Georgia Tech with Stamps Scholarship or the University of Georgia Foundation Fellows are your best two options among the four.
If just between Vanderbilt with full tuition & Harvard, I would lean towards Harvard–but it isn’t my money being spent.
I would seriously consider the free ride at GA Tech (plus all the perks for study abroad and international research) and go to Harvard for grad school! Vanderbilt also sounds appealing with full tuition scholarship, but you’ll be a big fish in a small pond at GA Tech.
You can only borrow 5500. 6500 7500 7500 undergrad max. You will not qualify for any low interest private loans. The extra must come from your parents and not with you as co-signer. Just a FYI if you werent already aware.
Congrats on the great options. Good luck and let me know where you will practice so I can come see you when I get sick. 
dude… neuroscience… premed? Harvard… no brainer even with debt.
if you were going into engineering GT is the obvious no brainer.
If you can get dad on board with the loans it is definitely quite an opportunity to go to H
H
I think much of the advice here, but not all of it, is simply wrong, or at least incomplete, because it fails to take into account the realities of paying for medical school. Harvard is the easy and obvious choice here because admission to and payment for medical school is like undergraduate but on steroids. Admissions rates hover around 3-5% for even a mid level medical school. Costs are above 80,000 a year right now, and are going to be even higher in four years. So, when people say take the money at Georgia Tech they are assuming that your chance of admission and cost will be the same. I disagree. With 3% admission rates, Harvard is clearly the better choice for admission to medical school, even, as I readily agreed, GT is a great school and a fine choice standing alone. But, from the financial point of view, what you want for medical school is either admission to a low cost or free medical school (Baylor or Case Western) or merit money from the medical school. If you don’t get that, medical school is going to cost you nearly 400,000. The medical schools compete for the very best applicants with merit money. So, financially, that is the goal, to have such a stellar record that you can go to medical school at a far lower cost, and I would pay 80,000 all day for the chance to a) cut my medical school bill down and b) improve my chances for admission.
And, I am not, really not, picking on GT. I think it is a great school. But for kicks, just go to the websites of the top medical schools and see where the students came from. Harvard, Yale and the like are overrepresented. (Just to be clear, I did not go to Harvard I am just looking at the facts). How many GT undergraduates are at Harvard medical school. How many Harvard undergraduates?
And one more note for admission. This forum is littered with threads that discuss people who failed to recognize just how tough it is to get into one of the elite schools. Well, virtually every single medical school is sub-10% admission and requires the whole package of grades, EC, recommendations and more just to be considered. By way of example, George Washington Medical school has a three percent admission rate, lower than Harvard undergraduate. You can’t just get A’s and get in, any more than you get get into Harvard that way. All these people just assuming you can go or go to Harvard for med school, as if you could just walk up and get in. No way. So, if my dream was to be a doctor, and Harvard could facilitate that, it would be worth 80,000, particularly if was a way to cut down the huge cost of medical school.
I agree nearly 100 percent. With the exception that only looking at Harvard medical school as the analysis of who gets in doesn’t represent even 3 percent of the medical school population. If Harvard medical school is the end game then it is, of course, relevant. But that is not the practical application of your post. It is not reslistic for a Harvard undergrad to plan on Harvard medical school. In terms of sheer numbers I believe a school like university of Florida has the second most medical school admits in 2017. A big part is the size of the population. It may be for a pragmatic kid with h stats is to go to uf for free. Kill it and nail mcat. Then be assured of med school and perhaps h, but the best chance of zero debt for both. And great matches come from a lot of schools post med school
And I think he should go to Harvard too My point was just a discussion point.
I agree with @privatebanker on his first point but disagree on the second. @manyloyalties posits a powerful argument, but it’s built on a lot of assumptions. A lot of assumptions.
GA Tech knows that you’re an elite admit. This is why they are offering a full ride, plus a stipend (they are paying you to attend!), plus money for research and internet travel, plus several other perks. What is Harvard’s pitch? Nothing, aside from admission. Harvard will not sweeten the deal (there is no deal; you’ve been admitted; that’s it). Harvard will not work to compete with other offers. Harvard doesn’t have to. It’s Harvard.
But what does that mean? Listen, I am not anti-Ivy. I admire the students who have worked so hard to gain admission to the Ivies, Stanford, Duke and so on. But I also admire those who take a pass, knowing that there’s a better offer on the table. You’ll also be known on the GA Tech campus, and for the rest of your life actually, as the guy who got into Harvard but told them to take a hike. There’s something admirable about that.
You’re in a position that is common. You got into your dream school, but your family cannot afford it. I don’t know if this is because your family’s EFC at Harvard is too high or because your parents are not willing to pay it. Either way, Harvard is unaffordable. GA Tech is not. Full rides should not be treated lightly, and I know that you are not doing so. In fact, I got a strong sense that you know that GA Tech is the smart move. It’s the brand name and prestige of Harvard that is beckoning.
