Grad School?

<p>Is it better to go to a lower-ranked school with merit scholarships and then a highly-ranked med or law school,
or is it better to incur debt at a highly-ranked college and a highly-ranked med or law school?
In essence, does the prestige affect admissions, and is the debt worth it?</p>

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I’m sure it does on some level, but</p>

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probably not. </p>

<p>What if I decide that graduate school isn’t for me, would it have been better to go to the higher-ranked undergraduate college? @halcyonheather Or is prestige of school less important these days in terms of jobs, seeing as more and more schools are becoming harder to get in to?</p>

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I don’t know that it was ever that important to go to a prestigious school, unless you’re trying to get into investment banking or something like that. It’s nice to go to a prestigious college when you can afford it (and I wouldn’t automatically assume you can’t, because elite colleges are very rich and often give good need-based aid), but it’s usually not worth a ton of debt. </p>

<p>I can definitely get in to prestigious colleges, but I would need merit aid not financial aid due to my parent’s income and Ivy league schools don’t provide merit scholarships. </p>

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Are you sure of this? Have you run any net price calculators on college websites?
Merit aid and need-based aid are both types of financial aid. </p>

<p>I’m not comfortable disclosing more information publicly but I know for a fact that my parent’s income means I would not be able to get financial aid</p>

<p>At ivy league, essentially if you make less than 100k, you get some kind of scholarship( someone else please verify)</p>

<p>Scholarship = merit aid, so definitely not, but “everyone who makes less than $100,000 gets some kind of need-based aid” probably isn’t true either, mostly because financial aid eligibility isn’t just about income. </p>