<p>I have a very good scholarship to an undergrad school. I also have been accepted into the accelerated BS/MD program. I am starting to find that the program will lead to me missing out on some college things (like I had hoped to walk onto a sport or at least do a club team, sing in the choir, etc.). With the demands of the program, those kinds of things probably won't happen for me. But the flip side is that my scholarship would continue into the medical school phase for the first 2 years. So, for a 6 year BS/MD program I would have 4 years of almost no cost due to my scholarship (4 year scholarship and yes I confirmed it would cover 8 semesters even with 4 of them in the med school).</p>
<p>This would save me a TON. I am trying to be reasonable and am evaluating the whole package of work load, etc. But financially, is this a HUGE thing to take into account or just a small piece of the pie? I have had no experience with loans or debt so I really do not know whether I am factoring this in too much or too little. Since this is the FA thread, I am looking for financial opinions here. How much should debt or the lack of it influence a choice?</p>
<p>It depends on how much debt would be involved after completing both undergraduate and medical school.</p>
<p>For example, if you go the regular route and end up with $300,000 in debt after medical school, you may find yourself pressured by debt to chase the highest paying specialties, even if you would rather do lower paid primary care specialties, for example. Remember that you probably won’t be able to pay off a significant amount of debt until after several years of residency after medical school. Once you finish medical school and residency at age 29 or 30, you may finally get paid enough to chip away at the debt. But note that the amount you have for debt service will be reduced by taxes and malpractice insurance you have to pay first from your physician income. Continued living like a student may allow paying off the debt in less than a decade, but most physicians do not want to live like students more than they have to.</p>
<p>Tuition and fees (not including living expenses) of medical schools:
<a href=“https://services.aamc.org/tsfreports/index.cfm”>https://services.aamc.org/tsfreports/index.cfm</a></p>
<p>I would say yes if it saves you $50,000 to $100,000 of student debts.</p>
<p>Are you absolutely positive you want to be a doctor? If so, saving some money is important.</p>
<p>I know a number of doctors who are musicians and either played instruments or sang in college…and continue to do so as practicing physicians. </p>
<p>Doing a sport other than for recreation would be challenging. But you should do recreational sports of some kind…good for your mental health.</p>
<p>Even our med school family members have time to do triathlons, go to the fitness center, play on recreational sports teams, ski, swim, etc.</p>
<p>The other question to consider is, is the school you are looking at one where you will be satisfied with attending if you decide not to go on to the MD program, or do not get a high enough college GPA or MCAT score to do so (bachelor’s/MD programs typically have a college GPA and MCAT contingency to continue to the MD program).</p>
<p>There are several things which should be addressed.</p>
<ol>
<li> Are you very serious about being a doctor with no unaddressed questions (are either of your parents doctors - so you know what lifestyle they have?).</li>
<li> If you went the traditional route what will your undergrad cost you?</li>
<li> What is the cost of the medical school per year you are attending if you have no financial aid?</li>
<li> Will you need to borrow money at either undergrad or grad or will your parents foot the bill if there are bills?</li>
<li> Is it possible to take an extra year for undergrad (3 instead of 2)?</li>
</ol>
<p>It is not easy to get into medical school if you give up the 6 year or 7 year or 8 year program that you are admitted to. However, it is really not the best idea to fast track it either if you are not sure about medicine. It takes a lot of effort and a lot more stress to do well in all your classes to maintain your GPA, do well in MCAT and then go through the whole application and interview process. Unless there is a safe medical seat for you in your home state and it has an easy instate process, it takes at least 2-3 semesters of serious stress out of the 4 years to get back into a medical school. You also need to do all the additional activities to improve your resume like volunteering, shadowing, research etc. So it is not going to be a cakewalk during those 4 years where you can walk on and play a sport for 4 years while med school seat stayed open for you. You do need to spend a lot of time working on the med school application needs.</p>
<p>If you need to borrow money, you need to remember there is interest being added each year while you are studying. So the cumulative burden of last two years of med school vs 4 years of med school vs 6-8 years of college gets to be a huge pressure once you become a doctor. It is expected that you will barely be able to keep up with a minimum payment during the residency and/or fellowship which means most of the debt you have accumulated will stay with you long after you started your medical career. So being able to afford medical school is a CRITICAL factor in your decision making, worth a lot more value than playing a sport. Some students may have the luxury of parents footing the bills but if you need to borrow, then it will impact you for at least 10 years after you start practicing.</p>
