National Merit (or other automatic merit aid) Schools that allow use for med school?

Paying for College
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Hi! Is anyone familiar with which generous national merit (or other automatic merit aid) schools allow some of the semesters that undergrad NMF scholarship to be used towards med school?

My youngest is in 11th grade (homeschooled) and is taking a lot of dual enrollment classes and has already completed a lot of APs/etc as well. She’s considering medicine/medical school for her career, in which case a smart strategy to get through all her schooling as economically as possible is high on our agenda list. That would likely include trying to use a generous merit aid package to try to get through undergrad as cheaply as possible to maximize the Bank of Mom and Dad account to assist with medical school.

Our local state university offers very generous dual enrollment options for my daughter. By the end of this year, she’ll have well over two semesters of undergrad in her pocket (pretty much all of typical general ed requirements as well as most of the first year of premed science/math courses), so by graduation, she may well be half-way there to an undergrad degree. So, I’m trying to explore ways to use undergrad scholarships towards med school. . . .

My older two kids were both National Merit Scholars and choose U Alabama. It’s a great school. I know that at UA, the 10 semesters can be used for ANY schooling through UA, even grad school or law school. (They don’t have a med school there.) I was hoping to find out which other merit schools allow some of the semesters to be used for graduate level work, and if anyone knows of any that specifically permit use towards the first semester(s) of med school?

Thoughts? Thanks in advance!!!

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No. Most NMF scholarships are for undergrad only.

University of Alabama DOES have a medical school…

@mom2collegekids can the NMF merit scholarships at UA be used to partially cover medical school costs?

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University of Oklahoma gives NMFs 5 years of tuition remission, some which can be used for graduate or professional school.

However, admission to medical school works VERY different than admission to the undergrad. There is no guarantee that attending the undergrad as OOS student will lead to a med school acceptance at the associated med school since your student will be considered an OOS applicant. Neither UO-SOM nor UAB-SOM have OOS-friendly admission policies.

Per MSAR–

UO SOM OOS acceptance rate is under 1.5% (instate acceptance rate 46%, overall acceptance rate 9%)
UAB SOM OOS acceptance rate is under 2% (instate acceptance rate 37%; overall acceptance rate 6%)


RE: pre-med thru dual enrollment

Do not assume that medical schools will accept CC credits as fulfilling admission requirements. Many specifically say they will NOT accept CC credits. Those that do accept CC credits expect applicants to supplement those credit with an equal number of upper level coursework credits in the same field taken at a 4 year college. Adcomms like to see how well student fare in the more competitive 4 year college environment.

Also med school admission is more than just completing the pre-reqs. To be competitive for a med school admission, applicants need to have not just good grades and good MCAT score, but strong LORs from at least 3 college professors, plus hundreds of hours of expected pre-med ECs (community service with the disadvantaged; direct hands-on clinic experience [paid or volunteer]; physicians shadowing, leadership positions in their activities; clinical or laboratory research; and at some schools, teaching, TAing or coach experience.) done during college. (High school activities generally don't count.)
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Thanks for your insights! I will keep checking back to see if more folks have more info. To answer some questions/concerns.

  • The university where my daughter it taking dual enrollment classes is actually our state's flagship university. These are real college classes, taken on campus, where she's the only high school student in the room. So, I'm not worried about credits/whatever.

She’s simply out grown high school level material, so this is the best we can find for her at this time. I.e., this semester, at the university, she’s taking the 2nd year of Spanish condensed into one semester – very easy for her as she’s been learning Spanish since she was a toddler and the 1st semester of Geology with lab – already has credit for the 2nd semester from her 5 on the AP Env Sci exam from 7th grade; and AP English and Calc AB (both online with truly exceptional instructors . . . I’ve been through this rodeo before.) In the Spring, she’ll likely take 6-10 more college credits along with finishing her APs, but we haven’t chosen exactly which classes yet.

  • Yes, I'm sorry, I mis-worded my statement about UA. UA does have a med school, but it is in Birmingham, where UA-Birmingham (UAB) is, but it is run as an entirely different university vs the main campus in Tuscaloosa (and has an entirely separate, also generous, merit aid system). UA merit semesters can't be used at UAB for med school.
  • Your stats on OOS acceptance to med schools vs in state is very interesting. Can you please give me a link to where you get these stats and help me understand how to view them for other schools? This is quite a bit depressing, actually, because our home state has a med school here in our home town (where our kid could live at home or in another property we own) . . . but, TBH, I have NOT been impressed with the level of medical care at any of our hospitals (the teaching one or the other one in town), and the vast majority of the practitioners here have been exclusively educated at our local university/med school . . . plus, our state's economy and social situation is in the toilet, so I'm, frankly, hoping for better for my dd. I had previously expected she'd attend our local med school if she went into medicine, for the obvious financial reasons, but in recent years, I've come to think it may actually be worth the investment to get the heck out of our state . . . So, I am hoping to find a way to use her likely strong merit aid potential to keep undergrad as cheap as possible (but still high quality) and get her a head start on med school financing outside of our state . . .
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If you aren’t impressed with the level of care locally, the issue is likely not the med school (the curriculum and standards, etc. are remarkably uniform across the country) but either with the Residency programs these docs attended, OR with hospital management and policies. If the docs you see are board certified in their specialties, that’s a better metric of “meets standards as a physician”… but of course a poorly run medical system can take even the best doc and grind him or her down. A Board Certified Neurologist who is monitored and told to minimize the use of diagnostic lab tests is going to be a bit hamstrung- there’s only so much you can do with a physical exam and observation of symptoms- at some point, you need to examine spinal fluid or take a peak inside the brain…