Google the story of the young man who was admitted to all eight Ivies, plus Stanford, Duke, and so on. He turned them all down to accept an offer just like yours to attend the U. of Alabama. Why? The same situation as you. He wants to become a doctor and felt, with the cost of medical school ahead, he would be best served (and save his family money) to take the full ride.
I wish you best with whatever choice you make.
@Hapworth I’ll take 50%. That’s a high match
If you need to take any loans, then GT all the way. Else, it’s harder to decide.
going to vandy for $7K is… a great deal. i would think about that. i know vandy doesn’t include loans in their financial aid packages, but would you be able to apply for some + work study?
Yeah, we had this discussion on another thread and I do not make light of a difficult choice and I appreciate your thoughtful comments. It seems to me it doesn’t matter that UF sends a lot of kids to medical school for this analysis. UF is much bigger and sends a smaller percentage. And a smaller percentage to to top schools. And I can see a path to going state school if you state medical school is cheap, and that is where you want to go, and the flagship sends a lot of kids. So, UT austin on a full ride might lead you right to a cheap, but top, texas medical school. Then your total debt might be minimal. But that is not the case here unless the plan is to go to a georgia State medical school. And, even then, I venture, going to harvard would likely result in merit money. My point overall is that it is way to simplistic, if medical school is in the cards, not to even consider how it will play out with the next, larger, expenditure of 400,000 and the 3% admission rates. I believe that you are far more likely to get in, and get merit money, coming from Harvard. In that case, the debt is worth it. I would say, at a mininum, nobody should simply assume that you can get the same output (cheap medical school), from a different input (GT v.Harvard but should at least look at the cost and stats from each school for medical school.
I just think this is not the correct analysis and I am not assuming anything, I am relying on facts. Its not the cost of the undergraduate, but the total cost of undergraduate plus medical school. Its also the ability to fulfill the dreams of a medical career. It is not accurate to say that GT will necessarily produce the same result, although it could. You are assuming that going to GT will lead to the same medical school and same cost as Harvard. I am not assuming anything. The facts show that Harvard students obtain admission to elite medical schools at a much higher rate. Go onto the websites of the top medical schools and see how many came from Harvard and how many from GT. Now, I don’t think it is a mistake to go to GT. It is a great school and free. If you do extraordinarily well, you will get into medical school and maybe get merit money. Life doesn’t give you pat answers. But, I guess I just don’t get the simplistic analysis that Harvard or other elite schools are just “prestige” or “names.” They offer a lot beyond the name and here it is a fact that those resources lead to admission to top medical schools at much higher rate than GT and likely a much higher cost. If you give that up fine, but don’t argue that all you are giving up is a name.
I just noticed that OP also has UGA Foundation Fellows as an option. That might be worth considering as well, given that there would likely be less grade deflation as compared with GA Tech. The ostensibly higher GPA at UGA (compared with GA Tech) might help with future admission to med school. Also, graduating as a Fellow (top student at UGA) would likely lead to some scholarships from some medical schools as well, assuming OP does not change majors along the way. In any case, there is an argument to be made for many of the great options on the table, although taking on debt is very personal and should be discussed carefully with her/his family.
https://mdadmissions.wustl.edu/how-to-apply/who-chooses-wu/. Here is a link to the Wash U medical page, one of the top schools over ten years. GT sent seven students, Harvard sent 56. GT did very well, reflecting that it is a fine institution, one student a year, similar to other schools. Wash U offers merit money. The question is if undergraduate plus medical school is $480,000 or $400,000, an astounding number but true, and Wash U offers merit money and a “free” md PHD program, are you better off spending the 80,000 to be one of the 56 or saving the 80 to be one of the seven. Of course it is a little more complicated than that, as students make their own way, and so a student admitted to Harvard and GT will likely excel at GT and be more likely to be one of the seven. But…I don’t believe that the resources and reputation hurt your chances. I am passionate about this subject because just like students don’t think carefully about the finances of college, they also don’t think about what has become the astounding burden of medical school cost and the sooner you think about ways to manage it the better.
Keep in mind that GT sends less students overall to med school, because most of their students have no desire. They’re engineers.
GT is far more then engineering, that just happens to be their strength. Harvard will be your best chance to get into a top med school, there is no doubt about that. Kind of like to know where you got your info on GT and med school applicant’s.
Go to Harvard if you are serious about Premed. MIT/Caltech/GTech or any Engineering schools make things difficult if you are Premed. Faced similar situation. We constantly wonder what if. I understand that 80K is big amount for most people but in the long run it may not be. I am not even taking account the prestige factor of Harvard. It will be difficult to go against your Dad’s opinion. If you are any of those ORMs, (Chinese, Indian or Jewish), you will thank yourself for not going to a grade deflated tech school if you are really into premed.