Average Family Income?

[LizzyM]

Holy crap! There are a lot of people here with families making 250K+. This study is skewed though, if you want an accurate representation of the general applicant pool, since you can't eliminate the fact that the sample is limited to people who would participate on SDN (which as we all know, is a particularly interesting population). It would be interesting, however, to compare the results here with the general applicant population (doesn't AAMC have data on this?).

I have heard from a med school dean that a large proportion of med students have a parent who is a physician. My view is skewed because of the school where I work but I can say that I see an enormous number of applicants who have parents in medicine and law. If you add bankers and corporate-business types it is not hard to imagine that >40% of all appliants to med school (not just sdn) come from the top 1% of US households by income.

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[spicedmanna]

I have heard from a med school dean that a large proportion of med students have a parent who is a physician. My view is skewed because of the school where I work but I can say that I see an enormous number of applicants who have parents in medicine and law. If you add bankers and corporate-business types it is not hard to imagine that >40% of all appliants to med school (not just sdn) come from the top 1% of US households by income.

Hmm... Interesting. Thanks for your insight.

 

[oxeye]

Does anyone else here not know how much their parents make?? My parents have always been private about it. I can guess a ballpark figure but don't know for sure.

Looks like I won't even need the info for scholarship stuff - I didn't include them on FAFSA and it looks like I won't need it for my school's need-based aid either (looked at the application and it doesn't ask for it).

 

[lilnoelle]

It's definitely skewed, but if you think about it, the people who participate on SDN probably have a higher overall acceptance rate. The people who don't participate may have higher numbers of folks in the lower income ranges, but probably also have a higher rate of not actually getting into medical school

Maybe. I think there are probably less than 10 in my class of 175 that have ever used SDN, evidenced by the lack of interest in our class thread last year and the relative blank looks that I get every time I mention it to people.

(OK, maybe there are more than 10 that have used SDN, but I'm pretty sure I'm one of the only ones that frequents SDN often)

 

[LizzyM]

they should be equal unless you can prove that there is financial support. where we grew up and how much our parents make has no bearing on our current need unless that money is accessible to us. i have a kidney i could sell for $15k in south america...but it's not an asset because it's no more accessible than money my parents have and don't give me...

The general thought, I think, (I don't have any role in the financial aid decisions) is that in an emergency, you are more likely to have someone to whom you could go to borrow $300 than the kid whose widowed mom gets a social security disability check every month.

 

[Doctor Bagel]

The general thought, I think, (I don't have any role in the financial aid decisions) is that in an emergency, you are more likely to have someone to whom you could go to borrow $300 than the kid whose widowed mom gets a social security disability check every month.

Yeah, I used to think it was unfair that my parents' income/assets might be considered, but I think this point is really true for most of us. I had a problem with my financial aid at the start of school this year and knew my parents could loan me some money until it worked out. Admittedly, my parents are generous, maybe more generous than a lot of parents. Of course, they also don't make anywhere near $250k/year.

I'm actually really depressed by the thought that nearly everyone in med school is from a super high income family. I'm okay with thinking most come from homes where their parents made more than $80k/year because I think that's normal for most college kids. $250k/year, though, is just a whole other financial ballpark.

 

[Critical Mass]

Can you sue someone who worked for free? I know that at the county hospital here, the doctors cannot be sued because they are providing 'free' medical care to the indigent (although shouldn't that analogy be carried over to the public schools as well...?).

As long as we are a society based on greed and people believe that docs have infinite wealth that ought to be easily accessed by people who feel harmed, I don't see how you could have civil immunity from putative malpractice.