Yale or full ride to usd

Parent Cafe
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<p>“You can’t keep a true autodidact from an education.”</p>

<p>“The power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous.” E.G.</p>

<p>“You don’t think it matters whether the college you go to sends a lot of people to med school, or only a tiny handful?”</p>

<p>I do. I have always been impressed by the 100% (or so) med school acceptance rate of little Hope College, where there is said to be virtually no weed out (and at least they used to have the highest rate of undergraduate publications in peer-reviewed biology journals.) I know what the weed-out was like at Williams when I was there (granted, 40 years ago), and I often wonder about the 50 or so students who would have been excellent docs (maybe even happy ones) had they gone to second-tier state schools instead of my alma mater.</p>

<p>In theory, I would have thought having many more premeds around would be better. In practice, it wasn’t my personal experience. I wonder if Yale is a better premed school today now that 65% fewer Yalies (as a percentage of the student body) are going on medical school than 30 years ago. But I only wonder - I certainly don’t know.</p>

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Because a Yale degree is held in the highest esteem by the University of Iowa-Carver School of Medicine and at UT-Medical Branch in Galveston and at JHU and Penn. Not so sure about a USD degree. </p>

<p>If you want to try to quantify the advantage, it is speculated that the elite grad gets as much as .3 added to their GPA. </p>

<p>I’m not saying this should happen. Just telling you…it (or something similar) happens.</p>

<p>As to admission at a Top Med school, well…just look at where the kids are from and report back your findings. It was downright daunting when I did it. </p>

<p>It is also speculated that this GPA boost only applies to maybe 10 schools. Yale is one of them. My D’s school and USD are not. </p>

<p>Folks, I think this is somewhat off-topic as I don’t believe the OP mentioned anything about the level of med school sought, but there is a big difference between getting into medical school and getting into a top medical school. Top Med School admissions is one place where an elite UG degree really helps. I’ve always understood that I-Banking, Government, and Publishing are others where UG pedigree is important.</p>

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<p>If OP is a California resident and intends to go to a california medical school as a resident, he may have a better chance with a degree from Yale. If california is required to admit 80-90% with residents, it gives them visibility to pick someone who has gone to a top 5 school than add one more student who went to a local school in a pool of several thousand local school applicants. Medical schools like to have diversity in their admitted pool, if other things like residency are being met. They also like to have bragging rights to claim they have admitted people from lots of different schools.</p>

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<p>Will just offer this as a parent paying full freight for son at a HYP who is headed to medical school – “top” medical school isn’t really that big a deal in that game. Seriously. It’s just totally a different scene than for undergrad admissions. Residency matters hugely. Not medical school. They seem to focus more on merit money and PhD/MD programs that are virtually cost free. And honestly . . . if you look hard at who is really important in heath care today, as in who is teaching at Harvard medical school, etc or who is head of NIH . . . medical school pedigree does not appear to be seriously important.</p>

<p>So from that perspective, the OP is probably fine. If it’s just about getting into medical school, which shouldn’t be a problem if her boy is that smart and motivated, then he really doesn’t need to go to Yale to do that. He doesn’t even need to go to Yale to be an important doctor some day.</p>

<p>Not an expert on this . . . we’re not doctors but son is headed that way and so we are learning. FWIW, going to an Ivy DOES seem to help the admissions rate . . . But our son is mostly focused on going somewhere with good weather and where he won’t go into debt for medical school. Think Florida, UCLA, UT . . . four years in the Northeast can do that, I guess.</p>

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<p>mini, way back when my kid was making her call, I read about the falling percentage of Yale UG’s interested in medicine in a Yale publication. The article I read suggested it was a matter of student disenchantment and disillusionment with medicine as a career. They just felt there were better things to do with their lives. IOW, a shift in taste.</p>

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<p>sewhappy, I would agree for those outside the competitive specialities and outside academic medicine. I preach the same line. </p>

<p>But for those medical students interested in those fields, med school pedigree is very big and UG pedigree is not even on the radar.</p>

<p>And as you probably know, merit aid just doesn’t exist at several of the “usual suspects”.</p>

