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If you think not attending the prestigious school is something you'll regret, you should go with that school. If you choose the cheaper school, though, I don't think you'll regret it. I have yet to meet anyone that does.
 
Not to be terrible but you also have to think about the probability that you will be top of your class at your state school but potentially middle of the pack at the top school and how that will affect your residency choices. I'm sure if you are capable of getting into the top school your STEP scores will be fairly consistently good regardless...but class rank/grades do play some role...
 
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happymedium said:
How about you let us know which schools you are talking about?
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Well, there's only one top 3 school that has accepted anyone yet... Don't know about the state school.

Edit: I feel your pain. It's a very personal decision that you'll just have to make. (a lot of help I am?!)
 
Go to UMass, don't go to NYU.

With the ability check past posts, there is no such thing as 'anonymity'.
 
JMoonlight said:
Um, woops, looks like I was flattering the school a bit too much. I went and checked the US News Rankings, and we're looking at Top 5 material instead. Also, according to the list, my state school is ranked, middle of the road. I'd prefer not to disclose specifics on this thread to preserve a bit of anonymity.
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Because you are the only person to be accepted there?

If you want an objective opinion share. If not, be happy with vague abstracts.

If you want the arguably +1 bonus point when applying to residencies go with the prestigious school. If that's worth $150,000 to you go for it.
 
tkim said:
Go to UMass, don't go to NYU.

With the ability check past posts, there is no such thing as 'anonymity'.
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OMG, I know exactly who that is. Guess he was right.
 
JMoonlight said:
Um, woops, looks like I was flattering the school a bit too much. I went and checked the US News Rankings, and we're looking at Top 5 material instead. Also, according to the list, my state school is ranked, middle of the road. I'd prefer not to disclose specifics on this thread to preserve a bit of anonymity.
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If it's Duke/Stanford/UCSF go there unless you really don't think you would be happy moving away from your state school or you know you want to do primary care.
 
Go with prestige. You will make more than enough money in your life to be more than comfortable, especially if you have a family full of doctors. The experience of attending one of the big boy schools will be worth it in my opinion.
 
JMoonlight said:
I definitely know you can check past posts. I guess I just didn't feel comfortable dumping specifics into one spot. Yes, I realize that doesn't really matter if the information is out there anyways. It was just a useless paranoia running through my mind.
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I believe they call that paranoid schizophrenia. Those white vans you think are following you...we are.
 
JMoonlight said:
I definitely know you can check past posts. I guess I just didn't feel comfortable dumping specifics into one spot. Yes, I realize that doesn't really matter if the information is out there anyways. It was just a useless paranoia running through my mind.
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If you want vague answers, ask a vague question.

Listen, go to UMass.

Graduate from med school literally debt-free. If you want to do something low-paying, like peds, you will be able to without feeling pressured to go into something that pays more. Hell, if you decide to quit medicine entirely and just walk away, you could, unlike most people who decide they hate medicine but have to finish training and practice medicine because it's the only way they can pay back their loans.

Prestige won't pay your student loans.
 
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equinsu ocha said:
Go with prestige. You will make more than enough money in your life to be more than comfortable, especially if you have a family full of doctors. The experience of attending one of the big boy schools will be worth it in my opinion.
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This is absolutely terrible advice from a financial perspective. Whether or not you can or will pay back your loans is never a question. What is a legitimate question, however, is the impact that debt will have on your future financial (and, thus, your future personal) life. And that's not something to simply brush off and say you'll deal with it when you need to.
 
JMoonlight said:
I've recently been put into a decision that I am very lucky to be making. I was accepted by Top 3 research school with a whole lotta name recognition/prestige/famous grads. I was also accepted by my state school, which is very close to my home and offers a FANTASTIC tuition deal (such that I will likely be able to graduate with close to none, or no debt whatsoever).

I wasn't prepared to make such a choice. My MCAT, by SDN standards, was alright and I was pretty run of the mill otherwise. I didn't think I would have an offer from a school of this caliber-- it was one of my few reach schools. I was accepted by my state school early in the process, and assumed that I wouldn't get an acceptance to any other school that could trump the financial benefits of staying close to home. Now I'm rethinking things.

I'm now facing the biggest decision of my life (thus far at least):

"Prestige" School: Reputation, Opportunities, but a 5 hour plane ride on the opposite coast, far from family/friends/support system and very expensive

State School: Known well in the area, close to home, know community well, inexpensive but less known for research, average residency placement (according to some sources)

From reading past posts, I've seen some differing opinions-- many say to follow the money and save yourself the burden of debt, but others seem to emphasize that if you are looking for a position in academia or for very top residencies, your pedigree may come into play. My friends and family members who are residents and attendings seem to also be giving a mixed bag of opinions, ranging from "Go Big! You will make amazing connections" to "Be smart, the name doesn't matter."

