<p>Since kids going into med school have hit 21 years old, does parent income play any part in receiving aid? Is there anything like a FASFA requirement?</p>
<p>Yes. Parent income is still a factor and the FAFSA still needs to be filled out for need-based aid.</p>
<p>I thought med students/professional students are considered independent for FAFSA purposes?</p>
<p>Googling… I think I found the answer? Graduate students must fill out FASFA…but are considered independent.
I think that would make almost all grad/ med students in financial need. </p>
<p>Ah! If only it was that simple!</p>
<p>Public med schools require only FAFSA for instate students. Many OOS public and (all?) private med school require FAFSA plus a different FA form called Needs Access filled out by parents and spouses (if that applies). (And if you thought that Profile was intrusive–wait until you see NA!)</p>
<p>Needs Access will assigned a family EFC based upon parental, student and student spousal financial info.</p>
<p>Needs Access’s family financial information is required even if the student is older and has self-supporting for a number of years. Different schools have different age cut offs for parental financial info–but this is often well into a student’s 30s.</p>
<p>FAFSA-only public med schools generally only offer federal unsubsidized student loans. (Max $40,500/year at ~6.8% apr.) </p>
<p>Very top private med schools with large endowments require all students take a base unit loan (full FAFSA usually) and pay the family EFC before any need-based aid is offered.</p>
<p>I do not know if parents income is any factor. I do not think it is for the Merit award. As far as FASFA goes, everybody submits FASFA, so everybody get offer of loans. We have done it every year with one and only one intention - to decline. But I guess, it is a good thing to fall on if something happens. No more for us - one payment left, got to pay no matter what since we declined the loans. Kepp in mind that all loans are very expensive, high % and additional fees. So, if you have it available, Equity loans make much more financial sense. </p>
<p>ParkTN</p>
<p>At many/most med schools the only aid is loans…and sometimes small merit awards. Some of the richest SOMs do offer some grants, but usually there are also loans.</p>
<p>Since nearly all med students have low EFCs themselves, the only fair thing to do is look at parent incomes if the school has some grants to award. </p>
<p>However, there are med schools that offer merit…some large, some small. There have been reports of high stats applicants getting large offers to entice them away from other top schools. </p>
<p>There are smaller merit awards offered at a number of schools. My son who had a good but not high MCAT, was offered merit from all med schools that accepted him. The awards ranged from 10k per year to nearly half-tuition.</p>
<p>If I remember correctly, at some point in the app process (sometime in the spring) med schools become aware of the other med school acceptances and merit offers…so that can compel some to offer merit or more merit.</p>
<p>Pritzger is one that offers huge scholarships…before income is known. D was offered 40k per year…but their 4th year COA goes up to 93k…this was a few years ago. Even with that offer, her school is about 10k less per year with their aid. There was a student here on cc that got full tuition at pritzger…I think he is attending. There is aid out there…just sporadic.</p>
<p>Interesting. I would not have realized med schools know where each premed has been accepted and the offers available. So would applying and taking an early decision put you at a disadvantage for aid then?
I’m just thinking out loud… He will apply in June for 2016. His app should look pretty good, although it would look even better if he finds time for some research.</p>
<p>^Actually, at least in D’s case (and I might be wrong as it may be a coincidence), but we felt that some aceptances trigger more interviews, especially when schools are known to compete for the same students. There is one pair is very well know, and these 2 Med. Schools happened to be D’s finalists. None offerred any Merit, but as I mentioned one apologized for no Merit offer. Early application is always an advantage and many said it is a big one. But then, you cannot decide early, since your own decision is based on many factors and again, D. could make a decsion only after attending Second Look events at both of her finalists, her decision actually flipped, she almost was ready to go to a different Med. School. </p>
<p>That question was prompted because living in TN and looking at Vandy info. They send out 1st round of acceptances in Dec, 2nd round in Feb ( maybe). But require response in 2 weeks. Are the decisions always required that quickly?</p>
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<p>In March, AMCAS sends a list of all the schools a candidate has been accepted to to all the schools that have accepted a particular student. So the med schools know exactly where a candidate has been accepted. They don’t get to see if a candidate has been offered merit or other awards.</p>
<p>Being a high stats candidate can be doubled edged sword. Sometimes a school will see a candidate holds multiple acceptances to higher ranked schools and will assume they’re going elsewhere so won’t offer merit. </p>
<p>Early decision for medical school is extremely disadvantageous to an applicant. </p>
<p>Why?</p>
<p>Because until the ED school makes a decision (required universal decision date is Oct. 1), an applicants is prohibited from applying to any other schools. He can only send out additional primary applications after he has been rejected by his ED school. The problem is by the time he sends his primary, receives and completes the secondaries, (say mid to late October), many rolling decision schools (which are most medical schools) have already extended 85% or more of the interview invitations and in some cases have already filled more than half of their class.</p>