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<p>lol, sewhappy. And just to make my D’s journey “completely backwards” in some folks minds- she turned down a substantial merit scholarship to a Top Twenty Med School which would have allowed her to graduate med school debt-free (or close enough) so that she could attend med school in a unique learning environment, with incredibly accomplished peers, and with the luxury of the nearly limitless resources that is YSM.</p>

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<p>Bingo. That is exactly right. I am glad you mentioned it, curm. There are so many more wonderful things you can do in life.</p>

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<p>But those changes of taste quite obviously didn’t occur elsewhere. All of those medical school places that used to be taken up with Yale grads were/are now being filled by folks from the Hope Colleges/USDs of the world. Especially when they are the SAME students (as, in the case of the OP’s son, they obviously can be). </p>

<p>Hey - I wouldn’t go out of my way to recommend a medical career these days for anyone. If someone feels called, they feel called. As I’ve noted (with good statistics) on another thread, financially one could end up better off as a two-year RN until about age 50. I expect that trend is going to become even stronger. </p>

<p>But if that is what one wants to do, it’s a good idea to believe you can get in, and that you can afford it. (which brings us back to square one!)</p>

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<p>Pizzagirl, My kid is going to CMC because it is a great fit for him. The academic offerings, the pragmatic focus and the leadership orientation of the school fit him like a glove. He feels very fortunate to have the opportunity to go there. We probably beat this subject to death, so I do not really have much more to add to the conversation, except to say that I have no problem with elite schools. My only disagreement with some of the posters here is that I don’t believe the students at these schools are necessarily superior to the many outstanding students who happen to attend many of the fine colleges around the country. There are swans everywhere, if you care to look.</p>

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<p>Curmudgeon -" I think this is somewhat off-topic as I don’t believe the OP mentioned anything about the level of med school sought, but there is a big difference between getting into medical school and getting into a top medical school. Top Med School admissions is one place where an elite UG degree really helps. "</p>

<p>If one’s goal is just to go be a doctor, go be in private practice and focus on day to day patient care, it doesn’t much matter what med school one goes to. The life of the dermatologist or ear-nose-and-throat guy who went to an elite school undergrad looks pretty much the same (and is reimbursed the same) as the guy who went to a “lower” school. Leaving money aside and just focusing on experience, if my kid were to have a hypothetical choice between elite undergrad and non-elite med school, or non-elite undergrad and elite med school, I’d choose the former. Med school is just so much flatter than undergrad in terms of the span of quality.</p>

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<p>Flatter? In the sense that all U.S. allopathic medical schools are of good quality , I would agree. As to there being no significant difference in the quality of education received , the academic atmosphere, the accomplishment of your peers, the outcomes they receive, and the resources available? :confused: Really? You want to go there …on this thread? lol Well…I’d say the differences for a top student with high aspirations are significant. And my D would have lots more to say than that. :wink: </p>

<p>BTW, I really had to chuckle out loud that this argument (“no difference in quality, go to the cheap, warm place”) is being made, on this of all threads. Truly chuckle-worthy. Or maybe it’s just late. Or early. I get confused. </p>

<p>Don’t get me wrong. I know if money had not been a consideration, my kid would have been at Yale for UG and (if she had been accepted) a top med school thereafter. That’s on me. Not on my kid. But med school financing is different: </p>

<p>1) the vast majority of students are borrowing big money to attend (even the poorest kid still has to take the unit loans, six figures at many schools) Edit: Here are the stats. <a href=“https://www.aamc.org/download/152968/data/10debtfactcard.pdf[/url]”>https://www.aamc.org/download/152968/data/10debtfactcard.pdf&lt;/a&gt;
and
2) unlike UG, money to borrow is actually available in the student’s name without co-signors. </p>

<p>The nuts and bolts of med school are substantially the same everywhere. If what you are looking for is a ticket to medical practice, then any U.S. allopathic medical school will accomplish that goal. But some folks have different goals than to be solely a practicing physician, and not every medical school is well-suited for all of those goals. (My kid wants to teach, run a lab, and practice. Of course, she does. ;)) </p>