I know several docs who have done the military, and several who took the loans offered by the government in exchange for service in an underserved area after qualifying. Worth a look…

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@mmom99

I gave you the source. Data is from MSAR. (Medical School Admission Requirements). I cannot link because the data is behind a paywall.

State funded medical schools have as their primary mission to produce physicians who will live and work in the state after graduation & residency. The best way to do that is admit students who already live there, have family and roots there. Also since the state government is the primary funder for the med school, there are often state regulations that set minimums for in-state enrollment.

Private medical school are under no such pressure to admit in-state students, but are significantly more expensive to attend. (Higher tuition because its costs not being under-written by state monies.) Here’s a spreadsheet of tuition, fees and health insurance costs for every US medical school–https://www.aamc.org/data/tuitionandstudentfees/

I will reiterate what @blossom posted. Medical education–public or private-- is remarkably standardized across the US. All students study the exact same material/content and take the exact same national, standardized exams to prove they have achieved the necessary knowledge base to continue to move through their medical education and graduate. Med grads need to complete a medical residency in order to become fully competent physicians.

Think of it like this-- earning a MD is like being handled a instruction manual for a 737 airplane and told, OK, you have the basic knowledge, now go fly that plane. Would you be a passenger on plane whose pilot has literally never flown ANY plane before just looked at the manual? I didn’t think so…Residency is like flight school. It provides the practical hands on training needed to be a fully functioning physician who can safely manage patients without supervision.

(BTW, your home state, WV, will license US-educated physicians who have not completed a medical residency, just 1 year of general internship. This is unusual. Most states require the completion of an ACGME accredited residency for licensing.)

If you are unimpressed by your local physicians–don’t blame the local med school , blame the hospital administration/policies or their residency training. (Or the physician’s own shortcomings—there are some lazy doctors who do not keep current with medicine’s ever-changing, ever-expanding knowledge and practice.)

There are “free” options to attend med. school–HPSP and NHSC. Both are service-for-scholarship programs. These programs pay tuition plus a living expense stipend.

HPSP–a competitive program that requires the scholarship recipient to enlist in a branch of military service, complete a military residency, and complete 4 years of active duty military service as a physician after residency.

NHSC–a competitive program that offers 2 or 4 year scholarships. Recipients are required to enter a primary care specialty (general internal medicine, family medicine, OB/GYN, or pediatrics) and after residency must work as a primary care physician for the same length of time as their scholarship in a federally designated, medically underserved area.

There a handful of med schools that are tuition-free. NYU gives every student a full tuition scholarship. (The students still need to pay their own COL in NYC and NYU has the highest admitted stats–GPA & MCAT–in the country.) WashU offers full tuition scholarship to 80% of their admitted students. (WashU is tied with NYU for having the highest admitted stats in the country.) Mayo offers full tuition scholarships to more than half of their admitted students. (Class size 40.) For the next 5 years Kaiser-Permanente in CA will give free tuition to all its students. (Class size 25.)

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And one last comment–

Residency matching is a national process, managed by a computer algorithm, and does not depend on what medical school a student graduates from. If your D wants to “get outta Dodge” after med school, she can. She has to actively choose to remain in-state for residency.

Plus the employment market for physicians is national. Your student is not doomed to only practice locally if she graduates from the state med school. She can literally go anywhere she wishes once she has graduated from residency. There are tons of recruiters happy to help her find a job in a location of her choice.

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The University of Alabama School of Medicine is technically a totally separate entity (not really part of UA or UAB), but it’s called UAB because it’s physically located there.

My son’s med school diploma says The University of Alabama School of Medicine, because technically, that’s it’s real name. But we all just call it UAB med because it’s how folks know it.

However, the NMF award doesn’t work there.

There’s another issue the OP isn’t considering. There’s no guarantee that a NMF student would even be accepted to the med school at the university of undergrad.

I do think that UCF and Oklahoma may offer this perk (they did many years ago, don’t know if they still do), but again, there’s no guarantee of getting in to the med school, particularly if you’re OOS…since many public meds have a heavy bias towards instate students.

