So I'm looking at attending a few Ivy league schools versus my home state school. MSAR has one of the Ivy's listed with an avg. indebtedness of $130k. Avg. indebtedness at my state school is very similar. How is this possible with a such a huge difference in cost of attendance? Is it a reflection of kids from rich families going to the Ivy and having their parents pay for school, thus bringing down the mean? Or, is it a reflection of better financial aid and scholarship availability at the Ivy? I'm guessing it's both, but I imagine it's more the former and less the latter. And that means if you go to the Ivy, you're going to school with a bunch of entitled punks (obvious?)? Any thoughts?
Average indebtedness vs estimated cost of attendance
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I'm at any Ivy for undergrad and I can tell you that there are very few "entitled punks" (especially in the sciences). Attending my school was cheaper than a full-tuition scholarship at another institution, so my guess would be that it's better financial aid.
Top schools have very generous financial aid, and a significant part of their student body is very wealthy.
As to your other question, there are entitled people everywhere. There are probably more at top schools, because money and prestige inflates heads, but you don't have to hang out with these people anyway.
As to your other question, there are entitled people everywhere. There are probably more at top schools, because money and prestige inflates heads, but you don't have to hang out with these people anyway.
Penn gives over 30 full tuition scholarships every year. What do you think that does to their average indebtedness?
The big name schools have much more scholarship money available to them in terms of both need and merit based aid, and this is the primary reason why their average indebtedness numbers are lower. It's pretty easy to locate people at top medical schools who say the top school ended up being cheaper than their state school because of this. People whose parents outright pay for their medical school education certainly exist but they are not a driving force on that difference. You'll run into them at state schools and lower ranked private universities, too, and entitled dinguses of every stripe.
In my observation the ivies are much more likely to tolerate dud students with rich parents at the undergrad level, where they'll get sweeped into a large class and any one person's abilities matter less. Medical schools have tinier classes and the school has an incentive to care more about the performance of each individual. They don't want failures. The value of connections is never zero but there are factors that will attenuate it.
The big name schools have much more scholarship money available to them in terms of both need and merit based aid, and this is the primary reason why their average indebtedness numbers are lower. It's pretty easy to locate people at top medical schools who say the top school ended up being cheaper than their state school because of this. People whose parents outright pay for their medical school education certainly exist but they are not a driving force on that difference. You'll run into them at state schools and lower ranked private universities, too, and entitled dinguses of every stripe.
In my observation the ivies are much more likely to tolerate dud students with rich parents at the undergrad level, where they'll get sweeped into a large class and any one person's abilities matter less. Medical schools have tinier classes and the school has an incentive to care more about the performance of each individual. They don't want failures. The value of connections is never zero but there are factors that will attenuate it.
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I'm one of those people where the current private school I attend is actually cheaper than my state school. Those who don't have well to do parents typically get a lot of need-based aid. Even those with rich parents still get a decent amount of merit aid as well.
I would not say that my class has an overrepresentation of kids with rich parents compared to any other medical school. The vast majority of my classmates are great people and you wouldn't be able to guess their financial situation unless you asked.
I would not say that my class has an overrepresentation of kids with rich parents compared to any other medical school. The vast majority of my classmates are great people and you wouldn't be able to guess their financial situation unless you asked.
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I also want to add that it's a little ridiculous that need is determined by parental income. My father makes over $300k per year, but it's MY family's principle to fund one's own education. That I'm considered less in need than someone who's parents make $100k and might actually contribute to his education is a bit absurd. It's not a huge deal, but I could imagine a better system for determining need.
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TheKMan1, what system would that be?
One that takes into account financial emancipation if it occurred a reasonable amount of time before applying. The private schools I'm looking at ignore emancipation and assume your parents all of a sudden are willing to support you.
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I disagree with this sentiment. It's incredibly hard to gauge how willing parents would be to chip into their child's education. If scholarship money truly were dispersed on the sole notion of financial emancipation, blind to the true wealth of the family, every family would just claim their child is financially emancipated, screwing over the ones who were truly in need. And while you may not get direct financial support for medical school tuition, is there any chance that your parents helped you buy you your first car? Your clothes? Airfare home? Groceries? My guess is that coming from a rich household, you likely receive some form of support in at least one of those things. Taking your parent's tax returns is the most truthful and fair way in going about determining a family's real financial situation.
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Undergrad and med school are very different beasts, but I'm at a top med school and can tell you it is insane how wealthy the majority of my student body is. People take all sorts of luxurious vacations, ski trips, hiking trips, cruises, club through Europe, etc etc. every weekend. Bottom line, successful med school applicants tend to come from very wealthy families. Not that they aren't quite smart, but money tends not to be as much of a concern for them (they still think about it, just not in the same way..) as for the rest of us.
You'll notice that there is a very specific 2-3 over represented minorities of wealthy demographics very quickly when you wonder how people afforded to spend their 2 week breaks hitting every major city in Italy.
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Where do you go that people have time to go on luxurious vacations every weekend!
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Probably not over-represented compared to other med schools, but extremely over-represented compared to the population. When I got here I remember being shocked at how much this really is a profession that is much more accessible if you have parents able to buy into you're ability to get there. That being said, many top jobs are like that anyway..but it is very different from the state college atmosphere I am used to.
Edit: response to above (on phone so can't multiquote haha)
Pass/fail schools are a wonderful thing haha, and each individual doesn't leave every weekend, but every weekend and break someone is going somewhere amazing...I'm very jelly 😉
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That is certainly true, but also I think true of higher education in general. Those of lower SES have a significantly harder time trying to move up, but that is not a new problem to society, but in fact something that has improved significantly in even the past few decades as compared to the past thousands of years. I would argue that medical school is more immune to this phenomenon than other equivalent professional schools like top tier business or law schools.
