<p>You should go to NYU or Lehigh if, as you say, your parents can afford to pay for a private undergrad education. Then ,since you will not have incurred any undergrad debt, you can take out loans for med school.</p>
<p>How is this even a question? Sorry, but what will matter to a med school coming out of the likes of any of these schools are your grades in the relevant classes. The prestige factor is not only not strong enough, it's not really even there, IMO. Go to St. Johns.</p>
<p>Talk to St. Johns admissions department and ask them how their students do in med school applications. They'll have a better idea how their students fare applying to medical school than anybody here on CC. Bottom line, most of us are guessing, but the folks at St. Johns will have actual data and recommendations to give to you. =)</p>
<p>Best of luck to you, and congrats on the full ride! That's pretty exciting!</p>
<p>"You should go to NYU or Lehigh and pay. I seriously doubt it will cost you 40K per year after financial aid."</p>
<p>Would a family that makes $250k qualify for financial aid?</p>
<p>I would check out St John's medical school placement record. If it's low, just because it's free, what is it going to do for you 4 years from now. On th other hand, if it's high, then you would be better off saving your money.</p>
<p>My daughter was offered a full tuition to Trinity's honor program. We met many students that were accepted to Stanford, Brown, Princeton, but decided to go to Trinity because of their near 100% medical school placement, and that included students that have graduated then decided to go to medical schools later. My daughter decided not to go because she wanted a larger school, and she is willing to pay for graduate school later. So we have opted to pay the full fare.</p>
<p>It is always hard to turn down money. But just because it's free, it doesn't mean it's the right choice. If it's not the right school (for whatever reason), why would you waste 4 years of your life there.</p>
<p>Honestly, it seems to me that the difference in academic quality between Lehigh, St Johns' and NYU is not great enough to warrant significant expenditure. Check out med school acceptance rates, and if St Johns does better than 50% (a bit greater than ~national average), then take St Johns up on their offer.</p>
<p>One advisor told my daughter that the acceptance rate for medical school is not always meaningful. Many undergraduate schools won't write a letter of recommendation unless the student has grades that make it pretty certain that the student will be accepted. So of course their acceptance rate looks better than a school that writes letters of recommendation for all students.
You can try asking something like 'how many students in the Freshman class are Pre-med?', and 'how many students get accepted into medical school each year?' and compare those ratios. The schools will probably tell you that that doesn't mean anything either, as many students change their mind over 4 years.
My daughter is looking at vet school, not medical school, but otherwise is trying to make a similar decision.</p>
<p>What would your opinions be if it were full ride St Johns vs a top 10 school?</p>
<p>Well, you're going to have to pay for med school, too. If you're talented and driven enough, you can succeed pretty much wherever you go. I'd definitely take a full ride at pretty much any top-70 or -80 school over something obscenely expensive.</p>
<p>Of course, it also depends on what programs you're looking at. I'm going to U Pitt next year to study Russian, philosophy, and international relations (eye for law school). Pitt's got the #2 philosophy program in the country, the #1 or #2 (I'm pretty sure it's one of these) Russian program, and is well-reputed in IR as well. And I'm getting at least full tuition. I'd be a moron not to go to Pitt!</p>
<p>That's a good point, MominTX... Hadn't thought of that before. Not sure of a workaround, other than to look up the premed society at St John's and ask a few members what the lowdown is on whether or not as many people who want to go to med school are supported in their endeavors by the university... I would think that if the numbers are inflated, folks would talk...</p>