<p>"I have a very good scholarship to an undergrad school. I also have been accepted into the accelerated BS/MD program. I am starting to find that the program will lead to me missing out on some college things (like I had hoped to walk onto a sport or at least do a club team, sing in the choir, etc.). "
-Well, my D. was accepted to 3 bs/md, one was NOT accelerated and that was the one that she has chosen specifically because it was not accelerated. So, while having guaranteed spot, she had full 4 + 4 years and the first 4 were tuition free. Despite this fact, while she had great UG experience filled with some new things for her, she still was not able to do her sport, she had tried it at the club level for full freshman year and even participated in competition. That was something that she was heavily involved since she was 5 y o and was very very good at, to the point that few college coaches were actually pursuing her. Seh said that she saw few pre-med doing the sport, but they would have to give up somehting else, which my D. was not willing to give up.<br>
Talking stricly about combined program, in D’s case it was very well worth it. She was not as much stressed about her future, all she needed was 3.45 / 27 (pretty low stats if applying to Med. School regular route) and she was in. Actually because of her relaxed state of mind about the whole experience, she was able to attain 3.98 / 35 and was the only one who applied out of the program (her program also allowed to retain the spot if applying out). She was successful at that and again, going to interviews knowing that you have a spot already is also a very different experience. She is a 3rd year Med. Student at Med. School of her HS dreams.</p>
<p>Yes the accelerated part is the concern. I didn’t realize how demanding and restricting it would be. I am still thinking this through. Thanks for all the feedback.</p>
<p>^You do realize that you are trading one stress with another? yes, in accelrated case, they carry about 21 hrs and take MCAT (if required) after freshman year. However, your spot at Med. School is quarranteed if you fullfill requirements (which are pretty low ). Regular Route is filled with anxiety about the future. About 85% of original pre-meds never apply to Med. School. Out of those who apply, only about 43% gets accepted to at least one school. You will be sitting thru several hours of MCAT having all this burden on you. However, people get accepted and the loans are huge in most cases. My D. was able to avoid all of the above (including loans) because of NON-accelerated bs/md and full tuition Merit award for her UG years.<br>
In your situation, you have to choose your stress.
Stress #1 - pushed with many hours (but again, you will not need to participate in anything that my D. has chosen or had to because of planned possibility to pursue Regular Route. These are: 2 minors, sport for one year, sorority - board member - lots of leadership experiences, long term volunteering, job, shadowing, 3 years of interning in Med. Research lab, long trip abroad, something like Paper Making class, which actually was one of the most time consuming. YOU WILL HAVE NONE OF THESE.). So, if you subtract all that my D. was doing and all of it was during academic year, she had absolutely free summers, not a single class (BTW, you will not have summers off in accelerated program), so if you account for all of these, 21 hrs may not be too bad at all. You will have guarranteed spot and save whole ton of dough.<br>
Stress #2 - anxiety about future. This would be very high on my D’s list, but it depends on personality.
I am not advocating one way or another. You have to decide which stress is yours.</p>
<p>Thanks and you are right. It will be one stress or another. No free summers with the accelerated (required summer school). It also no worries about filling my summers with specific things ‘worthy’ of med school admissions.</p>
<p>The accelerated program is your best option if your 100% dead set on being a physician. It’s a shoe into your dreams. If your not set on being a doctor though, then you should really reconsider what your doing, and what are the exit options.</p>
<p>You can exit (by force or choice) anytime before you start the medical school part and continue on with undergrad and with the full undergrad scholarship in place, I have confirmed. But you are then ‘behind’ those who did the traditional route in terms of stacking up leadership, diversification of interests, etc. that the others have been doing while you were plugging away with 19-21 credit hours. The biggest benefit seems to be that those who push through and make with grades, generally head right to the medical school with lots of support and a sense of familiarity (and having saved tens of thousands of dollars if on scholarship).
