Which One for our son?

<p>Our son was accepted to Ohio State honors-Northeastern honors-William and Mary all biology. We live five minutes from Ohio State. We visited Northeastern last weekend pretty cool campus and the coop program is tough to beat anywhere. In two weeks we go to William and Mary for an accepted students Monday visit. What a tough decision the young man has and we are leaving it up to him. He wants to go to med school too. I work in the medical field myself as a pa and all the surgeons and physicians I know say don't worry about undergrad as know one cares about that especially if your going to med school. I find that hard to believe but experience usually wins out! Any thoughts from students or parents that have spent the big bucks for undergrad and then went for the big debt on grad school?</p>

<p>My feeling is that if a student knows grad school is on the horizon, finding a solid undergrad school which will leave some money for grad school makes sense. Knowing you’re coming out of school burdened with debt that could have been avoided or mitigated doesn’t make sense to me. But, that’s just me. If there is a set amount you’ve saved for him, maybe add up the costs for the 3 schools and show him the figures. That may make the most sense.</p>

<p>Indeed, medical school is very expensive, (except for a few state programs, like in Texas, and Mayo) - they’ll be more than happy to loan your kid the money, but that debt can be huge - it’s been awhile, but I seem to recall an article where the average indebtedness of a Tuft’s med school graduate approached $300k.</p>

<p>So, if med school is on the horizon, graduating from undergrad as nearly “debt-free” as possible is important. Likely, whatever loans the med school gives your kid won’t cover the true cost of attendance - you’ll almost certainly have to supplement their loans with living expenses. I know some rich families who pay for medical school out of their pockets - I’m not one of them, and most people aren’t … </p>

<p>I’d agree, mostly, with your surgeon friends, with a caveat - there is some benefit to coming from a renowned undergrad - but the basis for admission to med school is fairly objective - MCAT, GPA, etc. Given the same objective scores (MCAT, etc), someone from Princeton or Yale or W&M <em>will</em> have an edge over someone with the same scores from Podunk U. </p>

<p>But it’s only an “edge”, and probably isn’t worth tens of thousands in debt. </p>

<p>(Anyway, just to be clear, “Podunk” is a hypothetical no-name school, and <em>not</em> Ohio State or Northeastern. )</p>

<p>Med Schools care about GPA, MCAT score(s) and EC’s the first much more so than the latter. He should go where he will succeed; be able to major in something he enjoys and is a fallback if he changes his mind on med school; and as the other posters recommend, doesn’t put him in too much debt.</p>

<p>Our son now attends W&M. We are from PA and are forking over the out of state tuition. He chose W&M over lots of schools where he was given a good bit of merit $$. We feel we made the right decision. He made the choice after going to the accepted students day, but struggled over the financial burden that we would have. He’s a government major, so I’m not educated on the med school piece, but he will be going to grad school (CMU and Harvard would be his top choices). He went into W&M with 32 credits (AP and CHS) and will be graduating in 3 years. That pulls the cost to just over the schools where he was offered merit aid. You may be in the same boat. I can’t say we’ve not wondered if we made the right choice, but our only point of reference is W&M. We do love W&M and he does too. So, we at least didn’t make a wrong choice! He’s made some great connections and friends for life. Good luck to you!!</p>

<p>You want to be prepared properly so you can actually do well in Med school. You also want to spend your 4yrs of college at a place that is right for you. W&M is an honors college unto itself. It doesnt segregate the smart kids from the “others” b/c they are all smart kids.</p>

<p>Unless he doesnt want to go away from home or just wants to live in Boston (both are legitimate reasons) but W&M is far and away the better academic choice.</p>

<p>We could not have said it better ourselves! Thanks for the opinion.</p>