<p>My D get admitted to WashU with 0$ scholarship and to Tulane with full ride. She is interested in pre-med, which one should she choose? Is it really worth 250,000 in 4 years to go to WashU that I have to pay for it? If she goes to WashU then I could not afford her to go to a medical school. </p>
<p>Any input will be appreciated.</p>
<p>Give your D the choice–$250K for undergrad or $250K for med school. </p>
<p>The fact is, most med school students take out loans in their own names for med school, so whether or not you can afford to send her to med school will not affect whether she goes. She would be so far ahead of the game if she could cut those student loans down though because you could help her out with med school costs.</p>
<p>I’ve known many a kid who has started college with pre-med plans who change their minds pretty early on in college. Just make sure that she goes to a college that will still fit her needs even if she decides not to be a pre-med student.</p>
<p>Well… sounds like you could give her the choice. You can pay for her undergrad, and she can be on her own to take out loans/pay for medical school. Or she can take a free ride for undergrad at Tulane, and you will pay for med school (or some other graduate school option if she ends up changing her mind about pre-med, as MANY students do). If you are willing to pay for one or the other, let her make the decision.</p>
<p>A lot of people complete their undergrad AND med school without anyone picking up the tab for $250,000 along the way, so do not feel at all bad about not being able to do both for her.</p>
<p>Cross post with ellemenop :)</p>
<p>Have you explained to her that if she goes to Tulane, you can pay for medical school? </p>
<p>To answer your question, there is no way that it’s worth 250K more to attend WashU. It just makes no sense. As much as we tried to stay out of our sons’ decision making process with colleges, we would have flatly refused to pay 250K when a full ride offer was also on the table. </p>
<p>Best of luck.</p>
<p>Excuse me? This is a jaw-droppingly clear case.</p>
<p>Pack her bags for Tulane and you’ll both be celebrating her Med School graduation in years to come. If you choose otherwise, I guarantee that you and your spouse will feel obligated to help w/Med school expenses and will deplete your retirement savings. And both you and she will be poor.</p>
<p>A full ride at Tulane means they think she’s a superstar. Congrats. Too bad for WashU – they missed the boat on her.</p>
<p>In this case, I don’t hesitate a second. Off to Tulane.</p>
<p>Tulane in a second!!!</p>
<p>OP, a longtime poster named curmudgeon faced this same dilemma with his daughter. She was admitted to Yale in the days before their current generous financial aid policies. She also received a full ride from Rhodes. She knew she wanted to go to med school, and she really liked the idea of finishing law school with no debt. So, she and her parents reached an agreement: she would take the full ride for undergrad, with the understanding that her parents would then help with (or cover) med school.</p>
<p>She had a wonderful experience at Rhodes. Did research, won big awards, and also had an active social life. She’s now a med student…at Yale. 
She’ll finish with little or no debt.</p>
<p>Your D might want to take a look at some of curmudgeon’s posts.</p>
<p>*Too bad for WashU – they missed the boat on her. *</p>
<p>Amen!!</p>
<p>And I agree: NO school is worth $250,000.</p>
<p>I recall that Tulane did downsize their engineering department after the hurricane, so if your D would be interested in certain sub-branches of engineering that the school no longer offers, then you’d have to give Tulane a much closer inspection.</p>
<p>You’ve given us schools at the two extreme ends of the spectrum. Any colleges in the middle somewhere?</p>
<p>We were in the same boat last year since my DS had a full-ride at Ohio State. They paid for everything and we only send him $100 a month spending money. Like you I asked several people including an author of a college book focusing on money issues the same question. They all said for our DS to take the full-ride. We are so glad he did; it just made a lot of sense and it really has taken the money pressures off of our family. My DS loves Ohio State and has had many great professors. He says he can’t imagine himself any place else.</p>
<p>We did the same thing. We said since we were not paying for undergrad that we would use the money we saved for his graduate school or a house downpayment. Plus not spending any money allows us to do some of the “extras” for him during the year. If there is a special study abroad program he wants to go on I don’t complain since I am still way ahead. When he said he needed a laptop for school I was okay buying it for him since again we were not shelling out any money. </p>
<p>Plus you will probablly find that a school who gives your child a full-ride really wants that child to succeed. Ohio State really looks over my son; he has multiple advisors; honors college priority registration etc.</p>
<p>In this day and age it is the smart thing to do. Both my DH and I went to small liberal arts colleges because they offered us wonderful finanical aid packages. We got great educations and experiences. We also did very well academically so we both were accepted to top law schools for graduate work. Not having any students loans for undergrad made it so much easier on us.</p>
<p>Wash U offered to let my son attend for full pay. Vanderbilt offered him full tuition, fees, a computer and a national merit stipend on top of that. </p>
<p>We bought him a nice little car that he happily drives around Nashville and uses to come visit us.</p>
<p>He will graduate in May with zero debt and a lot of money in the bank that was not spent on undergraduate education.</p>
<p>Your choice looks similar. If your daughter can get what she needs at Tulane, and I’m sure she can, New Orleans it should be. (In my opinion, of course. Don’t mean to sound like an authority.)</p>
<p>This is a no brainer. To get out of undergraduate with no debt, and you willing to pay for med school? She will have it made. Look at the future, physicans will very probably get paid alot less than they do now (while having it heavily taxed). A family member of ours is trying to sell his nice house, because he thinks he’ll be getting about a 40% pay cut (and he’s a specialist). It’s kind of sad, they put alot of work into that house and love the neighborhood.</p>
<p>We’re paying full pay at a high cost school, so I have no objection to that. But if it was going to be followed by hundreds of thousands of dollars of med school costs, and he had a full ride at a great school? No brainer!</p>
<p>Tulane is a great school. I agree with everyone who’s recommending the full ride with money for med school down the road.</p>
<p>I forgot to add this to my post, above. I would be willing to bet that if your daughter presented her options to faculty members at WashU, the overwhelming majority would tell her to take the Tulane offer. $250K buys a lot of future choices.</p>
<p>It isn’t like you are debating between southeast podunk state college and Famous U.</p>
<p>Tulane + Full Ride > Wash U. St. L. - 250,000</p>
<p>Tulane – I would NOT give an 18YO the choice. ARE YOU KIDDING? I realized that kids wont always accept what we say, but please try.</p>
<p>No school is worth $250,000 when you can get the same degree for $0. Definitely Tulane!</p>
<p>Thank you everybody. I am really enjoying to read in this post and it helps me set down for her (in my opinion) to Tulane. I posted this question in other threads and did not get enough answers comparing to “Parent’s Site”. It confirms that these parent are great. This issue has bothered me for a few weeks since the college admission released. My concern was that If she could get into a top medical school after Tulane.
After I read above nice suggestions and opinions, I won’t be sad to let her to get the Tulane offer. </p>
<p>I appreciated all of your time and sharing.</p>
<p>Pre-med graduates from Tulane do extremely well getting into medical school. This is from Tulane’s Admissions website:
admission.tulane.edu/documents/AAC…/Post%20Grad%20Opportunities.pdf (If the link doesn’t work, just Google “Tulane Postgraduation Opportunities”).
“Medical School Admission Rates: While the national admission rate to Medical Schools for all college students is 42%, Tulane students gain admission at a rate of 73% with a 95% admission rate for those students who earned a 3.70 GPA or above and a 33 or higher on the MCAT. Tulane students were admitted to extremely competitive medical schools in 2010, including Tulane, Harvard, Columbia, Georgetown, Emory," etc.</p>