Johns Hopkins vs UCLA *Urgent*

Your link http://studentaffairs.jhu.edu/preprofadvising/groups/ says this:

It does not say how many of the applicants had committee letters and how many did not, nor does it break down the admission rate by whether the applicants had committee letters. It would not be surprising if the applicants with committee letters had a much higher admission rate to medical school. Note that http://web.jhu.edu/parentsadvisinghandbook/after-graduation/apply-health says:

Also, the stats in your link indicate that 45% of entering students are pre-meds, but only 20% apply to medical school (i.e. 44% of initial pre-meds apply to medical school; presumably the rest give up after insufficient grades, losing interest, or being discouraged by the committee). If 80% of those applying are admitted, then that means about 36% of intended pre-meds at entry are successful at getting into a medical school.

You’re right UCB, in the absence of data, it’s hard for you to make those claims (being discouraged by the committee). Give me a break. Alternatively, you could just go to Berkeley and enjoy a 51% med school acceptance rate without any guidance and then scramble to find an alternative career path close to graduation.

Here is the AAMC debt fact card, showing sample repayment times for sample amounts of debt:
http://members.aamc.org/eweb/upload/2015%20Debt%20Fact%20Card.pdf
Of course, if you are considering significant undergraduate debt, you can add that amount to get an idea of the payment of combined undergraduate and medical school debt.

Regardless what undergrad school one attends, the absence of a 3.8 gpa and 30+ MCAT score makes med school admission much less likely for a white student.

Regardless of what med school one attends, the presence of a $100,000+ debt is burdensome.

Burdensome debt tends to warp residency/specialty decisions.

As an aside, the divorce rate among doctors, although relatively low, is proportional to the number of hours worked. In my experience that is true. Save your money, pursue what you enjoy, and pick/treat your spouse well are bits of advice for a prospective physician.

<<< @blah2008
This makes zero sense. Are you saying UCLA students only apply to UC med schools? Because there’s a table below where the average acceptance rate to other schools out of state is atrocious in the link I provided.
<<<

absolutely not. In fact, the opposite. But once you have to apply OOS, your opportunities are more limited because you lose the “instate advantage” to publics. And the privates are getting an incredible number of apps.

the calif resident attending JHU gains little. The Calif residents are probably the ones messing up JHUs record…lol.

You don’t seem to understand but with the med school app process, the devil is in the details.

<<<
Regardless what undergrad school one attends, the absence of a 3.8 gpa and 30+ MCAT score makes med school admission much less likely for a white student.


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Agreed. But even if you have a 3.8 GPA, and say a 30-35 MCAT score and a good app list, if you’re from Calif, your chances for admittance into 1 MD school are worse than if you’re from nearly any other state.

JHU is a very hard school. I would not want to be a Physics major (one of the hardest majors there is) and on the lower end of the admitted class (assumed because you are on the waitlist). Physics & pre-med is a tough combo to start with – GPA is critical for med school admissions, and Physics is a notorious major for grade deflation everyplace.

How much of the ~$120K cost difference would you parents need to borrow? How close are they to retirement?

The following page shows federal student loan limits:
https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/types/loans/subsidized-unsubsidized
At both JHU and UCLA, for all students who borrow, the average debt at graduation is below these limits. It is about $21K for UCLA and $24K for Hopkins. It is nowhere near $120K (or even half that) at any college on the Kiplinger “best value” college lists.
http://www.kiplinger.com/tool/college/T014-S001-kiplinger-s-best-values-in-private-colleges/index.php

If you’re going to compare med school admission rates, try to get data for applicants with similar combinations of MCAT scores and GPAs. How do JHU’s and UCLA’s med school admission rates compare, not overall, but just for applicants with the same stats?

Hi all! I’d like to thank you all for your helpful input. I would have chosen UCLA if my circumstances didn’t change. I received very good news today. Hopkins has processed my financial aid appeal and gave me $56,000 in grants and offered me $5500 in loans. We have decided to go with Hopkins. Thank you all again!

Sounds like a good deal financially. Good luck with school.

Congrats, although I’m surprised they took this long to get back to you on an appeal. You’re getting a better school at an even better price.

Congrats on the new aid! What a huge difference!!