Go to Top Choice or where the money's at?

[ice_23]

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SDN'ers,

I'm not sure if this thread has been posted in any capacity earlier, so if it has let me know. However, let's say you got into your top choice for med school but you also received a full tuition scholarship to another school which is not significantly lower "ranking-wise" (and by ranking, I mean by residency directors, etc.) but enough to "take note" plus additional money for research. Let's further assume that another big difference between the two schools is location (i.e. you like the location of the expensive school, but not the cheap one). Assuming that money is a rather important issue (and for those relatively few to whom it is not; i envy you 🙂), what would you consider? How important is it to you to come out of school debt free?

Any help would be appreciated (and for those of you who care, I am facing a similar situation, and that is the motivation for me asking this question. Please don't yell at me like other ppl seem to get yelled at; I'm still learning how to post in SDN without pissing everyone off...🙂🙂).

-Ice

 

[lessismoe]

Congrats on your scholarship!

I think you need to look at a couple of things.

What exactly in medicine do you want to go into? If you want primary care or something less competitive than academic medicine, then it really doesn't make sense to go to a ridiculously expensive school.

I'm not sure what the criteria are for you in terms of location desirability, but I think you should keep in mind that you will be REALLY busy for the next few years. What looks like an attractive feature of a location may actually end up being a distraction from your studies.

Exactly where are your finances?? I would recommend going to one of those informational scare-seminars on financing grad school. If you flat-out have no liquid assets to put into med school and everything will have to be in loans (PRIVATE loans, no less), then you should really evaluate how much you are willing to pay off later on.

It comes down to this; how much extra and for how long are you willing to pay for going to your top choice? Is it worth a $3K/mo loan bill for 5 years later on (totally rough-- no idea what your numbers would work out to)? The reality is, if you have a chance to pay virtually nothing for your education, you're WAY ahead of the vast majority of us.

Good luck with your decision.

 

[tofurious]

So for 4 years, here's what you're looking at:

1) Your top choice: paying your own way, probably more competitive because it's likely other people's top choice as well, lots of distraction in the city to pull you away from studying, and when you don't show up for class in the morning because of a fun hang over from the night before you feel guilty cuz you are paying for the time/education you're missing.

2) Your other choice: never having to worry about tuition, you may emerge as one of the top students and be very competitive for residency because of that, not much distraction in the city, and cost of living is probably down because it's not fun, and you can cherish your own decision years ago when your classmates graduate with giant loans and have to make loan payments on their intern minimum wage.

 

[TheFlash]

I, too, fear having to choose between a cheap, top in-state school (i.e. UVa) versus a more expensive (but more enjoyably located) top out-of-state school. Maybe it would help if you revealed which schools you had in mind? Remember, though, people's preferences about location are extremely subjective.

TF

 

[kilroth]

Yes this is the milliion dollar question everyone asks... or should I say 200 grand?

I wanna scholarship!! I'd turn down Harvard for one. 🙂

 

[nuclearrabbit77]

which two schools?