Does anyone actually get a full-ride scholarship to med school?

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mac_kin

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Some do yes. MD/PhD students go for free. At my school we have 5ish humanism scholars who get to go for free. Not sure what they had to do to get those scholarships, but I'm betting it was some pretty bigtime stuff.
 
Two schools that instantly come to mind: UMichigan and UChicago (Pritzker). I know Pritzker gives full-tuition (to a decent number of students), plus full-tuition + stipend in some cases (much smaller amount of students).
 
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Two schools that instantly come to mind: UMichigan and UChicago (Pritzker). I know Pritzker gives full-tuition (to a decent number of students), plus full-tuition + stipend in some cases (much smaller amount of students).

Cleveland clinic is tuition free for all students I believe.
 
My roommates girlfriend is on a full ride right now. She had a beast MCAT though.

My friend who got into Mayo says her ENTIRE CLASS got sponsored for free tuition. woah
 
My roommates girlfriend is on a full ride right now. She had a beast MCAT though.

My friend who got into Mayo says her ENTIRE CLASS got sponsored for free tuition. woah

Mayo entire class gets half tuition scholarships i believe, and some get full.
 
MD/PhD students generally have full scholarships and stipends. However, I do know a few students with full rides (generally extraordinary circumstances, though--inner city URM students/athletes/amazing credentials). Some state schools have scholarships for students, as do start-up medical schools, such as the new ones in Florida (1st year classes). It's generally very rare, though.
 
Yes they do.

I have a full tuition and fees with monthly stipend. A few of my classmates have the same scholarship. We still have to take out small loans because the stipend is small. One student per year gets a special scholarship where the stipend is much higher and they don't need loans.

FWIW, my school is a not top 50 school and usually uses the scholarships to entice stronger students to go there. I didn't have anything amazing but my stats were considerably stronger than the class average.
 
Mayo entire class gets half tuition scholarships i believe, and some get full.

Any year when Mayo Med School gets a big donation, that money goes to give full scholarships to everyone in the coming class (or so they told me). Which is why sometimes people say Mayo is free for everyone.
 
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It's a recruiting tool. My school had a number of full 4yr scholarships and several partial scholarships. I received a partial scholarship in addition to HPSP.
The goal is to offer scholarships of some amount to everyone. It's much easier to recruit the best and the brightest when you're giving them a 10/10 education AND a discount/$$ for expenses.
 
I had a family friend get a full ride (I believe it was just full tuition, don't know about stipend) at Michigan (which was mentioned above) - UMich is notorious for giving these kind of scholarships for students who get accepted in what I'd consider the holy trinity (Hopkins, Harvard, Stanford - yes, I know there are other extremely strong schools, not meaning to cause a huge argument) to entice strong students to go to Michigan, which is already a strong school with a lot of money.

She had a 4.0 GPA at a decent but not brand name university in the south, not sure what her MCAT was but I'm sure it was great, and she was actually a post-bac student, she wasn't pre-med in undergrad, she had pursued another career before med school. Brilliant, but not a Paul Farmer or anything. And I believe one of my former PIs got a decent sized if not full scholarship to Harvard Med (I don't know it was a med school scholarship or a university-wide one). Now she is basically a Paul Farmer, future MacArthur genius grant recipient for sure.

So although they are rare, they happen. Definitely schools with more money, particularly private money through endowments, have this option more. My school, which is public, mid to lower tier, and in a state that is financially bankrupt, does not have any major scholarships that I know of. A few hundred to a few thousand here and there, but definitely nothing remotely matching the ridiculous COA even for in-state.
 
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20 of the 80 in my class (2015) are on a full ride I believe. We're new though.
 
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20 of the 80 in my class (2015) are on a full ride I believe. We're new though.
Besides which all Texas schools are essentially tuition-free. They are 10k per year, and apparently cheaper for most of the students.

And full rides are not very uncommon on extremely difficult, especially if you're someone with great stats who is willing to setting for a mediocre school.
 
Besides which all Texas schools are essentially tuition-free. They are 10k per year, and apparently cheaper for most of the students.

And full rides are not very uncommon on extremely difficult, especially if you're someone with great stats who is willing to setting for a mediocre school.

