How hard is it to get scholarships in medical school?

[twospadz]

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Anybody know or experience with getting any?

 

[FindMeOnTheLinks]

You have to have something they value highly --> high MCAT, unique EC's, etc. and it helps if there is a possibility you could "get away" ie go to different school.

It also depends on the school. Like I have heard almost everyone at Pritzker receives some form of a scholarship. But for the vast majority of schools only a handful of applicants receive true merit scholarships. It is very very hard to get one.

 

[hmockingbird]

At my school it's pretty easy to receive a small scholarship every four years (by small, I mean usually <$1000) but larger scholarships are rare.

 

[Shipping News]

It's hard, don't expect to get a substantial one. Real merit scholarships are the big money that top schools throw around to entice the premier SDNers to come to their school. OP, as you only have about 60 posts, you are far from in the running.

This isn't like college where everybody gets some degree of a scholarship (which always seemed to me to be similar to a store raising prices then saying something is on sale...)

 

[On Eagle's Wings]

If UCLA accepts you, you are guaranteed $10,000. Also, 20% of each class will receive a full ride scholarship. This is the school to apply to if you want money, live in CA, and are a competitive applicant.

 

[soccerusa]

Go to UCLA. Get the Geffen

 

[Shipping News]

If UCLA accepts you, you are guaranteed $10,000. Also, 20% of each class will receive a full ride scholarship. This is the school to apply to if you want money, live in CA, and are a competitive applicant.

Why don't they just lower tuition by $10,000?

 

[dgu334]

On a tangent, will having a large scholarship (>$10k/year) for medical school give you any boost for residency apps? Perhaps some directors may view the scholarship as "this student could have attended a top 20 school but settled for a mid tier school because of financials."

 

[TBV]

Be a minority. I got 10k a year at one school I turned down and 15k a year at my current school.

 

[sandstorm223]

Anybody know or experience with getting any?

If you aren't a future Nobel laureate or a URM you won't get one. It just won't happen.

 

[Darth Doc]

I didn't get any scholarships before I started medical school, but I got three small ones (combined $4000) within a few weeks. I went and talked to the financial aid department and explained my situation. I received 2 scholarships this year. My school is much less expensive than most, so this is a higher percent of my tuition than if I went to a DO school. Once you start school, it's worth talking to the financial aid office.

 

[FindMeOnTheLinks]

On a tangent, will having a large scholarship (>$10k/year) for medical school give you any boost for residency apps? Perhaps some directors may view the scholarship as "this student could have attended a top 20 school but settled for a mid tier school because of financials."

Extremely unlikely they could come to this conclusion. They won't care

 

[Rumor13]

On a tangent, will having a large scholarship (>$10k/year) for medical school give you any boost for residency apps? Perhaps some directors may view the scholarship as "this student could have attended a top 20 school but settled for a mid tier school because of financials."

This seems pretty ridiculous. They have no way of knowing where you applied or were accepted to medical school, why you chose the school you did, or how qualified you were when applying. Unless the scholarship was given to you while in school because of outstanding merit, it wouldn't make a difference. And even then, they'd see your grades/accomplishments anyway so the prize you got is inconsequential to them.

Also, I concur about the minority thing. Only people in my class with school-given scholarships are minorities in some way. I was given a scholarship for being a minority. And we regularly get emails about (very few) scholarship opportunities and they're all for minority students (85% of them), family medicine geared students (10%), or military scholarships (5%).

 

[RustBeltOnc]

see below

 

[RustBeltOnc]

If you aren't a future Nobel laureate or a URM you won't get one. It just won't happen.

Agree.

What med school applicants (myself included) fail to understand is that there isn't a whole lot an individual med student contributes to a class, and even if they "achieve" in medical school, HMS etc don't really benefit from producing yet another dermatologist. I often get into trouble for writing this, but the exact composition of a med school class doesn't enhance or detract from a medical center's mission. You could switch UCSF and USC's classes and it wouldn't matter.

You can view this as bad news or as further incentive to search for your purpose in a system/human community much larger then yourself.

 

[sazerac]

The process is 99% random and usually unfair, with resources typically being inefficiently misallocated. I say this as a medical scholarship recipient, scholarship committee member, and as a scholarship endower (all three at different schools).

Medical school scholarships in particular are a strange breed - the recipient will soon have a relatively large income. The scholarship would have to be a significant fraction of a million dollars to have any meaningful impact. The smaller ones are really just a month or two of future income, and they are subtracted from your loans so there isn't any upgrade in the medical student lifestyle either.

Starting in medical school, get used to money flowing out of your pocket, not into it.

 

[Shipping News]

On a tangent, will having a large scholarship (>$10k/year) for medical school give you any boost for residency apps? Perhaps some directors may view the scholarship as "this student could have attended a top 20 school but settled for a mid tier school because of financials."

Hah, no. But really funny that you even asked.

 

[dgu334]

Hah, no. But really funny that you even asked.

I'm not sure what you find to be so funny. It was a legitimate question.

We see all the time college kids include full ride/XYZ endowed scholarships or being part of a select honors college/group within an university on their amcas. I was just curious if this also happens for residency apps.

 

[TBV]

I'm not sure what you find to be so funny. It was a legitimate question.

We see all the time college kids include full ride/XYZ endowed scholarships or being part of a select honors college/group within an university on their amcas. I was just curious if this also happens for residency apps.

I highly doubt they give a **** about what someone coulda, woulda or shoulda done. That person went to that school, that is the work they completed.

 

[Winged Scapula]

Closing; cross posted in Pre-Allo.