I am going to give it a try. A couple of people said they actually did have life during their BS/MD days and quite thoroughly enjoyed their undergrad time, though it was shorter than that of most.</p>
<p>My friends who have done the ‘fast track’ don’t regret it… I mean, it was tough but in the long run I think it’s 100% worth it.</p>
<p>You will have stress one way or another. The best for my D. was non-accelerated bs/md, he had chosen non-accelerated over accelerated.<br>
However, if you do not have a choice of non-accelerated, then the “normal” stress is the one for every single pre-med. The fact that only about 43% of applicants get accepted to Med. School regular route is looming over pre-med for all 4 years.<br>
So, in your case, the financial side is very very important. However, the fact that you may not get in regular route is what everybody worry about. I do not know the reauirements of your program. In D’s bs/md all she needed was 3.45/27. This is far below what regular route pre-meds need which is roughly 3.6 / 31. D. took MCAT, since it was required in her program. This required score of 27 kept her very calm during exam and enabled her to get a 35. Since she still had huge amount of ECs, alhtough they were not required in her program, and her college GPA was much higher than requirement, she decided to apply out, while still keeping the spot in her bs/md. Believe me, going to Med. School interiviews while you already have one spot is all different story, and it makes interview much more relaxed and enjoyable for both sides.<br>
I say, forget financial side, evaluate what I said here. Having a spot right from the beginning or facing huge uncertainty and much much higher requirements is what you need to choose from, not the financial side.<br>
BTW, D. choose non-accelerated bs/md exactly for the reason that she wanted normal college experience. However, her sport was out after freshman year. She was just like you 'walk onto a sport or at least do a club team". After being part of the club team during frehsman year, she realized that she does not have time for it. </p>
<p>What does a sport have to do with the OP? Since you brought it up, many students on the premed track have time for a sport, my daughters was approx 20 hours a week. Your D chose to spend her time in a sorority…to each their own. </p>
<p><<<<
What does a sport have to do with the OP? </p>
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<p>?<br>
The OP mentions that he wants to have time for a sport during undergrad and worries that an accelerated program will leave little time for that…and I agree. </p>
<p>Is this Howard’s BS/MD program? Congrats. Is it usual for them to let people know so early? Or did you get accepted last year and delayed enrollment?</p>
<p>Only considering monetary value, those two years are worth between $300,000 - $800,000 depending on your starting attending salary. Obviously it matters what you specialize in, and whether or not your medical school would allow you the opportunity to do a residency in such a specialty, but if you think about it this way you by not attending college for two extra years you would not only save medical school tuition, but also create an extra half million dollars with which you could pay off loans for the last two years of medical school easily. Remember interest compiles.</p>
<p>Haha , let us all know on this forum where those two years are between 300,000 and 800,000. I will stand in line for that line that doesn’t exist. Haha, still laughing.</p>
<p>That is one of life decisions. Whether the activities for those two years are worth that dollar amount in debt if the family is able or willing to pay them outright. Many of us parents pay for amenities for our kids college years. My kids all could have gone to college for pretty much free under some option or an other,but we paid for them to get what they wanted, up to a limit. One kid wanted to go to an OOS publc when it was twice the price of his instate choices which monetarily made no sense. But that was what he wanted and it was within the financial parameters so we paid for it. Whether he got a better education is questionable, but we paid for him to get what he wanted.</p>
<p>Another son could have played football at his school. Yes, he “made” the team during their walk on stint and did very well in their “tryouts” and there was a decent chance he would have been able to play. Had the size, speed, strength, anyways. But he wanted to be a MT major, and there was no way he could do both. Absolutely no way. So he went with the choice he liked more. </p>
<p>Life is about those choices. Is it worth it to you to pay $X to get to pay football or have the student llfe you will miss if you enter that BA/MD program? That’s the question. You are not the first nor will you be the last who has to make such a choice, and you will get similar choices in life, This is easier to deal with because it is such a specific dollar amount right there in addition to loss of possible opportunity. One of the big draws of these BA/MD programs is that they enhance the chances or make it pretty much certain you get into medical school, which can be a huge uncertainty and lot of stress for most people. </p>