<p>I got into the Uconn honors college for free (or near free), but I also got into Dartmouth, Penn and JHU. If I want to be a med school student at a top 10 med school, does it matter which of the 4 I pick? Is it worth dropping the big bucks to go to one of the better schools?</p>
<p>I would go with the ivy…you might not want to become a doctor after Organic Chemistry…</p>
<p>Med School admissions is more about the grades and the MCAT than it is about the name on the diploma. If you can go to UConn for free (or nearly so), how much money could you have available for Med School? If you choose one of the other places, what kind of debt will you have at the end of college? Adding that onto the 200k+ debt you could accumulate in Med School may mean that you are paying off your college loans for the rest of your life.</p>
<p>Who is dropping the money, you or your parents? Did you get any need-based FA at the Ivies? How do you feel about UConn?</p>
<p>Here is a calculator that you might find useful: [FinAid</a> | Calculators | Advanced Award Letter Comparison Tool](<a href=“Your Guide for College Financial Aid - Finaid”>Your Guide for College Financial Aid - Finaid)</p>
<p>If you are only interested in money factors, use the shorter version:
[FinAid</a> | Calculators | Award Letter Comparison Tool](<a href=“Your Guide for College Financial Aid - Finaid”>Award Letter Requirements - Finaid)</p>
<p>If you want to go into law or medicine, your degrees will matter significantly. This is less true for other professions, but law and medicine are very prestige oriented.</p>
<p>UConn is not prestigious, especially in the northeast.</p>
<p>Why do you want to go to a top-ten medical school? Now there is a case where the name really doesn’t matter. The liver is the liver, and it works the same whether you study it at Yale or the University of New Mexico. Even if you want to be a leading professor and researcher, what really matters is where you do your residency, and not so much where you go to medical school.</p>
<p>^^ Umm, where you do your residency is signficantly tied to where you went to med school/undergrad. Your credentials are signficantly important in the med world.</p>
<p>informative- You are absolutely wrong and I really wish you would not keep passing on incorrect information. Where you do yoru residency is not at all tied to where you went to undergrad school and not even particularly tied to where you went to med school. I attended a med school graduation from a highly-regarded state medical school (and very many state med schools ARE highly regarded) and grads had been accepted into VERY prestigious residency programs, including some that only took one or two residents from the entire country.
Many doctors claim that it is a mistake to attend med school at a place that is not a major trauma center in a big city. </p>
<p>Same with law. While the undergrad degree might matter a little more, it is not a deal-breaker at all with respect to law school admission to attend a state university. It’s mainly GPA and LSAT score.</p>
<p>It would be my parents spending all of the money. According to the government, we can afford to spend 70k a year on college, but between an unexpected baby and my 3 other brothers, we just can’t cut that (my parents said they can pretty much only do about 30K).</p>
<p>So I guess my question is do you think it’s worth it to maybe take on some loans myself for the Ivy league experience? Penn and Dartmouth seem way more enriching and fun and generally awesome than Uconn, but I don’t DISLIKE Uconn, and it would be a hell of a lot cheaper. </p>
<p>Right now I am inclined to go to penn or dartmouth; do you think this is a choice I will regret 200K down the road? </p>
<p>And med school is on me haha</p>
<p>200k down the road - yes you will almost certainly regret it. Especially if that 200k is for your first degree, and then you try to add another 200k+ onto it for med school.</p>
<p>There are a number of threads on this general topic in the Financial Aid Forum, and in the Parents Forum. You might get some comfort from reading through them. Just because your federal EFC is 70k does not mean that your family can afford to pay that much money. There are many nice options out there (UConn is just one) that would fall into the “Parents can pay 30k, I can borrow about 5k (with a Stafford Loan), and I can make about 5k with a summer job and a school year job” range.</p>
<p>There have been a lot of articles in the press recently about students who have finished college with unmanageable levels of debt. You can google around and find them, or you can just go to [Project</a> on Student Debt: Home](<a href=“http://www.projectonstudentdebt.org%5DProject”>http://www.projectonstudentdebt.org) and click on the tab marked “voices”.</p>
<p>[FinAid</a> | Calculators | Award Letter Comparison Tool](<a href=“Your Guide for College Financial Aid - Finaid”>Award Letter Requirements - Finaid) is a nice comparison tool that you can use. It will show you what your total debt will look like with different scenarios.</p>
<p>
Well you might not regret it but your parents will when it comes time for your 3 brothers + new baby to go to college. parents will be tapped out by the time your brothers go to school. But I guess that’s their problem, not yours. Go where you heart pulls you.</p>
<p>Also salaries in the medical profession are not what they once were. You can make a decent living but you won’t be making millions anymore. Disregard Informative’s input as he is well known for passing on incorrect info. Go to UConn for free, do well and you will be on equal footing with any Ivy grad in the same medical school. Sans 200k in debt.</p>
<p>Please don’t listen to informative. Where you do you residency is not tied to where you went to med school / undergrad. He’s still in college; he’s not a doctor, he’s never been through the process, he is giving you absolutely incorrect information. And what makes a residency “top” is not necessarily affiliation with a top medical school (can be, but not always). </p>
<p>The first day of med school, the students from elite undergrads sit right next to those from the directional state u’s, and they are all equal. The first day of residency, the students from top medical schools sit right next to those from state flagship medical schools. Medical school and residency is an incredible equalizer. The diff in job opportunities between top med schools / residencies and lower med schools / residencies isn’t anywhere near as great as the diff in opportunities between those going to top law schools and those goes to lesser ones. You know, BCBS doesn’t reimburse elite grads any more for procedures.</p>
<p>I quite agree with Pizzagirl. If you want to be a regular doctor who, you know, takes care of sick people, it doesn’t really even matter very much where you did your residency. Where you do your residency mostly matters if you want to be a professor and researcher.</p>
<p>I would go with UConn. This is the way I look at it-if you got into Penn and Dartmouth, you’re probably pretty smart. Smart enough to get into a decent medical school, and a decent MCAT score. At UConn, you won’t have to pay anything, and your grades will probably be higher than if you were to go to an Ivy. So you’ll actually be at an advantage GPA wise over an Ivy grad with a lower GPA.</p>
<p>And then consider the social aspect-UConn is a fun school with a great basketball team. It would probably be more “fun” than Penn or Dartmouth.</p>