<p>I have a full tuition scholarship to Northeastern University. I know I could be very happy there. To attend Notre Dame would cost a little over $20,000 more per year. In your opinion, is it worth paying this extra money to go to Notre Dame? I plan on going on to medical school.</p>
<p>Well, it depends. Who is paying? Will it affect the retirements of parents or education of siblings? Your job prospects after graduation may have an impact. It may take a long time to save $80,000. Northeastern is a great school, and you say you could be very happy there. Boston is a great college town and the city is full of internships. However, Notre Dame is a very special place. Think hard and try to predict if your choice of school will affect what activities you become involved with. Will you be appreciably happier at one place over the other? Depending on your major, you should be very marketable regardless. I am wrestling with these same questions from a parent’s perspective.</p>
<p>Let’s be realistic here. You have a full ride at a good university, and you want to go to professional school (whether you actually will or not is a different story, I can’t tell you the number of ‘PREMEDS!’ I know who turn into general studies after a year or two). Med school is going to be around 100-200K in debt, depending if you go in-state or private. Do you REALLY think it’s worth adding another 80K in debt on top of what is basically an extended MCAT prep major? Medical schools can care where you go to undergrad, but not nearly as much as they care about GPA and MCAT scores. And trust me, NO one will care where you do your undergrad after you have your MD. </p>
<p>I went to ND. I came out with about 18K in debt. For me, it was worth it. If your parents are moneybags and willing to pay it all, I’d say go ahead. But if 20K/year means 20K in loans per year, and you’re SERIOUS about medical school and not just ‘yeah, maybe’, then forget about it. Go to Northeastern. It’s a good school, and Boston is a WAY better town than South Bend.</p>
<p>As others have said, it depends on what kind of sacrifices you or your family will have to make for that 20k. Of course, even if your family is well off, it is a significant amount of money and is worth considering. But it is obviously more of an issue if that 20k will add directly to your loan amount or take money away from a sibling’s education fund, etc.</p>
<p>However, if it wouldn’t place too much hardship on you or your family, then ND might very well be worth the extra money. It is truly a place like no other. I went there despite full rides at a couple of schools and I don’t regret it at all. And I say this as I plunge deeper and deeper into what will be 200k of med school debt when all is said and done (though, to be fair, I graduated from ND debt-free). Speaking of which, 100-200k is a pretty conservative estimate of medical school debt, some programs will run you closer to 300k.</p>
<p>If you think your family can swing the extra 20k/year, you should look into the medical school acceptance rates (and the lists of medical schools where students go) of both schools. Because while no one will care where you did your undergrad after you get your MD, it does matter in med school admissions, both for the prestige factor and for the support you get throughout the application process (which is brutal, let me tell you). I know nothing about Northeastern and its premed program, but I can tell you that Notre Dame does a fantastic job of preparing you for medical school and helping you through the process of applying. You should also look into the various programs you might be interested at each school if you change your mind about medical school, since a lot of people do.</p>
<p>Thank you for the responses. To add…my parents are paying so either way I would come out debt-free. While it wouldn’t be a major burden for my parents to pay for ND, it’s still a significant amount of money that I do not consider lightly. I honestly think that if I choose ND, I will feel guilty for turning down such a generous offer from Northeastern and making my parents pay that much more when they could have been saving it. Also, I am confident that success depends on the individual, not just the institution. I know that with hard work I can achieve my goals at either school. The thing I’m still deciding on is whether or not the ND experience is worth it. My mother went to ND, and I’ve visited three times, but I still can’t decide what to do. I know that all opinions are biased in some way, but so many people I’ve talked to really treat ND as a very special place. Interestingly, my dad is actually encouraging me to go to Notre Dame, while my mom is not pressuring me in any way. Even so, I just can’t stop feeling guilty for considering turning down full tuition from Northeastern. I just don’t want to regret my decision.</p>
<p>Your attitude is impressive. The fact that you don’t know or aren’t convinced that ND is your choice seems like a strong indication that ND isn’t that important to you.</p>
<p>Good luck and best wishes on your decision.</p>
<p>There isn’t really anything that ‘special’ about ND that isn’t present at other schools. Notre Dame students and alumni like to say that so they get all warm and fuzzy about it, but trust me, it’s more-or-less like any college (with a healthy dose of Catholicism). I’ve attended four now by my count, and while I liked ND, I don’t sit and get all weepy about it. You go to class, you hang out with your friends, you go to sporting events sometimes, and you study a bunch. That’s about it. ND likes to talk up tradition, but schools like Princeton have way more of that. Yeah, if you go to Northeastern, you won’t get the whole football thing. But that’s only a small part of what college should be. </p>
<p>Plus, trust me, Boston is way way better than South Bend. South Bend is a terrible place to live.</p>
<p>I would have to disagree with Konzer. While there are many other great schools out there and a few with tradition rivaling Notre Dame’s, Notre Dame is a special place. Then again, since it is unique, it tends to fit a certain type of person and so for some people, I guess it is just another school. However, I think that is the minority of students there. I didn’t grow up loving ND and sort of went there on a whim, but once I got there, I was hooked. And now that I’ve graduated, I guess I DO get all warm and fuzzy about it. 