A better strategy is this… use the NMF award as intended and be the best student ever.

My son didn’t need to go all 4 years, but he did because it allowed him to take his time, get a 3.99 GPA, and be rested before med school (not burned out at all). He majored in Chemical Engineering and got minors in bio, chem and math. He also took extra Spanish classes. He also took Italian classes and physical conditioning for fun.

And get the best MCAT the student can…BECAUSE that can mean getting a generous merit offer from the med school. My son was offered a 50% tuition scholarship to UAB med.

Your daughter will be (too) young to apply to med school if she only goes a couple of years of undergrad. Plus she won’t have the time during undergrad to build an appropriate resume, research, to form relationships with profs for LORs, etc.

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Also to better acquaint yourself of tuition prices and COA for med schools out of your state I would recommend looking at several. I know our state (NC) has a big difference between in-state and OOS rates. HUGE difference both public vs. private (ECU & UNC public, Duke and Wake private). Also the publics are capped at no more than 18% OOS, give heavy in-state preference and ECU accepts NO OOS. ECU and UNC along with some TX med schools have the lowest tuitions in the US. We moved here from CA years ago for the undergrad and grad school opportunities.
My son did receive several merit scholies for med school and a full fellowship for his MBA. But some schools where we thought he would receive interviews he did not along with some acceptances he was very surprised by. In the end he went with the best financial offer.
Med school and residency are a marathon not a sprint and seem like it is FOREVER. Son will be entering his last year as Chief and it has been a long road.
Keep in mind ALL college courses taken whether during high school, undergrad and post-grad must all be reported to AMCAS and all GPAs will be counted. 2 GPAs …total and science/math.
WowOutWestMom has 2 daughters graduated med school…so she knows TONS!!!

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Some schools have the medical school separate from the flagship. Colorado’s medical school is not in Boulder but in Denver/Aurora and is part of CU-Denver (and even that ‘main campus’ is in downtown Denver and the hospital and med school is about 10 miles away). U of Maryland’s med school is in downtown Baltimore and is considered ‘University of Maryland @ Baltimore’ (the professional schools).

She could check into U of South Florida’s 6 year program and see if the Benacquisto could be used for at least 4 years of that. Benacquisto is a state run NMF program that pays the colleges, so it’s not the college’s money/budget and they are always happy to have that money coming in for as long as possible.

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@katwkittens

Aw…shucks. Thanks for the shout out.

D1 finished residency in June and is now navigating the world of being an attending physician. D2 just started her PGY2 and is still seriously eyeing a sub-specialty fellowship that’s 3 more years after residency. (@mmom99 From HS graduation to her first professional job will take 15+ years for D2. As Kat says–that’s forever–or at least it feels that way.)

@mom2collegekids UO allows up to 1 year of NMF tuition remission to be used for med/law/grad school. This was current policy as of last year.

@mmom99 The road to becoming a physician is VERY long and filled with tons of personal (and financial) sacrifice, delayed gratification, and obstacles. Getting accepted to an OOS public med school is never a sure thing, even at schools that are relatively OOS friendly. I strongly recommend that you take Mom2’s advice: use your daughter’s NMF to minimize undergrad costs while allowing her 4 years of undergrad so she can build the best application resumé she can. Then once she has a MCAT score, you can cast a broad net for med school and find the best deal you can. Med school class sizes are small (anywhere from 25 to 250) and the needs of the school & the school’s mission come first. Unlike undergrad admissions, med school admissions is simply NOT predictable on a individual basis.

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If she will graduate high school with a lot of science and math prerequisites, why not have her finish any requirements at the local university, take the PCAT and apply to a 4 year pharmD program? Even if she ends up doing a 2 year residency, that would only be about 7-8 years.
My D is in pharmacy school and just finished a summer hospital internship, she learned a lot, went on rounds with doctors, medical residents and clinical pharmacists.
Or she could look into becoming a physician assistant. That would probably be a 4-5 year path.

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Thanks much for all for sharing your insights and experiences. I really appreciate the assistance and thoughts. All too fortunately, lol, I’m well aware of the long, expensive road of med education. The layers of complexity and expense involved is precisely why I was exploring this option.

Thanks so much, again! Please keep your thoughts coming! It’ll be a wild ride with this kid!

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@mmom99 did you ever get this question answered when you were looking for schools for your son? What did you find out then?

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No, I didn’t get it answered then. He decided to go to U Alabama and it’s not an option there.

Now I’m re-evaluating options for our youngest . . . I’m encouraging her to consider “all her options,” so I’m just doing the background research to try to identify good options for her to consider.

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What about U of Missouri at Kansas City? Its a six year program, that leads to both an MD and a BA I believe.

http://med.umkc.edu/bamd/
I don’t know if U of Missouri offer national merit awards there, though.