Ultimately, I realize I need to make this choice on my own, but I was hoping to glean the input of others. Has anyone else ever faced such a decision? What other factors went into your choice? In hindsight, what sorts of things do you wish you had known/thought about? How much debt is going to a top school worth to you?

-M
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Well, the first thing to do is to wait until financial aid comes out, right? Might that be a game changer, or are you thinking you won't get much?
 
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If your step 1 scores suck, the name of the school is not going to get you into a great residency. If you Step 1 scores are awesome, the name of your school is not going to hinder you when you apply for tough residencies.
 
NickNaylor said:
This is absolutely terrible advice from a financial perspective. Whether or not you can or will pay back your loans is never a question. What is a legitimate question, however, is the impact that debt will have on your future financial (and, thus, your future personal) life. And that's not something to simply brush off and say you'll deal with it when you need to.
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Clearly the only feasible solution is to find a sugar (mommy|daddy).
 
Do you like to do research? If not, you might want to go to your state school since 2/3 of students at the school you seem to discussing do a year of research and it's strongly encouraged. Obviously there are more opportunities for research at the top research school.
 
For all those that don't have one acceptance I give you.

13381666.jpg
 
JMoonlight said:
Um, woops, looks like I was flattering the school a bit too much. I went and checked the US News Rankings, and we're looking at Top 5 material instead. Also, according to the list, my state school is ranked, middle of the road. I'd prefer not to disclose specifics on this thread to preserve a bit of anonymity.
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since when was NYU top 5???
 
But seriously if you have to choose between UMass and NYU, pick UMass. NYU is going to costs 85k/year due to the extremely high tuition and cost of living. I suppose NYU is more prestigious but that's not worth an extra 30k/year IMO, and that's a figure from my state school, I suspect UMass is less expensive.

EDIT: Having the letters MD after your name is prestigious in itself, remember that.
 
simply go to us news rankings and it has to be either number 4 or number 5 since first they said it was top 3 and then corrected it to say top 5
 
number 4 is washu and number 5 is duke...washu is not near a coast so it must be duke
 
I have to ask: Have financial aid packages even come out?

Though the state school will most likely still end up the cheaper one, if you have not gotten your financial aid package, you will not know how big that difference will be.
 
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Dude, this is totally a personal question-you shouldn't be having us answer it for you.

People who care about WHERE they went, obviously would choose prestige.

People who care about debt, obviously would choose the state school.

There isn't a "wrong" answer, per se...cuz i think people care about both to some degree (we're premeds, are we not?), but there usually is one more important than another. It's like...that question when you ask your friends on what you want from a girl, or a guy. Same thing, IMO.
 
Nymphicus said:
I like the rampant guessing rampaging through this thread.

:thumbup:
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it's stanford! a simple check of past posts proved that...oh and umass

definitely go to stanford! experience a different part of the country with a different culture and attitudes...if you dislike california you'll likely be in a good position to get a residency wherever you want with your track record/potential and the stanford name for good measure and world-class research opportunities plus my run-on sentences

oh and at stanford I believe the most they let students take out in loans is 24k...they cover anything over that i believe, maybe someone can confirm
 
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JMoonlight said:
I'm now facing the biggest decision of my life (thus far at least):

"Prestige" School: Reputation, Opportunities, but a 5 hour plane ride on the opposite coast, far from family/friends/support system and very expensive
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Looks can be deceiving. The school that I think you're referring to has a pretty high tuition, but the average indebtedness of its graduates is actually below 100k based on USNews (which is exceptional when you consider that many schools with much lower tuition rates have higher levels of graduate indebtedness), so I wouldn't immediately discount the school based on cost until you hear back about financial aid.
 
^Seconded. Definitely sounds like we're talking Stanford vs. UMass. My $0.02: unless you know you want to do primary care in Northeast, for which UMass would have you superbly prepared, I'd say Stanford. If you think there's even a chance you might want to do academic medicine, do Stanford. If you'd really like to leave your winter coats at home, go to Stanford.

UMass is not as cheap as it seems. Tuition is ~$8k, sure, but for some reason, they have $12k/year in fees, which is $20k right there. Then if you look at their calculated cost of attendance, it comes out to $49k (though it does seem like they've made some generous allowances). Still significantly cheaper than Stanford, but with Stanford's institutional aid the cost of attendance may be competitive.
 
