cheap school vs dream school

Started by doctorsareneat
Get help with your application

Use all the free resources available to you from SDN: articles, guides, expert advising, forums discussions, and school research.

Browse articles Compare schools My application plan Read Interview Feedback
Practice for interviews Ask an Advisor

which would you choose?

  • cheap school

    Votes: 65 61.9%

  • dream school

    Votes: 40 38.1%
  • Total voters
    105
doctorsareneat

doctorsareneat

im a new kid
10+ Year Member
5+ Year Member
15+ Year Member
Hello! I'm a pre-med student with a burning question.

I posted this on the Pre-Allopathic Forums:

"Like so many others, this is my dilemma.

I've gotten into a couple of great schools. One is my undergrad's med school and one is far away and private. My home school is a great school, and I've gotten to like it a lot over the years, but I'm pretty sure the far away school would give me some opportunities that I know I can't find at my home school. The problem is, I'm pretty sure I'll be receiving a scholarship from my home school, and I don't think I'll get one from the already more expensive far away school.

So what would you do?

A. go to the cheaper school, still get a great education.
or
B. go to the better school, get a possibly better education, and come out of school with maybe $75,000 more debt."


Someone suggested that I post on here, too. I'm very interested to see what the people actually dealing with the debt have to say.

If you could have done it differently, would you have?
 
It depends what you want. Honestly, you'll learn the same stuff wherever you go (just the method of instruction and the professors might be different). Also, your classmates and (perhaps) the climate of the school could be much different. If you're just looking at rankings, then I really don't think 20 or 50 spots on USNews is worth tens of thousands of dollars. But if you feel much better at the more expensive school and believe you will have an easier time living and learning there for the next four years, then it might be worth the extra $18,750 per year. If you don't mind giving details, what are the 2 schools?
 
If you really want the dream school, I say go for it.

Accruing $75K of debt over 4 years isn't an insurmountable sum.

May I ask why there is such a small difference in money between the two schools? If I were picking between my home state school and my actual school, the difference is a little bit more than $150K.
 
cdql said:
May I ask why there is such a small difference in money between the two schools?
Click to expand...

My state school is about 25k/yr and the dream school is about 38k/yr. I think I'll probably get a small scholarship from my state school, so I estimated it would be about $75k over 4 years... plus interest I guess 🙁
 
doctorsareneat said:
My state school is about 25k/yr and the dream school is about 38k/yr. I think I'll probably get a small scholarship from my state school, so I estimated it would be about $75k over 4 years... plus interest I guess 🙁
Click to expand...

save the money.. heck not to rain on your parade but the overall diff is minimal and its not like you will have as much time as undergrad to enjoy the whole thing. YOu will be studying etc and you will be as good of a doc as you want to be as long as you work at it.

My rule #1 for choosing med school is go to the cheapest US MD school you can..
 
Oh to give you an idea one of the leading reasons med students choose specialty care over primary care is debt/pay.

So that 75K will be about 450-500 per month over 30 yrs... you can throw that extra money into something better than paying back your loans!
 
I chose the cheap, state school over the more prestigious, and could not have been happier with my choice (I've graduated). I got lucky, my state school was better than I expected.
It's really what you make of it. There are great teachers and crummy ones everywhere. Find the great ones, and you'll be fine.
 
Oh cheap school. It gives you more career flexibility. Probably why some state schools are harder to get into than some of the non-top-5-10-15 private schools.

Student debt is, what, 40k for school and 40k for living per year? Luckily I'm in Texas so that was 8k for school and 35k for living per year.

More than student debt, there's mortgages, child care, sick family members, and if you're brave enough to start your own practice, there will be long stretches where you're in the hole.
 
For some prestige is everything, for the rest of us it really doesn't matter.
What will matter is what you learn and how well you do on your boards. Both of my radiologist brother-in-laws were against my choice for medical school because they didn't think it was prestigious enough. Now that I am almost done, have outscored them on Steps1&2, and have my pick of residency opportunities they have changed their minds (about my school at least). No matter where you go, if you have good grades and do well enough on your boards there will no opportunities that are not open to you.

From what I have seen while visiting at a large "dream" institutions there are too many layers of residents/fellows. Most of my instruction has come from attendings, not residents. You don't get as much ownership or opportunities as you do at smaller institutions. Examples range from being allowed to run codes in the ED, putting in central lines/chest tubes more times than I can count, to performing a c-section. Yes, all of this was supervised and after the attendings had worked with me long enough that they were comfortable with my abilities. You get a chance to get your hands dirty in ways other than holding a retractor. This allowed me to impress programs during away rotations.

The only down side from being at a smaller school like mine is that are not as many research opportunities. For me this was a plus because I have little interest in research. If academics is your thing then go for the larger school.

The last issue to think about is debt. Crunch the numbers and see what the difference in payments will be. This is not a real heavy consideration until you start thinking about the costs of a future mortgage (which your student loan payments may be close to), car payments, and college money for any children you may have in the future (the cost of education is only going up).

Consider all parameters and make the decision that is right for you. The one thing I can promise you is that no matter where you will go, you will get out of it what you put into it. Good Luck.
 
The only way it might matter is if you choose a competitive specialty. My radiology program director openly admits that he won't interview people from certain schools, no matter what their scores are. Probably not fair, but reality in many programs. The problem with that is that your choice of specialty will likely change twelve times between now and your fourth year. I would also think about the area of the country that you'd like to go to residency. If you want to stay around home, you'll be fine with your home school. If you want to move to a different region, the more prestigious place will help you do that.
 
Cheap.

Career dreams are bigger than education dreams. The less you owe, the bigger the former can be.
 
I'd shell out the money to go to Harvard or Stanford but wouldn't for Vandy or Pitt. But thats just me.
 
