<p>I am sorry, but I am convinced that the OP is Andrew Ferguson, author of Crazy U:One Dad’s Crash Course in Getting His Kid Into College. He is looking for new material for his new book about College Confidential.</p>
<p>$250,000 or $0? I can send you a list of thousands of legitimate charities that can change peoples lives with the money while your “child rides free to Tulane”. </p>
<p>Better yet, send the money with your “daughter” to New Orleans and help support local charities.</p>
<p>This seems pretty clear to me, off to Tulane. I would definitely explain the whole situation to your daughter first though. I’m pretty sure she would end up choosing Tulane too.</p>
<p>-Jess</p>
<p>Tulane has a great group that will assist you with any information. Go to the Tulane forum.</p>
<p>To answer your question about the $250,000, Tulane is definitely the way to go.</p>
<p>I haven’t read the thread – but I think this is a no-brainer. Between Tulane with a full ride & WUSTL, for a pre-med student, then obviously Tulane is the better choice. Tulane is large, well respected university and your d. needs to conserve assets for med school.</p>
<p>If it turns out that your daughter doesn’t care for Tulane after spending a year, she might be able to transfer to Wash U and then pay the $50000+ per year.</p>
<p>Seriously, you have to ask? Tulane is an excellent school. Help your daughter understand the ramifications of major debt - sit down and do the math with her. It will be a valuable lesson.</p>
<p>i was not aware that Tulane gave a full ride to anyone.</p>
<p>I don’t know if this OP is for real or not but I can’t fathom anyone agreeing to pay $250,000 instead of zero. If I had a kid kicking and screaming about it, I’d drive him down, hand him some spending money and a plane ticket home, for Christmas cart his stuff into the dorm, kiss him goodbye then immediately change my phone number and e-mail adress :-)</p>
<p>Correct me if I’m wrong, but all MD schools base their admission decisions more heavily on GPA than the college attended. It seems like WU is more competitive than Tulane; therefore, it is perhaps relatively more difficult to maintain a high GPA. Some people (most don’t) might be curious to ask where her doctor got her MD from, but rarely do they want to find out where she got her undergraduate degree. Go to Tulane to save your family a bunch of $$$.</p>
<p>momofthreeboys: can’t stop laughing!</p>
<p>Only two choices, Tulane and WashU ?</p>
<p>Tulane says:
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."</p>
<p>Beware the spin. First off, an MCAT of 33 is the 90th percentile of test takers so Tulane may or may not have had anything to do with those student’s success. Second, I visited schools with my daughter (not Tulane) that also boasted of stellar percentages of their pre-med students matriculating to medical school, but it turned out that students were weeded out of the pre-med curriculum by various means if they did not show early on they would succeed. Austin College comes to mind: I think 80% made it to medical school, but close to 80% of pre-med wannabes dropped out (or were dropped) by sophomore year. I may have the numbers a bit wrong but I don’t think by much.</p>
<p>It’s no brainer. Tulane.</p>
<p>Just looked at your prior posts. Which are you? Child or parent? Real or hypothetical? And what happened to your apparent top choice of NU?</p>
<p>I agree. No brainer. Go with Tulane.</p>
<p>However, I disagree with this generalization:</p>
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<p>It all depends on what $250K means to the person. And how big the difference is. Wash U vs Tulane? Not a big enough difference.</p>
<p>Wash U vs University of Idaho? For a wealthy family that will not need to take out a loan and will still be able to pay for med school? No brainer. Wash U.</p>
<p>“I can’t fathom anyone agreeing to pay $250,000 instead of zero.”</p>
<p>Hi vicarious. Miss seeing you around lately. You’re right, totally depends on the financial circumstance and the schools. Certainly many people could have been financially better off paying 8K/yr for the local college and the kid living at home, than 54K/yr for the other option. In this situation, definitely a no brainer, I agree.</p>
<p>WashU is a great school, and lots of families (including mine) are full-pay for it. Probably most of the students accepted there have the stats to have gotten good merit aid offers at less selective schools (although probably at lower tier schools than Tulane).</p>
<p>If your D would have to take out $250k in loans to attend WashU, I would join the chorus for Tulane. But it sounds like that is not the case for your family. </p>
<p>My advice would be to let your D decide. She can choose to spend the money on undergrad at WashU and be on her own for any future med/grad school expenses, or attend Tulane and have significant family assistance for med/grad school. Your D is fortunate to have such great options.</p>
<p>It would surely help you if you provided more information about your situation. Given how much people are trying to help, not wasting their time might be a nice gesture. </p>
<p>On this thread you are a parent, and earlier threads you post as a student, so who are we talking to and who is making the actual decision? </p>
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<p>In earlier posts it sounds like you have to take out loans to cover the $250k but you haven’t clarified this very important aspect in this thread since the REAL differential would be far greater than what you suggest: </p>
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<p>As well, you seemed to suggest that NU, where you or your D got in, was the top contender: </p>
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<p>And it’s unclear what you mean by a full ride at Tulane. Perhaps i’m wrong but I thought their top scholarships only covered full tuition, not full cost of attendance. Thus the comparison is not actually zero to 250,000.</p>
<p>Wash U is NOT worth $250k for a pre-med student. Tulane will be just as good. Use the money for med school. Period.</p>