I believe we are 14-15k a year here. I got all of my OOS tuition waived though with a renewable scholarship each year (any scholarship over 1k a year for OOS waives the OOS tuition-about 15k a year in savings)- plus if you submit FASFA early there is grant money and we do have additional scholarships available. They beat my home states school by over 6k/yr when all was said and done.
 
UCF charter class 100% scholarships tuition + living expenses for all 4 years to 100% of the class-->awesome
 
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If you get into UCLA, UC-Irvine will pay for tuition and fees at least.
 
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I got a full scholarship. Like someone said above, I think, while my stats are in no way bad, they aren't blowing away the competition. However, my stats are way better than the class average at this school, so I guess they want to attract students like me who would've gone to another school. I had no plans to go, but when I received the scholarship, it changed everything.
 
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I am going to be a freshman in college right now and my parents are kind of let down that I gave up a full-ride scholarship to my state school. I really want to get a full-ride/tuition scholarship to a medical school. I will work my hardest and it is just a dream of mine right now. I never thought it was possible until I read this discussion board. Could you give me an idea about your scores and what GPA you would need to obtain. Just a ballpark estimate. It would mean so much and it would actually give me some hope. Thanksssssssssssssssssssssss!
 
Morehouse gives ~5 full rides every year (some tuition+living and some just tuition). At least thats what the admissions director told us on interview day.
 
WashU gives out 16 merit based scholarships every year that can be up to full tuition. Some of these scholarships are just for women.

I have a friend here who has a full tuition scholarship based on need alone. So I guess that happens too.
 
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Most MD/PhD programs are about 3.7+, 34+ (not sure if research is your thing). The others I've known of had ~4.0, >36 and amazing extracurriculars. Most of them chose full-rides over top ten schools.
 
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I've seen plenty of people on SDN have full-ride scholarships at multiples schools. I currently have two schools willing to fully cover tuition and fees. One is a merit scholarship and the other is a diversity grant. No pubs or saving a village or anything like that but I do have unique life experiences.


...and competitive stats.
 
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I've seen plenty of people on SDN have full-ride scholarships at multiples schools. I currently have two schools willing to fully cover tuition and fees. One is a merit scholarship and the other is a diversity grant. No pubs or saving a village or anything like that but I do have unique life experiences.

All you lucky guys. If I could get a full ride it would make a HUGE difference in my deciding if I want to leave the profession or not.
 
MrCheetah said:
you lucky guys. If I could get a full ride it would make a HUGE difference in my deciding if I want to leave the profession or not.

+pity+
 
All you lucky guys. If I could get a full ride it would make a HUGE difference in my deciding if I want to leave the profession or not.

some would point at this attitude as why you didn't get a scholarship...

fwiw I have a friend who was offered big scholarships at two schools. He wasn't URM, had MCAT below 40, and GPA less than 3.8. He didn't have any really exciting extracurricular either, just the standard stuff. What seemed to be the deciding factor was he grew up in a certain region, but went to a big name school outside the region for undergrad. Seems like med schools (especially state ones) wanted to get him back to the region for medschool/practice.
 
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My little sister has one. Full ride and decent monthly stipend. I think the key is not so much just astronomical stats but rather some type of crazy star power coupled with a great interview. I'm talking Fulbright, Rhodes scholarship, NIH research with pub, etc. Something that makes you stand out from their average student with good luck as well.
 
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Wish I had a scholarship. Instead paying through the nose for medical school like most folks.
 
Man, a full ride sounds amazing! I got about 1/3 of this school year's tuition paid through a scholarship. Thankfully I from Texas and go to a Texas med school... should have done that for undergrad, but whatever.
Hopefully I'll get the same or more next school year :)
 
There was a person who graduated my school a while back top of his class. now he's a plastic surgeon in hawaii. however, he got rejected everywhere and my school accepted him as the last student. so every year he gives the last student to be accepted a full scholarship

so you can get lucky too. it's like winning the lottery sometimes when it comes to full rides in med school
 
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There was a person who graduated my school a while back top of his class. now he's a plastic surgeon in hawaii. however, he got rejected everywhere and my school accepted him as the last student. so every year he gives the last student to be accepted a full scholarship

lolwut? That's awesome but also somewhat odd...
 
