<p>I’m planning on doing pre-med and I was offered admission to the following schools:</p>
<li>Rice RD-Family left with 23K/year to pay (parents can afford 10K/year!)</li>
<li>Tulsa with a full-ride scholarship valued at over $140K over 4 years</li>
<li>Washington and Lee University RD with a full-ride plus valued at $215.2K over 4 years</li>
</ol>
<p>Which school will you go to? Any feedback from parents, applicants, current students, or moderators would be greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>Rice is terrific, but not if you graduate with $52,000 in personal debt. If that’s the case, take one of the free-rides and have a great four years.</p>
<p>My S has a very similar situation to yours. He’s in Rice with $22K EFC that we really can’t afford right now without loans, has a full ride at another private school he’s not totally in love with, and very close to a full ride at a really good public university where he has gotten into an honors program that only takes 40-50 kids/year. He still has one more private school that he hasn’t heard from, but if he gets in, I’m sure we will get a very similar financial package to Rice. The final decision hasn’t been made, but we are leaning heavily towards no debt at the end of four years, especially since he, like you, hopes to go to med school and our younger son will be graduating from high school in 5 years.</p>
<p>Rice is a great university and I love it myself, but two of our family doctors have made a point of telling my son that where he goes to undergrad doesn’t really matter much for med school as long as it’s decent and he makes really good grades. They have also said that he is going to accumulate so much debt during med school that he should try not to have any during undergrad.</p>
<p>So my pick in your case, for whatever it’s worth from a total stranger, would be Washington and Lee. Good luck wherever you end up. It’s nice to have choices, even if they are difficult ones.</p>
<p>^My mom and her doctor friends have been telling me the same thing about being a doctor. However, everyone else at school, like teachers and counselors tell me that it helps to go to a “better name” school for medschool admissions. SO CONFUSING!!</p>
<p>Cancun – we just attended a scholarship weekend at SMU. One of the graduating seniors had been accepted to Johns Hopkins (along with other medical schools). I don’t know for sure, but I’m betting that this young lady could have gone to an undergraduate school with a higher ranking than SMU, but chose the full ride at SMU instead. And here she is 4 years later, on her way to Johns Hopkins, debt free. I think that if you are motivated you can excel at your undergrad, graduate with no debt and get admitted to a great medical school.</p>
<p>I completely agree. Even as a Rice student myself, I do think you should think about this on a practical level – W&L is a great university, and bottom line in medical school admissions is that they really care about your GPA and MCAT’s the most, along with some clinical experience that lets them know you want to be a doctor.</p>
<p>While they do take into consideration your undergraduate school, it is of VERY minimal importance. That’s why people from MIT and other very hard schools don’t enjoy a extremely high acceptance rate into medical school because their GPA’s are so low. Grades are key here, as well as your finances, so if you’re heading to college with medical school on your mind, you should save every penny while you can.</p>
<p>If I were in your shoes, I’d take a full ride over lots of debt.</p>
<p>and would only add that compare w & L with Tulsa on size, location, atmosphere, etc. rather than the total value of the scholarships since either way you end up debt free.</p>
<p>I also agree with the above; the full rides are probably the option here.</p>
<p>As for which you should pick, it’s definitely a question of culture. W&L is fantastic academically, but the school has a very distinct personality - very southern, conservative, with huge emphasis on greek life (I think something like 80% goes greek). I’ve always heard good things about Tulsa but I honestly don’t know much about it. </p>
<p>What kind of student body would you be happier with? How far from home do you want to be? How many chances for research will each give? Since both essentially cost the same ($0 ha), you can think of all the other things you want in a school.</p>
<p>I visited U Tulsa last summer as well as I visited W&L 3 weeks ago. I really enjoyed both places. They’re both small in size (which I like) and it seems that both are good caring schools. You’re right about Greek life at W&L during my 3 days stay over there, it looks like over 80% of their students are involved. Even though W&L is a terrif school academically, I believe Tulsa U is a rising star.</p>