I’ve got the choice of UVA or the University of Pennsylvania, and I’m absolutely stuck between the two. I plan on going pre-med for sure. UVA would be much cheaper and easier to maintain a high GPA at, but I feel as though Penn has better resources. With scholarships and grants, four years at Penn would cost about $97,000 more than UVA. I’m really just wondering if it’s worth that much more, considering everything I would face as a pre-med student. I feel like I could achieve a higher GPA at UVA with much more ease and less stress (especially without a huge debt hanging over my head). I like each school equally; both urban and “college town” settings appeal to me, and the people seemed great at both. I would love to go to either school, it’s mostly a matter of which one is the better choice, objectively. Any advice is much appreciated, please try to be unbiased! Thanks so much.
Who would pay that $97,000 difference?
If it isn’t spent on your undergrad degree, would it be available for Med School?
I would take on most of it in the form of loans and outside scholarships/work. My parents would try their best to help with it, but I would love to stop being a financial burden on them, which is another reason UVA is attractive. Any saved money would be spent on med school, yes.
I am a Penn alum and love the school but I would not take on that much debt to go to Penn over UVa, especially if med school will be down the road.
I would go with UVA. You want to minimize debt if you plan on going to medical school.
another Penn alum voting for UVA, especially if you need loans to cover any part of the $97,000 difference and med school is a goal. You don’t want to enter med school already in debt.
Thanks so much to everyone who has replied! It’s great to have some support for UVA.
I think you got the ultimate unbiased response from @happy1. Your decision would be more complex if you liked one school much more than the other, but that’s apparently not the case. You simply have two fine choices, but UVa seems to make more sense for your circumstances. Good luck.
Pre-med? Go cheaper, definitely. UVA. Easy.
Another vote for UVA. Penn is not worth all that money for a pre-med person. You need to save that money for grad school.
“I would take on most of it in the form of loans and outside scholarships/work.”
Unless you already have been awarded those outside scholarships, the chance of you getting enough to make a dent in that amount of money is just about zip. Also, without a co-signer, you can’t borrow more than the federal student loan limits (approx 27k total). This means that Penn is almost certainly unaffordable. Kick it to the curb, and move on.
$100K is a lot of debt for a 22 year old with limited earning potential. There isn’t $100K worth of difference between the schools, Penn is only very slightly better rated and not enough so to affect medical or graduate school admissions. As you say, a higher GPA at UVa would also help. You may find that you change from pre-med, or don’t get into medical school, or most likely - change to something else.
The other issue is that MD earnings are headed downward and will continue to drop with socialized medicine. Medical school debt of $200-300K may be, by itself, a struggle to repay should you choose one of the lower paying specialties (or academics) and an additional $100K would further reduce your options. You could mitigate the costs with rural or military service but you’d still be stuck with the undergraduate debt.
Even if $ was not a factor UVA seems like the better option. The science courses at Penn aren’t easy when you have to compete with a bunch of pre-meds in curved classes. The mean is typically B-/B with ~20-25% receiving As/A-s (so an even fewer % achieve solid As). If you work hard, it can be done but especially when you add in the debt + still a relatively prestigious alternative, there’s no standout reason to choose Penn. UVA may not have as much research funding as Penn, but you will be able to find something.
I’m unsure why you think that it would be easier to maintain a high GPA at UVA than at Penn. I doubt that it’s true.
Perhaps they think that the student body at Penn is more motivated and/or academically capable, as a whole, than the student body at U Va, and that this will factor into grades somehow. For example, many classes are curved, and if the people in those classes are somewhat less motivated and academically enhanced, overall, you might be able to do somewhat better against that curve, than at another school where everybody in every class is smarter than you are, and at least equally motivated. For example.
I’m not the one with this theory, however objective data should be available to lend or reduce its credence.
Fill in the blanks:
2014 U Va SAT verbal 25%___ 75% ___
2014 U Penn SAT Math 25% ___ 75% ___
To assess relative competitiveness in upper level premed classes:
2014 Average MCAT scores of U Va students taking the test ____
2014 average MCAT scores of Penn students taking the test ____
(I think I’'ve seen MCAT data like this on some MCAT or medical school application site)