Am I crazy for passing up a full ride to state med school for a more prestigious med school?

[Espadaleader]

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If you only want to make $$$ go to state U. We all know that if you bust your butt at state U, you can make the most money. Debt free, work in Kansas. Live the life. If you want to be an academic you will make less money. This is a fact. Academia pays less. Teaching hospitals pay less. Living in Boston/Atlanta/New Haven/NYC/SF is expensive. But if you want to be a leader in medicine, a chair, run your own lab, do consulting, do global health etc. and make good money doing it then the top 10 school always wins out. If you are 35-40 and just want to get residency over to practice and make money to send your kids to school than I would actually recommend state U. If you are most applicants that want to match with an academic residency and work in a teaching institution then usually (but not always) top 10 works.

 

[getdown]

I don’t think this logic is true. A marginal student may be more likely to succeed in a top 10 school versus a state school. A marginal student in a P/F curriculum at HMS or the Yale System might fare better than a student grinding to get AOA, grinding to “stand out”. I wasn’t ranked in my school, but I was definitely “average”. Everything I did was spot on average. Never worse. Never better. But I still got a top 10 masters, still matched at another top 10 institution for residency etc. I guarantee you that this would not have been the case otherwise.

When talking about chances and probabilities there will always be those that beat the odds. I'm glad it worked out for you but because it worked out for you doesn't mean it would work out for everyone. People do change in medical school and outperform their better stated peers. I was also one of these but I would not say that I am proof that the general statement is false.

 

[aldol16]

This question comes up again and again and a lot of pre-meds worry about this. To be completely honest, it depends on your goals. If you want to be a doctor, full stop, then it doesn't matter and you should take the full ride. But if you want to go into academic medicine and/or match at top academic residencies, it would behoove you to go to a better ranked school. If you're doubtful, just head on over to the med student forums and look at the match lists.

Matching well has to do with not only your Step scores but also who you know and the opportunities you have available to you. And those opportunities are abundant at the top medical schools. It's stacking advantage on to advantage and that's how you get ahead in academic medicine.

 

[Med Ed]

This question comes up again and again and a lot of pre-meds worry about this. To be completely honest, it depends on your goals. If you want to be a doctor, full stop, then it doesn't matter and you should take the full ride. But if you want to go into academic medicine and/or match at top academic residencies, it would behoove you to go to a better ranked school. If you're doubtful, just head on over to the med student forums and look at the match lists.

Matching well has to do with not only your Step scores but also who you know and the opportunities you have available to you. And those opportunities are abundant at the top medical schools. It's stacking advantage on to advantage and that's how you get ahead in academic medicine.

"Academic medicine" is not a singular term. An assistant professor on a non-tenured clinician-educator track who spends 90% of his/her time seeing patients is in academic medicine. So is someone on a tenure track with a lab, two R01's, and 95% protected time for research. The former job is not hard to come by. Success in procuring and keeping the latter job is extremely difficult. Lumping them together (along with every other academic career) is an oversimplification of a fairly nuanced subject.

 

[TG4M]

YES. You are extremely crazy to give up free money for something that isn't even tangible.
Loans (in my opinion) are NOT a "no big deal" thing to view. I seriously don't understand people who willingly go into debt if they have a
debt-free option. Even IF the school was "a new school giving everyone scholarships", you still would have to bust your a** to get a good Step Score to place in a residency you would like despite which school you're at. A medical school is still a medical school at the end of the day I get prestige matters in some people but it matters to a certain degree. If you are given an option where you can do it for free take it. It's not fun to be in debt, even if you can "pay it off quickly". Life is really uncertain and lots of things can go south really quickly making the debt crushing.

 

[aldol16]

"Academic medicine" is not a singular term. An assistant professor on a non-tenured clinician-educator track who spends 90% of his/her time seeing patients is in academic medicine. So is someone on a tenure track with a lab, two R01's, and 95% protected time for research. The former job is not hard to come by. Success in procuring and keeping the latter job is extremely difficult. Lumping them together (along with every other academic career) is an oversimplification of a fairly nuanced subject.

Sure, I should have said something closer to "academia" or a tenure-track academic position that involves academic research. Pedigree also matters for matching to academic centers, which is where many of the "top" residency programs are regardless of specialty. Centers that emphasize their core research mission happen to like research on resumes. Big surprise there.

 

[787593]

Title.

Dumb. Not crazy.

 

[Chimichica]

Millenials...sheesh

 

[Chimichica]

Millenials...sheesh