<p>Put another way, when my D was faced with the qualitative difference between Yale UG and Rhodes, money was the decider for her. Just not worth it for her, all things considered, as she knew med school was in her future. (She loves her UG school. And yeah. She is that confident. ;)) When faced with a similar choice and a similar qualitative difference 4 years later something was different: </p>

<p>1) For the amount we can’t afford, the money being borrowed was on her, not on her parents.</p>

<p>I can’t say my decision would have been the same as hers for UG or for med school. I can say that both decisions were very difficult for her (and dang near killed me watching her make them). I can say that she owned both decisions. She never looks back on what might have been. And she’s very, very happy with how it has worked out. </p>

<p>For those interested in learning more about the process about applying to medical schools (and beyond), I encourage you to go to the pre-med forum on this board. We have several current medical students, applicants, applicants-in-waiting, and parents of applicants who are generous in sharing their experiences.</p>

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<p>After a cup of joe I feel compelled to add that my D has found that her UG career at her non-elite but excellent Top 50 LAC prepared her very well for both the academic and social life at YSM. She has done very well on all “assessment” metrics and the grade grids confirm her preparation. She has made life-long friends and has an active social life. She feels she “fits” just fine. No worries that her UG has compromised her future, if that was a concern of any parents with a student struggling with such a difficult UG decision. Now, back to my trailer house across the cc tracks. ;)</p>

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<p>A lesser duck may become a tippy top duck at even a lower Ivy or a state honors college. But a swan, any swan, deserves better than that. A greater swan needs an upper Ivy to swim and flourish among his equals.</p>

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lol. Needs an “upper Ivy”? As big a fan as I am of educational fit, I think this thread has now officially run “afowl” of good sense.</p>

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<p>Good for him. That is all most of us want for our kids.</p>

<p>My kid is going to Yale because it is a great fit for her. Nothing more, nothing less. [I find it] very annoying when people malign her school, make sweeping generalizations about the kinds of students who go there and question the motives of those students and their parents for attending that college. Some people just want to attend Yale because it is a great place to be.</p>

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<p>As seen often on CC, when your own kid goes to an elite school, it is because of great fit, but when someone else’s kid goes to an elite school, it is because he is a prestigious “you know what.”</p>

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<p>This Indian boy got accepted at Yale (assuming we believe his stats), but he may or may not choose Yale hopefully because of fit.</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/12468993-post106.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/12468993-post106.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>“Accepted: Harvard, Princeton, Yale, MIT, Stanford, Duke, Cornell, Dartmouth, Brown, and John Hopkins.”</p>

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<p>The OP shared with me back-channel a clarification on the cost differential that I have urged them to share with the board. I won’t completely breach that confidence but I think it is important to the thread to say that the differential is lower than we were assuming. </p>

<p>If the differential is “do-able” and within their comfort/risk zone, I have suggested Yale for this student for 4 reasons.</p>

<p>1) Yale is a great place for an under-graduate student to study and to be. In my D’s opinion, maybe the “best”. This reason dwarfs all others for a kid that “fits” there. </p>

<p>2) USD’s CDS gives me pause. I would have thought the SAT numbers for the upper-quartile of students would be higher and that the percentages of students scoring in the highest SAT bar (700-800) would be higher. It is important to have a critical mass of high-achieving students and , although I recognize that SAT score is but one measure, it concerns me enough I would investigate further.</p>

<p>3) If med school is not in the cards, a Yale degree is highly-regarded in careers where UG pedigree matters.
3) Yale students do very well in med school admissions at med schools at all quality levels.</p>

<p>Edit: Re-ordered in order of importance.</p>

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<p>What does this random boy have to do with the discussion?</p>

<p>Curmudgeon, I respect your opinion. Obviously your D is doing wonderfully, and more power to her. My opinion is different and still stands – medical school offerings are “flatter” and the experience so intense, that the quality differences between the lowest and highest aren’t nearly as broad as the quality differences between a lower and higher undergrad. I am not sure that I can draw a parallel between Rhodes and USD.</p>