To be honest, with the pandemic and schools canceling their admitted students’ day, it really is difficult to decide!
It’s only March. You still have time to weigh your only great options.
Frankly, you don’t seem to be in love with the whole UIC deal. If UIC was a lot less expensive than Bowdoin and W&L, I could understand still keeping it in the running, but clearly UIC is the most expensive option and you don’t even get close to the experience commuting back and forth for 3 hours every day! Good luck with that.
Consider the worst case scenario: You attend Bowdoin or W&L and hate it. It is still a lot easier to transfer from those two schools to another college you like than trying to transfer out of UIC and they cost less to attend. Your downside is so minimal given all the potential upsides of attending W&L or Bowdoin at an incredibly low price.
Would he get that kind of financial aid as a transfer student, though?
Hamilton does offer interdisciplinary majors (e.g., geoarchaeology) and interdisciplinary courses (e.g., in mathematical physics). However, its core premed science and math courses in physics, chemistry, biology, calculus and statistics tend to be notable for their adherence to depth and rigor in a traditional context.
I am not sure but I thought the majority of “aid” for med school is loans.
@inthegarden I think I read UIC was $7,000/year plus a long commute. The other two are net POSITIVE stipends. Given the financial situation, I would expect transferring (only a worst case scenario, of course not plan a, b, or c) will be no worse financially than UIC and likely better than UIC at another elite private college.
ahh. SO happy about all of your choices!
** the transferring thing is something to think about though transfer scholarships are often not too great. We are living it; D turned down full tuition at our state flagship; went to an LAC, transferred back and is full pay.
– any way you can find out what average mcat scores are from kids from the colleges you are looking at?
for sure, you are one bright spot this season on CC!
Thanks, @bloomfield88. I didn’t realize the cost at UIC would still be only $7000 for him as a transfer student. But if he went elsewhere and transferred to UIC, would he lose the guaranteed admittance to med school?
I don’t think OP would get the same deal as a UIC transfer, nor would he be able to join the UIC GPPA program.
Not sure UIC GPPA would be affordable…4 ug years at $7-8K (likely funded by loans), and 4 med school years (likely funded by loans).
I think the real issue is whether you’re 100 percent certain if you’ll go to med school. If yes, then as someone else mentioned, UIC GPPA might be the least expensive since you get the benefit of in-state tuition at med school. That’s a Huge savings! Admission to any med school is never a certainty, let alone admission into your in-state school.
On the other hand, I know lots of kids who were certain what they wanted to do when they started at college, and changed their minds once they were exposed to new things.
If you have the proper GPA and a 513 MCAT you don’t need an assurance program and is going to cost you over $40,000 compared to a full ride. In addition, time spent commuting is NOT time spent on premed activities.
The savings with not having to interview is NOT going to cost you what GPPA costs. If you can maintain a good GPA and score a top 10% score… you’ll find a med school and you’re likely to meet UIC’s criteria. The rest of course will rest on you (GPA, activities).
Note that instate med school costs are NOT tied to where you attended college but what state you and your parents are residents of.
Have you been able to find out how economically inclusive W&L is? Because 60% students are from “the 1%” it is very important you find out whether (and how much) activities cost, since for most students cost will not be a concern.
For instance, some club sports charge for their members to participate then charge for you to play the games (ie, you can’t play for the games if you can’t pay for the minivan and its assurance).
Are the concerts free? Are the Friday/Saturday evening activities free? (What are they? Colleges may expect Greek life or the nearby town to entertain you).
These questions should be asked from all colleges.
So well said. If OP doesn’t choose UIC GPPA and his parent continues living in Illinois, OP would still be able to apply to UIC med school (perhaps he would have a little advantage as they admitted him before?!)
OP, one other thought as you are researching the LACs you have been admitted to…look at the research the professors are doing in the subject areas you are interested in. Perhaps there will be research that appeals to you more than others and that could help rank schools. Not that research doesn’t change over time, but at an LAC the research opportunities are more limited than at UIUC for example.
As an example, med tuition at UIC is $45,360/year x 4 years = $181,440. Med school tuition at Northwestern (local to you and I think fairly representative of private med school tuition) is appx $62,000/year x 4 years = $248,000. Difference in med school tuitions = appx $66,500.
Compare college costs. 3 years UIC x $X = Y. I forgot, what did you say X is? And really, X must include you living at school. You don’t have 3 hours a day to spend on commuting. Compare to whatever 4 years at the other schools will be. I think you said $0, but does that include travel?
A couple of other comments.
- A few med schools will give grants to financially needy students for part of the tuition. You might be lucky enough to get admitted to one of these, which radically changes the financial equation.
- Don’t underestimate the value of the time that the UIC program gives you. You will complete your degree in 7 years rather than 8. And, you should know that it is getting harder and harder to go directly from undergraduate directly to to med school without taking a gap year. IMO, time spent not earning money can be dangerous for a low income student; the longer you aren’t earning money, the less a chance of graduating. What will you do if your family needs your financial help while you are in school? It’s better to get in, and get out.
- Playing devil’s advocate, I personally think that going to college for 4 years is more enriching than 3, and would love to see you have the luxury of that enrichment.
- As I said before, you can’t minimize the fact that once you are exposed to other things, you might find that you’d rather do something else than be a medical doctor. So I’m not sure that you should put so much weight on the finances of all-in through med school, and all-in on the huge advantage of being able to go to med school with no gap years. There are other degrees you can get that will also be personally rewarding and generate a strong income.
I thought the UIC GPPA program is not accelerated at the baseline, but can be thru use of AP/IB credits. @HKimPOSSIBLE ?
My opinion: such a long commute is not a realistic option. Scrap the commute idea completely.
@Mwfan1921 Yes through AP/IB credits. During my interview they said I have a lot of AP credits that they are certain I could graduate in 3 years - in some cases, students have done it in 2 years which, personally, I think is a horrible idea.
Go to the best school for the least amount with research you want. I think waiting on more acceptances just makes this whole process harder. If UIUC is 100% free, not sure why this is not your best option? Close to home. So barely any cost to travel there. Major research. Connected to unique medical school.
@Knowsstuff
The issue is we’re near the cutline for the Illinois Promise and I don’t think the promise is renewable if we go above the poverty cutline → which would make UIUC unaffordable and transferring to somewhere affordable a big headache.
In the current situation, I wouldn’t want to go too far away. Life will restart, stutter, stop and restart again for the next 18 months at least, and being able to access a school by car, like Grinnell, may be a big positive.
You might also check how well colleges’ online operations are functioning. Not that I’d expect that they will be online all next year but…see above.
(I also think the community sounds super inclusive and supportive, but what do I know but what I read?)