NickNaylor said:
This is absolutely terrible advice from a financial perspective. Whether or not you can or will pay back your loans is never a question. What is a legitimate question, however, is the impact that debt will have on your future financial (and, thus, your future personal) life. And that's not something to simply brush off and say you'll deal with it when you need to.
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Agreed, but perhaps you should broaden your perspective. If finances are a huge deal with the OP, I doubt he/she would even be considering this. Of course there are many factors involved, but my advice is to not forget about the potential experience because of money.
 
NYU is 30th, dunno where that came from.

And Stanford >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> UMass, and I don't even give two ****s about prestige.
 
equinsu ocha said:
Agreed, but perhaps you should broaden your perspective. If finances are a huge deal with the OP, I doubt he/she would even be considering this. Of course there are many factors involved, but my advice is to not forget about the potential experience because of money.
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I would argue that the "big boy/girl" choice is to perhaps forgo four years of "potential experience" in favor of a 20-30+ years of more financial and personal freedom, but perhaps I'm wrong.
 
NickNaylor said:
I would argue that the "big boy/girl" choice is to perhaps forgo four years of "potential experience" in favor of a 20-30+ years of more financial and personal freedom, but perhaps I'm wrong.
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+1.
Logic that trivializes financial indebtedness is dangerous. If debt doesn't matter, then why give up the potential experience of living in a huge house just because you can't afford it? Why give up the potential experience of a vacation just because you need to put it all on credit cards? etc etc etc.
However, if the school is Stanford, your outlook might be better than you had hoped. In the end, a lot of it depends on your career aspirations.
 
NickNaylor said:
I would argue that the "big boy/girl" choice is to perhaps forgo four years of "potential experience" in favor of a 20-30+ years of more financial and personal freedom, but perhaps I'm wrong.
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And if that person decides (either before attendance or after matriculation), academics or competitive specialty X is where they belong, they will have an upward climb; for the competitive specialty, they may never get there.

Besides, may I point out that, unless OP has received his financial aid packages, this entire conversation is moot as we don't know for sure how significant the price difference will be.
 
kduck said:
+1.
Logic that trivializes financial indebtedness is dangerous. If debt doesn't matter, then why give up the potential experience of living in a huge house just because you can't afford it? Why give up the potential experience of a vacation just because you need to put it all on credit cards? etc etc etc.
However, if the school is Stanford, your outlook might be better than you had hoped. In the end, a lot of it depends on your career aspirations.
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No one is saying debt doesn't matter or is trivial and yes of course it depends on your career aspirations and financial situation. Your comparison to buying a house you can't afford and credit card debt to taking out loans to attend a top medical school (interpretation of top is of course arguable) is simply ridiculous. I'm not saying amount of indebtedness doesn't matter, but you are investing in yourself, not carelessly spending money you don't have. If you have a good enough head on your shoulders to get into a top school, then I'll think you'll be able to manage the loan payments the vast majority of physicians seem to deal with. Once again, this alll depends on your goals and what is important to you.
 
kduck said:
+1.
Logic that trivializes financial indebtedness is dangerous. If debt doesn't matter, then why give up the potential experience of living in a huge house just because you can't afford it? Why give up the potential experience of a vacation just because you need to put it all on credit cards? etc etc etc.
However, if the school is Stanford, your outlook might be better than you had hoped. In the end, a lot of it depends on your career aspirations.
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Prioritizing experience and opportunity over money does not necessarily trivialize debt. It just means you don't see the world in shades of green. As it is, the vast majority of people have to go into debt to get a home, a vehicle, and an education, because few people can afford to pay these things off in an up-front lump sum. Whether you buy a mansion or a hovel, you're probably going to have a mortgage, and owners of Geo Prizms and Ferraris alike are going to have to finance.

Obviously, not everyone should be tapping their credit to drive Ferraris and live in mansions, but it's also unrealistic to expect that people should use present savings only to make purchases. Clearly, earning potential / likelihood of paying off loans is an important consideration, and I don't think you'd be foolish to believe that you can graduate with $200k in medical student loans and still manage as a physician with minimal impact on your quality of life. Maximizing lifetime revenue is not a huge concern for me, and since I have strong reason to believe that I'll manage no matter where I go, cost will not be a major consideration for me when choosing a school.
 
OP, you really do not have enough information to make this decision yet. You need to compare your financial aid packages and you probably have not received this information yet. I graduated from a top 10 med school on the East Coast. I also was accepted to my state school on the West Coast which only offered me a package of loans.

