by the time he starts repaying and his med school debt will also balloon. If the OP wants to attend the only public med school where he has any chance of being admitted, UCONN, he has a better shot if he goes to UCONN as an undergrad as opposed to PENN. </p>
<p>As far as salary, only specialists can expect to make over $250K/year. Average income for GPs, internists, pediatricians is $175K gross income from which you have to deduct malpractice insurance and office expenses. Average physician income across all specialties in the US is $200K. Very few make $400K coming out of residency. Median expected income for physicians after residency in the US in 2011 was $166,000. With the current problems faced by Medicare it is very unlikely physicians salaries will increase. If anything they are rapidly dropping as more and more physicians close practices to become employees of hospitals.</p>
<p>Cellardweller:</p>
<p>Your numbers are just plain wrong. The gross income numbers you mention are lower than the net income numbers by the US Dept. of Labor Bureau of statistics which state:</p>
<p>In 2008, physicians practicing primary care had total median annual compensation of $186,044, and physicians practicing in medical specialties earned total median annual compensation of $339,738. </p>
<p>General trends in physician reimbursement are pushing up primary care compensation so it will be an even more sure thing to have median net revenue that exceeds $200K. Even those 2008 numbers seem low to me and could possibly include part time physicians (more common as women enter the work force in greater numbers) and resident salaries. It is reasonable to assume people are more likely to under report their compensation than over report them.</p>
<p>Furthermore, the numbers I quoted for medical student debt at graduation were pulled from the AAMC website linked earlier in this blog for 2010 debt on medical school graduation. To say he could "easily have $425K [debt] by the time he graduates is just unrealistic. That table shows there to be only a modest difference in average indebtedness between public school and private school graduates ($150K vs $180K). Although in-state residency plays a role in gaining acceptance to an in-state medical school like UCONN, I have not seen any data to suggest that attending an OOS UG degree while maintaining CT residency should lower his chance of admission there. Assuming strong performance at each, my guess is he would be advantaged from Penn because of his more competitive peers and to make the medical school class not look so ingrown. </p>
<p>I agree with you that it is unlikely that physician salaries will increase but physicians have amongst the highest earnings potentials and job security now. My profession has cried that the “sky is falling” since Medicare was proposed nearly 50 years ago and it just hasn’t happened. In fact, Medicare made doctors wealthy in the 1970’s at levels not seen today after they cried that socialized medicine would kill them. Will our incomes go down with Obamacare? Maybe. I think it is a really bad idea to enter medicine for the financial rewards based on sacrificing the decade of your 20’s and the general hard physical and mental work of practice but I wouldn’t let average amounts of private school debt ($180K) dissuade me either or make educational choices primarily to lower that number by $100K.</p>
<p>Yalegradanddad: *Thank you for your **inciteful *post</p>
<p>Don’t think Happymom is inciting anything… ;)</p>
<p>If the OP’s parents can’t full pay without taking big loans or expecting the student to take big loans, then going to UConn is the way to go. Just because a school has determined a family to be full pay doesn’t mean that the family has easy access to the money to pay.</p>