<p>I want to become a pediatrician and I know that I have to take the MCAT. I have been doing dual enrollment and there are not that many schools. By the time I finish my senior year I will have my freshman year done and out of the way, but there are some schools that accept dual enrollment credit, which will save me a whole lot financially, but the problem is that I will have to choose my major when I get in. Would it be wise if I went to a school that didn't accept dual enrollment credit, so that way I will have an extra year to be prepared for the MCAT, and I will have a really high GPA my freshman year of college, even though I will finish it by the time my senior year ends.</p>
<p>Even if a school accepts dual enrollment credit, you don’t need to use it, and you can choose to start from scratch. However, be forewarned that dual enrollment credits will count towards the GPA that med schools use</p>
<p>@jazzcatastrophe Yeah that’s my point. They will count my dual enrollment stuff too, but how ill that benefit me financially because medical school is really expensive?</p>
<p>will*</p>
<p>Besides for me personally, I am looking at schools who have a reputation for rigorous, beneficial, science programs that will prepare me for the MCAT, and they are really expensive.</p>
<p>It really depends on how expensive the college you end up going to is/what kind of FA you get. If it’s not that pricey, I don’t think it would make all that much of a difference, because many people end up $250,000 in debt after med school</p>
<p>Yeah, but they have to pay their student debt for their undergrad, which is like another 100,000</p>
<p>You cannot borrow $100,000 on your own for your undergraduate degree. If you borrow the maximum federal loans ($5,500 freshman year, $6,500 sophomore year, $7,500 junior year, and $7,500 senior year) you will end up with $27,000 of debt. Beyond that, you need to find a fully qualified co-signer who will pay off your loans if you can’t, or your parents will have to borrow the money (in which case they are on the hook for it, not you).</p>
<p>I was just giving an example saying that student debt is a lot. So refraining to what you said @happymomof1 , my parents will have to face crippling debt all because of me wanting to get the best education possible. On the schools where I want to go to, are the top schools and are pricey, with a yearly total of nearly 60,000. Not to try and bash my parents or anything but, my parents never looked at the financial aid from these schools, which I heard are a good payoff for the tuition and fees. Would it be better if I saved myself financially by finding schools who will accept my credits, or try to go to the top schools with beneficial financial aid?</p>
<p>To find out what the financial aid will be like, try the net price calculator on each school’s web site. If you think undergraduate schools can be expensive, try looking at medical school costs – <a href=“https://services.aamc.org/tsfreports/”>https://services.aamc.org/tsfreports/</a> lists tuition and fees (not including living expenses), and note that most pre-meds are lucky to get into one medical school, so you may not have much of a choice to choose a less expensive one among several options.</p>
<p>Medical schools may frown on repeating college courses you have already taken (dual enrollment courses count as college courses), so you may have to continue on to take more advanced courses at the college you attend if the dual enrollment courses were in the pre-med subjects.</p>
<p>Just because you go in with 10 classes doesn’t necessarily mean you will shorten your stay in college or that you’ll have to declare earlier. It depends totally on what your plan is. If you WANT or need to save money, go to an instate public university as your credits will pack the most punch. Use those units to graduate a year early and that will save you money. However, you’ll need to really research what individual schools will count towards GE’s. Remember that you are still an entering freshman… not a transfer student. You aren’t going to have to declare right away. </p>
<p>FWIW, my D entered college with 10 dual enrollment credits. Had she gone to an instate public university, all her classes would have been accepted but how they would be counted varied wildly from campus to campus. One campus she’d have been done with GE’s completely but still an entering freshman and entitled to 8 full semesters on campus. As an entering freshman, the unit cap would only kick in after 8 semesters (and since she would have her GE’s done, she could have comfortably double majored in 8 semesters or graduated in two years!) Now, on another campus in the same system, only 5 of those classes wiped out requirements and the rest counted as elective courses (and those elective courses would not be included in that particular colleges unit cap.) Again, this was only a problem after 4 years and she could have applied for special consideration. As it turns out, she went to an OOS private university that would only accept up to 7 classes and of those 7, only 3 classes got rid of any requirements. Yes, she has as many units as a Sophomore but she’s not a transfer student. She was accepted as a Freshman, has to take all the freshman requirements and cap isn’t an issue at that school. For D, this was perfect because she took dual enrollment for the challenge, not to shorten her college stay.</p>
<p>I’m not totally sure what it is you want based on your posts but do your homework. Figure out what each of the schools on your list will do with those units. Figure out what YOU want… graduate early or take the full 4 years. Personally, if I were facing med school debt, I’d be looking at an instate public and graduating a year early. Spend the money on a good med school. If that’s not what you want, then don’t go that route. Just remember that you are applying as a freshman and how the college treats those units is quite different from how they’d treat them if you were a transfer student. If your particular situation isn’t laid out on their website, give them a call.</p>