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There was a person who graduated my school a while back top of his class. now he's a plastic surgeon in hawaii. however, he got rejected everywhere and my school accepted him as the last student. so every year he gives the last student to be accepted a full scholarship

so you can get lucky too. it's like winning the lottery sometimes when it comes to full rides in med school

I have heard this being done at VCU also -- but it isn't a full scholarship, iirc.
 
With a 4.0/ 37, do you think I'll get some merit scholarships? Now that I've gotten my first acceptance (UVM), I can't decide if I should bother with interviews to schools lower on my list, on the off chance I'd get a free ride to those schools.
 
Med school is free in Sweden! Everyone gets scholarships :D
 
With a 4.0/ 37, do you think I'll get some merit scholarships? Now that I've gotten my first acceptance (UVM), I can't decide if I should bother with interviews to schools lower on my list, on the off chance I'd get a free ride to those schools.

Decent numbers, but really your app has to be strong overall. It also helps if you're applying to schools that are known to be relatively generous with scholarships (Penn, WashU, Pritzker, Michigan, U Chicago, Vandy, etc.).
 
With a 4.0/ 37, do you think I'll get some merit scholarships? Now that I've gotten my first acceptance (UVM), I can't decide if I should bother with interviews to schools lower on my list, on the off chance I'd get a free ride to those schools.

Status says medical student :confused:
 
With a 4.0/ 37, do you think I'll get some merit scholarships? Now that I've gotten my first acceptance (UVM), I can't decide if I should bother with interviews to schools lower on my list, on the off chance I'd get a free ride to those schools.

Always keep options open. I had a friend who turned down interviews after he got into a low tuition school, 20k/yr, and missed out on $. Attend your interviews. Could save you 300k via tuition and interest.
 
Always keep options open. I had a friend who turned down interviews after he got into a low tuition school, 20k/yr, and missed out on $. Attend your interviews. Could save you 300k via tuition and interest.

I'm not sure how one could know that he missed out on money if he didn't even interview, let alone get a scholarship offer, but I'd go to all the interviews that you can afford to go to unless you are certain that you would not attend under any circumstances. And, I'm not sure how you could know that without going on an interview.
 
I'm not sure how one could know that he missed out on money if he didn't even interview, let alone get a scholarship offer, but I'd go to all the interviews that you can afford to go to unless you are certain that you would not attend under any circumstances. And, I'm not sure how you could know that without going on an interview.

I've never been one for big cities, so now that I've been accepted to UVM (rural/suburban area that I LOVED) I can't decide if I should bother with schools in Boston, New York, Philly, etc. I'm trying to weigh Fit vs potentially less debt, and it's like comparing apples to oranges.

Yeah I know. First World Problems, lol.

Also, I just changed my status to "medical student" (MS-0) because I graduated from undergrad 2 years ago and feel it's more appropriate than "Pre-Med." As we all know, the vast majority of "pre-meds" never follow through in their plans to pursue medicine.
 
I've never been one for big cities, so now that I've been accepted to UVM (rural/suburban area that I LOVED) I can't decide if I should bother with schools in Boston, New York, Philly, etc. I'm trying to weigh Fit vs potentially less debt, and it's like comparing apples to oranges.

Yeah I know. First World Problems, lol.

Also, I just changed my status to "medical student" (MS-0) because I graduated from undergrad 2 years ago and feel it's more appropriate than "Pre-Med." As we all know, the vast majority of "pre-meds" never follow through in their plans to pursue medicine.

Only a pre-med would think it's appropriate ;)
 
the Cleveland Clinic program at Case Western is free tuition for all 32 students (plus other perks: free laptop, free parking, free afternoons---classes end at noon, free Thursdays---no classes on thursdays, no grades not even P/F, etc.). Can also get a free Master's degree (ex. MPH, Masters in Bioethics, Masters in Biomedical Investigation-Clinical Research Scholars programs, Masters in Bioengineering, etc.)
 
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the Cleveland Clinic program at Case Western is free tuition for all 32 students (plus other perks: free laptop, free parking, free afternoons---classes end at noon, free Thursdays---no classes on thursdays, no grades not even P/F, etc.). Can also get a free Master's degree (ex. MPH, Masters in Bioethics, Masters in Biomedical Investigation-Clinical Research Scholars programs, Masters in Bioengineering, etc.)

They only accept 32 students?
 
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