Pre Med: Carnegie Mellon or SUNY Stony Brook

<p>I am a senior looking to study pre-med and eventually become an orthopedic surgeon. I have been accepted into Carnegie Mellon's Mellon College of Science and Stony Brook's Honors College. I am wondering if it is worth it to spend the extra money on undergraduate tuition to go to Carnegie Mellon, which with room and board is over $50k, or should I go to Stony Brook which is around $16k with room and board?</p>

<p>This totally depends on your ability to pay. Did you get FA? Scholarship? You know the answers better than what we tell you.</p>

<p>I am getting a decent amount to go to Stony Brook and the amount I’m getting for Carnegie Mellon barely puts a dent in the tuition. My main question regarding financial aid is whether or not the difference in possible salary and job opportunities post-med school will be significant enough of a difference to cause me to choose carnegie mellon over stony brook.
If I go to Carnegie, I will undoubtably come out in significant debt, but I’m wondering if having gone to carnegie will counter that debt reasonably.</p>

<p>… if you’re going to medical school, your undergraduate school will make 0 difference whatsoever in salary and job opportunities. Nobody will care.</p>

<p>If you can afford it go to Carnegie. The opportunities in Pittsburgh via UPMC are priceless.</p>

<p>A lot of students who initially start off as pre-med change their minds. Are your reasons for choosing a college mainly based on the prospect of medical school afterwards?</p>

<p>Over 50k? How long do you think it’ll take to pay off that debt? Can you work during medical school? Can you start paying it off on the starting salary of a resident? All the while, the interest is growing. plus loans have 8% interest.</p>

<p>That being said, I think going with less debt is a better idea. Interest rates are high. Add that to medical/grad school debt. Stony Brook is a solid math and science school. I think their science program is respected by medical schools. SBU also hosts a top medical school, so I would imagine their science programs are good.</p>

<p>Furthermore, the Honors College can be a solution to the not-so-great things about stony brook. Large classes? You get more support in the HC. Unavailable professors? Honors students get priority consideration for classes.</p>

<p>As bluedevilmike said, undergrad school barely makes a difference if you plan to be a doctor. If anything, attending a more prestigious school gives you a slight edge in admissions. But while Stony Brook may not be highly ranked overall, it’s science/math curric and Honors Program are a different story.</p>

<p>If Mellon is $200K+ for four years, I wouldn’t go there unless your family is pretty wealthy. If you mean that after financial aid, it’s about $50K, then I’d probably take Mellon.</p>

<p>Alright, thank you everyone.</p>