RadGirl said:
The only way it might matter is if you choose a competitive specialty.
Click to expand...

I think this is the truth.

If you end up going into something relatively uncompetitive (e.g., IM, FM, peds), and you don't really care about going to a very competitive program (e.g., Harvard, UCSF, etc.), save the money and go to the state school. On the other hand, if you've got your heart set on that neurosurgery or dermatology residency, you will be better off going to the biggest name medical school you can go to and cozying up to the biggest names at that medical school for your letters of recommendation. Of course, there's no guarantee that once you get to that school that you'll be able to cozy up to those people, so there's clearly some risk.

It depends what you want. If, however, like many of us, you don't really know, there's the argument that you should go to the "dream school" just to keep your options open, even if it costs more.

Others may disagree, but I don't think that the extra $100k in debt is going to really affect your lifestyle after you become a practicing physician, especially since you pay it off over such a long period of time.
 
RadGirl said:
The only way it might matter is if you choose a competitive specialty. My radiology program director openly admits that he won't interview people from certain schools, no matter what their scores are. Probably not fair, but reality in many programs. The problem with that is that your choice of specialty will likely change twelve times between now and your fourth year. I would also think about the area of the country that you'd like to go to residency. If you want to stay around home, you'll be fine with your home school. If you want to move to a different region, the more prestigious place will help you do that.
Click to expand...

Not true.. i went to a lesser named school (way lesser).. We had 3 go into derm, a bunch into rads, 7 to ophtho, 5 to ortho etc...

it might lessen your chances of that ONE program but in the end youll get the residency and then the job..

Cheap school for sure!
 
I chose the state school (MUCH cheaper), matched at my #1. I didn't see anyone in my class getting screwed over even remotely for going there. The stuff about wanting to match into a competitive specialty is also overblown. You can match into anything from any US med school, you will have to work just as hard wherever you are.

People can justify the $100k debt all they want, but it's a lot of money. Not worth it, in my opinion. If you keep going with the "prestige, prestige" it will never end. Have to have the best residency, have to have the best fellowship, etc. Pretty soon you're 45 and pissed off at the world because someone is doing better than you.
 
yaah said:
Not worth it, in my opinion. If you keep going with the "prestige, prestige" it will never end. Have to have the best residency, have to have the best fellowship, etc. Pretty soon you're 45 and pissed off at the world because someone is doing better than you.
Click to expand...

You are wise beyond your years.
 
go to the dream school . . . . there is not that much difference in price . . . the better school will give you more options/ more control of your life . . . . a lower board score etc can be offset by the tier school you attend . . . . never place a monetary value on opportunities/connections
 
$75,000 isn't that much difference between the two schools. you didn't mention what the private school is, but if the choice is between a fairy no name state school vs a well ranked, more prestigous private school, I would choose the private school. You can pay off that much debt in one or two years after residency. However, if you're state school is something like Univ of Michigan and the private school you're considering is unranked, then I would stay at the state school.

Don't forget to take location, climate, your future career goals (which may change but if you have something like neurosurg or derm in mind, it's important to consider, and stuff like that into consideration.)
 
Amgen1 said:
go to the dream school . . . . there is not that much difference in price . . . the better school will give you more options/ more control of your life . . . . a lower board score etc can be offset by the tier school you attend . . . . never place a monetary value on opportunities/connections
Click to expand...

This is really overblown. Where you did med school means far less than people like to think it does. When you are applying to residency, no one cares where you went to college. When you apply for fellowships, no one cares where you went to med school.

The better school doesn't give you more options, unless your choice is between an off shore med school versus a US med school. What gives you more options and more control are your own choices and actions. I'm sure there are some residency directors out there who will rank someone higher just because they went to a certain med school, but I would wager these are programs that you would want to avoid anyway, because they obviously don't want the best students.

You're right in a sense, residency application is a bit of a numbers game, but your school is unlikely to get you interviews (except at your home program) that you wouldn't have otherwise gotten. People mistake the fact that "better" med schools tend to have more competitive applicants with the med school itself being better. Don't make that mistake.

Part of the problem is that people who go to expensive med schools will often continually try to justify this for the rest of their life. So it assumes a more heightened sense of importance if only because of the rhetoric. But rhetoric is meaningless.
 
i'll just add my 2cents: sometimes it's better to be a big fish in a medium-sized pond rather than a minnow in the ocean. i voted cheap school, although 4 years ago i'd probably have gone to the dream school over state school. however i'm going to graduate with over $120K in debt, and that's at a state school in a city with reasonable cost of living. talk to a 38 year old family med doc and hear they're still not even close to paying off loans and cheap school starts to sound pretty good. while there are cases where i think dream school is worth the extra money, in general my opinion is that it's not.
 
What makes the dream school such a "dream"? Rankings, like many others have said, aren't really going to matter. But if it's location, or maybe you like their curriculum better (p/f versus grades) or you've talked to the students and people overall seem happier at the more expensive school, then it might be worth it. and, you don't HAVE to take on that extra $75K in debt. If you're motivated, you may be able to find a way to get other scholarships or grants. I went to the "dream" school, (I didn't think of it as the dream school so much at the time, but rather the school that best suited my needs) even though it was private at cost more than any state school in my area because we are P/F, the students were HAPPY, they had a high board passing rate, and two big things for me: daily schedule 8-12(with tapped lectures) great for me because I have children, and your own patient from day 1. So I thouht it was well worth it. And the medical school debt......I knew what I wanted to go into so I applied for and got a NHSC scholarship. I owe $0 for medical school. Good luck, and be diligent about searching out grant and scholarship opportunities. It will be ok, just make sure the dream is really a good thing for you, if it is,then go for it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.