<p>Hi I really want to attend Tulane in the fall but paying for it is going to be very difficult. I was wondering what some of your opinions were. I plan to study medicine and if I attended Tulane I would be interested in the accelerated 6 +1 program which I understand is very competitive.</p>
<p>A full ride at St. John’s has to be very tempting. Is the only reason you want Tulane because of the 6+1? Or are there other reasons you are preferring Tulane? Because obviously you then have big med school expenses coming, especially if the 6+1 doesn’t happen, which you have to assume since only a handful get in.</p>
<p>If you were my child, even with me being a Tulane alum I would have to say that the St. John’s deal is the way to go, short of a really compelling reason for choosing Tulane.</p>
<p>I faced a similar situation many, many years ago. I wanted to study engineering at RPI, where I was offered a full tuition merit scholarship. I had already bought my hockey skates in anticipation of frozen Troy, NY, when I received my financial aid letter from UMCP, my financial and (at that time) academic safety. To my great distress (and my parents’ unmitigated joy), UMCP offered me the four-year free ride. For me and my family, there was no real choice, so I headed off to UMCP. After 40 years, here are my thoughts: my dad got sick a couple of times while I was an undergrad, so full ride kept me in school when otherwise I might have had to drop out. Maryland was a good fit for the first two years, but I would have done better at a smaller, more academically oriented school for the last two years. Maryland set me up in an internship senior year that led to a full time job (by that time I was a government major). I worked for two years at that job before attending Wash U law. After law school, my total monthly student loan payments were $70/month. Oh, by the way, I have lived almost my whole life in Maryland after falling in love with the state during the two years between undergrad and law school. As to the bottom line, it’s still hard for me to say. Who knows whether I would have stuck with engineering at RPI and how my life might have be different? I don’t. One of my sons is in his first year at Tulane (which offered him the best merit + need package of any school), and he loves it. Is it worth passing up the free ride? Only you and your family can say, but for me, I have to second FC - it would be very, very difficult to pass up a free ride. Congratulations on your achievements to date and best of luck wherever you choose to attend.</p>