<p>Generally ED should be used only if an applicant has a strong, compelling reason to want to attend a particular school. (Like being a caretaker for an ill or incapacitated family member or having multiple children attending local schools–things which would make relocating difficult.) </p>
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<p>Yes. But unlike undergrad, a student may hold multiple acceptances until mid-May. (Starting next year, it will be until April 30.) </p>
<p>AMCAS traffic rules:</p>
<p><a href=“https://www.aamc.org/students/applying/recommendations/370684/trafficrules-applicants.html”>https://www.aamc.org/students/applying/recommendations/370684/trafficrules-applicants.html</a></p>
<p>@ParkTN </p>
<p>Here are some data points for you:</p>
<p>1) Average indebtedness at med school graduation:</p>
<p><a href=“https://www.aamc.org/download/152968/data/debtfactcard.pdf”>https://www.aamc.org/download/152968/data/debtfactcard.pdf</a></p>
<p>(Please note that the data are skewed because nationally ~15% of all medical graduates end up with NO loans. This is not due to merit awards, but due to financing by the Bank of Mom and Dad, by federal service programs like HPSP and NHSC or the MSTP program for MD/PhD students.)</p>
<p>2) Tuition & fee reports for public and private medical schools for 2013-14</p>
<p><a href=“https://services.aamc.org/tsfreports/select.cfm?year_of_study=2014”>https://services.aamc.org/tsfreports/select.cfm?year_of_study=2014</a></p>
<p>3)
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<p><a href=“https://medschool.vanderbilt.edu/financial-services/medical-students-financial-assistance”>https://medschool.vanderbilt.edu/financial-services/medical-students-financial-assistance</a></p>
<p>Also see p. 61-2 of the Catalog for a list of specific scholarships</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.vanderbilt.edu/catalogs/medical/Medical_Catalog.pdf#fin”>http://www.vanderbilt.edu/catalogs/medical/Medical_Catalog.pdf#fin</a></p>
<p>Be aware that not all of these scholarship are for 4 years, nor are all awarded to incoming MS1s.</p>
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<p>What do you mean by “taking an early decision”??? Are you talking about suiciding? or what? </p>
<p>You can “accept” several acceptances…but once the deadline comes in the spring (don’t remember the date), a student can only hold ONE acceptance. </p>
<p>Edited to add…</p>
<p>Oh, I see that you were concerned about Vandy. Many/most SOMs will ask you to deposit/accept within a couple of weeks. Those acceptances are NOT binding…and often deposits are refundable. </p>
<p>
Wow. The median of private med school students at graduation is $190K. I have never been in such a heavy debt in my whole life.</p>
<p>GA2012MOM, It seems your loved one has done pretty well financially, likely much better than the average. I think the base unit loans for 4 years at DS’s school are already about $100K. Last time I looked at students’ indebtness data for his school, the average at the time of graduation is about $124K if I remember it correctly. Hopefully his debt level could be under this average number.</p>
<p>I think ED or EA or SCEA is not very popular among med school admission as compared to college admission, even if such admission may be available at some med school. on the other hand, the wait list movement is much more common for med school admissions. Somehow I have the impression that quite a few med schools may end up building their incoming classes by calling their students individually very late in the admission cycle. Unlike colleges, few med schools like to publish their “yield”. Occasionally there may be a lot of shuffling of students or “chain reaction” (school A loses a student to another school, so it calls and gets another student from school B. Then school B raids school C for one of its admitted student to build school B’s class, and so on) at the last minute (I exaggerate it here), and the over-admit phenomenon is also not uncommon and some school may offer some incentive (money) to ask some of its students to matriculate one year later – quite a messy process. It is all because of the small class and the need to control the size of the incoming class as precisely as they can.</p>
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<p>EA and SCEA don’t exist on the medical school level.</p>
<p>Early Decisions (EDP) does exist.</p>
<p>See AMCAS’s requirements for EDP here: <a href=“Medical School Admission Requirements™ (MSAR®) for Applicants”>https://www.aamc.org/students/applying/requirements/edp/</a></p>
<p>A several of the adcomms over on SDN have said that top medical schools need to accept ~3-3.5 students for every available seat in order to have a sufficient number of matriculants start in the fall. </p>
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<p>Yes…there was a post a few years ago where someone knew someone who was literally driving to his med school when he got a call that he had been admitted to his top choice (likely cuz there was a last-minute opening). He turned his car around, went home, and booked a plane tix to his dream SOM. so, likely his other school then scrambled to fill his spot…and so on. </p>
<p>
WOWMom, Your memory is always better than mine. Thanks for the correction.</p>
<p>I think that even for a state med school which does not require Need Access, the student who needs FA needs to file FAFSA (esp. parents’ FAFSA.) It is because the school needs to know the financial status of the parents and the student in order to hand out scholarship (however little it may be) in a “fair” way. (Unless it is a purely merit based scholarship from some SOMs, e.g., BAMA or WUSTL.)</p>
<p>^^
Yes, UAB and USouthAlabama SOMs’ merit awards seem to be purely merit-based. They may also have some that have a need component. </p>
<p>Do I have this now…First is primary app, then secondary, then interview. Then med schools send out acceptances? He would have a couple of weeks to respond putting down some cash to hold an acceptance? And can hold multiple acceptances until a set date (April 30, 2016). At which time he must have committed to only one school?
I did not realize that ED did not allow you to apply elsewhere until that school makes a decision.
I’m learning slowly.</p>