The private med school that I attended gave me needs based grants for 4 years that paid for all of my tuition. I graduated with half of the debt that I would have incurred at my state med school.
 
BHaus9 said:
Cost will not be a major consideration for me when choosing a school.
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Viewing the world in terms of only money is as foolish as turning a blind eye to huge financial decisions. Taking $200k+ in student loans means you will be paying back nearly half a million dollars in the future, and that's only going to have a "minimal impact" on your financial position?

Sure the OP shouldn't completely outrule going to the top school just because of the moeny, but suggesting that he should just ignore finances is terrible advice. The financial decisions you make now are going to make a large impact on your life later, whether or not you take them seriously at this point.

That said we don't know what kind of financial aid the OP will be getting and its very possible that with it, the cost for the top school could come down and be comparable to his state school
 
I think all else equal, going to the top school will give you a little boost in your competitiveness for residencies; that being said, the real value added is thr myriad opportunities to work with very top people in the field in research, health policy, etc. If you're going to take advantage of these opportunities it could significantly enhance your qualifications, and there will be many more such opportunities at the top school,
 
PantherPride said:
Viewing the world in terms of only money is as foolish as turning a blind eye to huge financial decisions. Taking $200k+ in student loans means you will be paying back nearly half a million dollars in the future, and that's only going to have a "minimal impact" on your financial position?

Sure the OP shouldn't completely outrule going to the top school just because of the moeny, but suggesting that he should just ignore finances is terrible advice. The financial decisions you make now are going to make a large impact on your life later, whether or not you take them seriously at this point.

That said we don't know what kind of financial aid the OP will be getting and its very possible that with it, the cost for the top school could come down and be comparable to his state school
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Believe it or not, yeah... I think that "half a million dollars" paid off over 30 years will have a minimal impact on my life given my desired standard of living and projected salary.

Also, I didn't make the claim that the OP should ignorance finances. I simply stated why I choose to do so, and in so doing hoped to justify the position that prioritizing some things over money doesn't make you an idiot (i.e. the 30% of graduating medical students with $200k+ in loan debt are not all living under bridges).
 
JMoonlight said:
I've recently been put into a decision that I am very lucky to be making. I was accepted by Top 3 research school with a whole lotta name recognition/prestige/famous grads. I was also accepted by my state school, which is very close to my home and offers a FANTASTIC tuition deal (such that I will likely be able to graduate with close to none, or no debt whatsoever).
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I hate to rain on anyone's parade, but it's virtually impossible for medical students to engage in meaningful research. They simply don't have the time. Even a full protected year will only allow you to scratch the surface of a real project. If you're lucky you can adhere yourself to a postdoc for a few months and suck up to the PI when he's between administrative meetings.

If you want to both have and eat cake, attend the state school and take a year between M2 and M3 and do a HHMI fellowship or work at NIH. You can then leverage that experience and be more competitive for a so-called top residency program (an asinine term, by the way). Viola, you're debt free and your CV looks really spiffy.

Remember, medical school isn't the finish line. It's about mile 3 of a marathon. You've got the rest of your life to study, practice, succeed, fail, and climb up or down the ladder of academic prestige.
 
PantherPride said:
Viewing the world in terms of only money is as foolish as turning a blind eye to huge financial decisions. Taking $200k+ in student loans means you will be paying back nearly half a million dollars in the future, and that's only going to have a "minimal impact" on your financial position?
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The lifetime salary difference between a dermatologist and a family practice doctor will far exceed this $500,000 debt that you've projected. Should we all forsake primary care then? Doing so clearly will have an impact on our financial position.

Doom and gloom about debt differences between schools is somewhat odd to me, because the lifetime difference in total payout will pale in comparison to specialty choice. I'm not saying one can't be concerned with debt at all, but I find it equally absurd to suggest someone is a lunatic for not caring about their final tuition-related debt. There's a cap on that, no school charges $400,000 a year in tuition, so we know that realistically the debt can only get so bad. It's a fairly standard quantity, and variation in school debt will never hold a candle to variation in specialty income.

I think a healthier attitude would be to figure out what your priorities are. Is your goal to maximize lifetime income? Obviously it's not for a lot of us, and there's nothing wrong with that.
 
Gut Shot said:
You can then leverage that experience and be more competitive for a so-called top residency program (an asinine term, by the way).
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I'm not sure what you mean by the above re: residency. The difference between an elite residency program that is considered to be one of the top in their field and an average one is profound. Like medical school, they all get you to the finish line, meeting some minimum standards, but the experience will be very different. A specialist will have better training at a major academic center, training under the leaders in their field. I would argue that the journey is more important than the destination.
 
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