For me, my years at Notre Dame were special and I definitely noticed a HUGE downgrade when I moved on to medical school. I miss the community/sports/religious life/campus/etc at ND more than anything and that’s even with the fairly close-knit med school community and a definite upgrade in cities (South Bend to Minneapolis) I moved on to. And 100% of my friends from ND agree with me. And they have gone on to jobs and graduate schools all over the country (including Boston). Each and every one of them says that they wish they could go back to ND right now. Talking to the friends I’ve met in medical school or my high school friends who went to other schools, most of them don’t really miss their colleges (they say they miss their friends and maybe the smaller workload, but that’s about it).</p>
<p>South Bend is terrible, I won’t argue with that. But you hardly notice it, really. There’s so much going on on campus that you don’t need to venture out much. And I do have some very fond memories of its dive bars and sketchy clubs.</p>
<p>That being said, 80k is a lot of money. But, if it isn’t a great hardship for your parents, I would say go to Notre Dame, because it really is a great experience and will prepare you well for the next steps in your education. I agree that success is the responsibility of the individual, but it can’t hurt to have a little extra help. </p>
<p>Either way though, I’m sure you will do very well. Good luck with your decision!</p>
<p>Eh, I can only say what my experience was. I never lived on campus and I’m not Catholic (at all), so I suppose I just saw it as another school. A good school for sure, and one where I got a good education, but that was about it. Everything ND claims makes it special (minus the religious aspects) is about the same at Michigan from my experience. Ho hum drum.</p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong, I’m not bashing my beloved alma mater. There are plenty of things I don’t like about the position ND takes on certain issues, but that’s their own business and didn’t really affect the coursework I had. ND does have a really pretty campus, and I do try to make it out there at least once a year to walk around and remissness.</p>
<p>I have a niece at ND and she brags about the great alum network. Is that overrated or something that OP should consider when picking a school? Maybe someone can comment on that.</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s overrated at all. ND grads tend to stick together and the alumni network tends to offer a lot of support, both for social events in whatever city you end up in (from Chicago to Taipei!) and in terms of finding jobs/internships/research positions and such.</p>
<p>Second to previous post…our ND grad directly credits ND alum for pulling job app at an international company. Has been successfully employed for 2 years and is now back in grad school (part-time). Alum network is huge and is quite an asset for employment. I would suggest that OP consider the strength of career centers at both schools as well as alum networks.</p>
<p>Alumni groups can help a lot, and ND is pretty good about this. I don’t know many schools with the same number of alumni clubs as ND.</p>
<p>Its more important where you graduate medical school than where you get your undergrad. Notre Dame is an amazing school with a lot of purks but im not sure if they’re worth the 80,000 when you got a full scholarship at another good school you already love. The scholarship would be hard for me to turn down</p>
<p>Speaking as a physician, it DOES matter where you do your undergrad when it comes to medical school admissions. You also need to look at the medical acceptance rate and Notre Dame goes an outstanding job of getting their students into med school.</p>
<p>In the scheme of things, 80K is easily paid back once you begin practicing. </p>
<p>As long as you are pretty certain you want to go into medicine, I would go to Notre Dame.</p>