<p>Yea thats the question for friday. Insight appreciated.</p>
<p>I don’t need to tell you that $200,000 is a large amount of money!</p>
<p>Now, the question that you have to ask yourself is whether that is an enormous amount of money for YOU</p>
<p>If 200K will not lessen the quality of life of your parents and will not burden you with overwhelming debt after graduation, then go for it. This is assuming you absolutely love Duke.</p>
<p>In any case, UF is an excellent school, in some ways similar to Duke, so you have a great option there. I think most people in your situation would pick the University of Florida, as would I. It’s a great place to be.</p>
<p>Well since you’re even thinking about UF I’m guessing you’re a Florida kid like myself. If so keep in mind bright futures when you make your decision. And I know in general UF has huuuuuuge classes whereas Duke has smaller classes.</p>
<p>If it’s strictly a money issue have you looked at Duke’s financial aid program? It’s pretty good unless your parents got dough.</p>
<p>You biggest issue is: Will you have enough money for med school?
Med school will put you another 200K in the hole. There is less
aid for med school.</p>
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<p>well, I’m picking Duke over UF and I’m also considering pre-med. Remember that Duke is a school that many kids would die to go to. I spent the summer at UF and it is a great school. However, I met a guy at UF who picked UF over Duke because he said he wanted to save money in premed. But now he’s no longer premed and changed his major a couple of times and he said it wasted it a lot of time. I think Duke can be a good option if you decide not to do premed for some reason (they have many other great opportunities that can help you get into top grad schools). I know a couple of people who switched from premed to business in duke and got really good internships and jobs. Hope that helps!</p>
<p>There are so many more opportunities at Duke than UF, of course. A (really good) public state school undergoing budget difficulties vs. a highly prestigious near-Ivy with a far larger endowment. As far as premed goes, you can do more at Duke…but I guess it would be easier to stand out in UF. The UF Honors College (I assume you got in, since you also got into Duke) is great, but Duke is better–probably a lot better. You’ll do well in both schools, but better at Duke. The question is money, as others have said.</p>
<p>I picked Duke over UF (and Emory and WUSTL), and I’m going premed; it was a no-brainer for me. That said, if I had to pay sticker price at Duke, my decision would have been much harder.</p>
<p>Duke is not worth 200K more. </p>
<p>Also, for all that publicity that Duke has about its premed rate, I am suprised to see their placement rates to top med schools aren’t really statistically different from national average (acceptance rate reported on USN). In some cases, it’s better but in others, it’s worse (e.g. Harvard med school: 2 out of 143; 0 out of 128 for Stanford)
<a href=“http://premed.duke.edu/wp-content/uploads/2007-annual-report.pdf[/url]”>http://premed.duke.edu/wp-content/uploads/2007-annual-report.pdf</a></p>
<p>My point is if you do well at UF (which is highly likely), your chance of getting into any school shouldn’t be significantly different.</p>
<p>Ugh, I have to make the same decision today. Duke gave me no financial aid, and UF gave me a full ride. My parents are saying that its financially impossible for me to go to Duke :(</p>
<p>You know, I want to applaud Duke for its transparency about medical school applications and acceptances. That report is amazingly detailed and I don’t think that I’ve seen another top school that is willing to give out that amount of information (in fact, at most schools, you can’t even find the medical school acceptance rates). I wish all schools would be that open.</p>
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<p>^i agree. and btw, sending 3 to harvard out of 143 is actually relatively good. i think last year’s paper stated 10+ to harvard and 3 or 4 to stanford. so really, it depends somewhat on the year. but duke is definitely one of the strongest pre-med schools. i did a lotttt of research on this to make sure i made the right decision hahha.</p>
<p>I chose UF, there was simpy no way I could’ve afforded Duke. Sucks, I was so excited. Their financial aid is terrible…</p>
<p>same, i had to turn down duke for engineering:(:(</p>
<p>yes. duke is a way better school than UF.</p>
<p>it is definitely a very hard decision to make. I said to myself that I would pick Duke, Upenn, Northwestern and WUSTL over UF but not Emory, Rice, Vanderbilt. It all comes down to what you think is valuable. There are people who pay full for schools like UM, Rollins, Auburn, OSS public and there are people who turn down top schools to go to state colleges with great scholarships.</p>
<p>my short answer? No. Go to UF, and save the 200k for med school. When you’re settled in a career, people rarely ask where you went to med school, let alone undergrad. don’t sweat it.</p>
<p>Thanks for the link Sam Lee. I must say, that is one of the most detailed Medical School admissions fact sheet I have seen. I wish all universities published similar reports. </p>
<p>Duke’s placement into Medical schools is pretty impressive if you ask me. Roughly 100 students enrolled into top 20 medical schools. That’s excellkent, no matter how one slices it. I doubt many universities have better success.</p>
<p>This said, I would only recommend Duke over Florida for pre-med if the family of the student were wealthy and committed to funding both the undergraduate and graduate programs. Otherwise, I would recommend Florida. However, as cit aptly points out, MANY pre-meds change their minds after 1-2 years of college. Being a doctor sounds cool to the average 16-18 year old, and their parents often dream with them. But the fact is, Doctors go through 8 years of college and Medical school, studying very hard throughout those 8 years, just to get placed as an intern earning peanuts at some hospital for 3-6 years (depending on specialization). It isn’t until 11-14 years of sweat and tears that doctors start seeing the rewards that come with the profession. Medicine is designed for two types of people:</p>
<p>1) Those who are abnormaly driven (attending class, studying, doing research and working 12-16 hours a day most of the time when your friends are out partying and enjoying their youth should not bother you)</p>
<p>2) Those who have a genuine love for healing the sick</p>
<p>Yeah, UF is a good school. It’s not like we’re talking Missouri State (or Florida State :P) becasue UF is a well known, respected public univeristy. Gainesville is also very nice.</p>
<p>Their FinAid is not terrible. Maybe it was for you, but my family only makes about $100k a year, and I got like $35,000 a year in grants.</p>
<p>how exactly did you get 35k in grant with a 100000 income from your parents. My parents make 145000 total and I got 14k in grant and some extra loans. Are there some external factors that you aren’t including here?</p>
<p>^ Well, they do pay about $10k total a year in private school tuition for my siblings, but that’s it. Not sure why the packages differ so greatly.</p>