<p>HELP!! I got into several colleges, but my top two choices are NYU and UAB(university of alabama at birmingham). I have a full tuition, and half housing scholarship at UAB, and $18,500 total in scholarships from NYU plus a $3000 work study offer. NYU is my DREAM SCHOOL, but its fifteen hours away and i'll have to take out a $35,000 dollar loan every year. NYU's rankings are far higher than UAB's when it comes to pre-med (my intended field of study) and from what i've heard, NYU is known for being great at helping students get internships in the city. I want to go to a top medical school (Harvard, JHU, etc.) when I graduate and I don't know how much the name of my undergraduate school is going to matter when it comes time for graduate school admissions. My parents really want me to go to UAB because they don't think that the extra money it costs to go to NYU will be worth it in the long run and they don't want me amassing so much debt at such a young age. I completely understand their point, but i'm interested to hear what you all have to say about it.</p>
<p>It would be almost impossible for you to take out that amount of loans each year in order to attend NYU. Even if you managed to do so, some medical schools would not admit you because you would be enrolling with too much debt.</p>
<p>Medical school admission is more about your GPA and your MCAT scores than it is about the name on your diploma. Your parents are absolutely correct. Go to UAB.</p>
<p>If you want to run the numbers, here are a couple of useful calculators:
[FinAid</a> | Calculators | Award Letter Comparison Tool](<a href=“Your Guide for College Financial Aid - Finaid”>Award Letter Requirements - Finaid)
[Student</a> Loan Calculator - Calculate Your Student Loan Repayments](<a href=“http://apps.collegeboard.com/fincalc/sla.jsp]Student”>http://apps.collegeboard.com/fincalc/sla.jsp)</p>
<p>How will you pay for medical school with $140,000 in undergraduate debt? If you have to take a loan to finance the difference between your cost of attendance and and your scholarship then that means you haven’t saved anything for attending college. How much can your parents help?</p>
<p>Thank you for the links! Our EFC is about $16,000 and my parents have around $20,000 saved up in my college fund.</p>
<p>Your parents did a good job by saving that much for your college education, it can’t have been easy for them. You need to consider that with an EFC of $16,000 per year NYU didn’t even come close to meeting your demonstrated financial need, (which would be around $35,000). I really don’t think you can afford NYU.</p>
<p>go for UAB. Not worth it to spend so much for NYU.</p>