So, recently I was accepted to several smaller schools, all with enough scholarships/our own finances saved to attend these schools and graduate debt free. However, I also got into Georgetown. georgetown has been my dream school since I was a kid and my mom also works there so we get a discounted tuition. however even with this discount i would have to take out approximately 100k in loans for all four years of my undergrad. I think(?) I want to attend medical school but I’m not 100% sure, I do plan to pursue a career in the medical field though.
GU appeals to me bc it is an hour from home, it’s obviously very prestigious, and it is the only school with the biology of global health major. they also have a student run ambulance service and I am an emt, and I believe a georgetown degree looks very strong on a resume. they also have an early applicant program to their medical school where I could apply to their med school my sophomore year and avoid MCATS all together.
on the other hand 100k of debt is a hell of a lot. Some of the other schools I’m looking at are Rhodes College and Southwestern University. Rhodes especially is a pretty good school with a good acceptance rate into med school (90% I think). it’s a smaller school so i would have better relationships with my professors, however they don’t have the major I want.
please leave your two cents because I am desperate for some outside opinions. my parents are very anti-loans and if anyone knows anything about student loans or has any info they could leave please do that as well, thank you!
If you look up the poster curmudgeon, you will see that his daughter was accepted at Amherst and Yale. Both schools ended up being not affordable to their family. D took the scholarship at Rhodes, did well and went to Yale Med School.
I think @sybbie719 meant to write that both Yale and Amherst were NOT affordable to @curmudgeon family. The student went to Rhodes.
In terms of loans…if your parents are anti loan…where is the money going to come from to fund the extra costs for Georgetown? You, the student, can take $5500 for freshman year. If you are anticipating $100,000 in debt over four years…that would be about $25,000 a year, right? You won’t be able to get the $19500 shortage for freshman year all by yourself. This will require either that your parents co-sign, OR that they take out a loan themselves. If they are anti loan…would they co-sign a loan or take one out themselves? If not…you really have no way to get,that additional loan money.
As an aside, if you want to go to medical school, your undergrad major doesn’t matter. In other words, you don’t need that special major offered only at Georgetown.
Plus…if you do end up going to medical,school, you will have plenty of loans for that. Keep your undergrad debt to a bare minimum…or nothing!
Georgetown is a terrific school. But if it’s unaffordable…it’s unaffordable.
“they also have a student run ambulance service and I am an emt”
Just about every community can make good use of paid or volunteer ambulance crew members. This is an activity that wouldn’t be hard at all to keep up when you are in college.
As for the biology of global health major, if you carefully look through the course descriptions to find out what the classes cover, I expect that you can find at least some reasonable matches for individual courses wherever you would end up studying. Or you could find a good way to do some of that as independent studies.
“”they also have a student run ambulance service and I am an emt"
Virtually every community can use you as an EMT.
$100k of debt is crazy. And it’s totally insane for a premed.
Either way, your parents won’t cosign that debt anyway, so your question about that debt is moot.
@sybbie719 is right. @curmudgeon ‘s daughter went to Rhodes College with a high scholarship and then went to Yale Med.
Lol…I’ll be honest with you. If you’re premed or want some medical profession, not choosing Rhodes or any other college because it doesn’t have some unique bio major is just incredibly naive. That major at g’town won’t matter a bit once you’re in professional school. Not a friggin’ bit.
Med schools and other professional schools won’t give a rat’s patootie where you go to undergrad. They just don’t care at all as long as it’s an accredited US college.
Anyways…it’s a moot point. Your parents won’t cosign, so g’town can’t happen.
Now, which school is your second choice? Where all did you get accepted?
This is not worth $100k of debt. I’ve worked with way too many premeds to know that the above is an extremely rough requirement. I don’t care how strong of a high school student you’ve been. Getting a C in a BCPM class is common, or having to withdraw from a BCPM class is very common.
Have you ever looked over SDN or the premed section here on CC? Kids who’ve never had a B in their lives are suddenly freaking out over the C that they’re getting in GenChem or Orgo or even Biology. And even if they escape with B’s, since science/math classes are often 4 or 5 credits, a B or two in those classes can sink a GPA below 3.6 quite easily.
And look at the big picture. If you somehow managed to meet all of those very difficult req’ts, you’d have $100k of debt from undergrad PLUS $350k+ of debt from gtown SOM. By the time you were thru with residency, that debt would be well over $650k.
You have an interest in public health? Lol…no way should you rack up debt anywhere close to that.
I think you really have to ask yourself if you are definitely going to be a doctor as in feel it in your bones or you just think it might be a venue you are thinking about. Also, 100K is extreme debt. If you decide not to be a doctor and you graduate you will have about 800 bucks to pay per month for 20 years ( check terms) after you pay for everything else. Even with a good salary that’s a lot. If I were you, I would go to Georgetown, live like a monk for four years ( not spend a dime and live off campus) and work 60-80 hours a week in Summer and on breaks. I would also work during the year.
I agree with the previous poster, getting high grades in hard sciences is no easy task. And it states you cannot withdraw from a course so it is far from a given you’ll get into Med school that way.
Or just go to Rhodes. If you are sure you are going to med school it doesn’t really matter. If you stop short of med school Georgetown is a widely respected name.
You wouldn’t be able to get the loans to cover that anyway. The most you can take out in federal loans for a 4 year degree is $27k. Your parents would have to co-sign massive amounts of loans to cover those costs. Very bad idea, first of all. Second, even if you managed to go there and graduate, you’d be crushed under the weight of your debt. The debt would far outweigh whatever benefits you got from prestige. Schools like that are for kids with super rich parents. You need to sit down with your parents and find a good affordable school.
Jumping in to agree with avoiding student loans and try for Georgetown for med school. I am almost 40 now, and still have friends putting off buying a home, having children, etc because they are bogged down with student loans. And this is people with really good, really high paying careers, including doctors, that aren’t overspending (at least as far as I can tell!). I am thankful everyday that both my husband and I had full scholarships for undergrad (and in his case, grandparents that paid for a masters!). It’s really hard to fathom the burden that debt can be at your age, please trust us when we say to avoid it if you can.
