Boston U full scholarship vs. Yale full price

[Anonymous]

My brother is a doctor a specialist in fact. $250k in debt is a burden. Being a MD takes a lot of time and life happens in the meantime. Kids. Schools. Housing. Buying a practice. All this costs money while you are working for pennies in med school and after. He would say: debt free is the way to go as he finally paid it off IN HIS 50s.

[Anonymous]

Hi all. Thanks for your input. We have $120K saved in a 529/other savings vehicles, are comfortable paying $25K out of pocket, and the rest would need to be made up elsewhere- so about $15K/year. We are in that donut hole of no aid received, but can't pay full price. IF she goes to Yale, med school would obviously not be covered. BU, some of it would be covered.

She has took organic chemistry at Northwestern and liked it and is very certain pre-Med is the way she wants to go, but you're right...there is a chance that could change.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you kidding ? BU! Have you looked at now expensive med school is ?

+1 four years of undergrad four years of med school three to four years of residency maybe one year of fellowship you seriously don't want to start off 250k in debt. As for those people saying he may change his mind about med school we don't know. OP knows her son, but starting off in debt after undergraduate is a recipe for disaster and BU is not a bad school no matter how magical Yale may be, and I say this as an Ivy League graduate.

All I know is the Harvard doctor got into the same competitive residency as the doctor from state school, a brand name undergrad gives you only a very slight edge up for med school.

The 250k in debt turns out to be trivial for the doctors that I have known.

Er, my pediatrician husband regrets the debt. He brings home <$150 per year which doesn't get you very far around NOVA with cost of living.

Is that typical for a pediatrician in NoVA?

Yes. Possibly above average for Peds and Family practice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you kidding ? BU! Have you looked at now expensive med school is ?

+1 four years of undergrad four years of med school three to four years of residency maybe one year of fellowship you seriously don't want to start off 250k in debt. As for those people saying he may change his mind about med school we don't know. OP knows her son, but starting off in debt after undergraduate is a recipe for disaster and BU is not a bad school no matter how magical Yale may be, and I say this as an Ivy League graduate.

All I know is the Harvard doctor got into the same competitive residency as the doctor from state school, a brand name undergrad gives you only a very slight edge up for med school.

If DC wants to be a community physician, there is no competitive advantage in going to a better college. But, if DC is interested in more than practice then college matters a lot. It's the same as law school. If all you want to do is be a lawyer, you can go anywhere and get into Suffolk Law and pass the bar. But, if you want to be a legal scholar, appellate judge, etc. going to an elite law school and an elite college matter a lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The fact your kid wants to be a doctor changes the equation. Yale is helpful to get into professions such as i banking or start ups. Med school don't care whether it's Yale or BU, they care about the MCATS and gpa. I would take the full scholarship, your kid is going to want to keep loans down if he or she is going to med school and avoid being half a million in debt by the time they are done.

I know tons of people in a competitive medicine field and most of them did not go to ivy leagues. Now if your kid wanted to do a start up or banking or another field then the equation changes again, but as a wannabe doctor whatever school works as long as grades are good and super important to keep student loans down since you'll be studying for a long long time not earning any money. I know doctors with a ton of student loans that can't even hug houses in their mid thirties.

But what if he changes his mind like so many college kids do? I too was premed until I bombed organic chemistry, as were most of my friends.

OP, your child should do whatever gives him the most options long term. I think that's Yale.

NP here. +1,000,000 College students change their career goals change all the time. Many who think they want to become doctors get weeded out. If it were me, I'd want to give my kid every possible option.

The difference in the quality of the student bodies BU and Yale is huge. That's why BU gave him merit money, as it would for nearly any candidate good enough to get into Yale.

[Anonymous]

Not even close. There's a reason people are willing to mid-8 figure donation to get their kids into Yale.

I wonder if any of the "Take the money" posters have a kid on the WL at Yale.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you kidding ? BU! Have you looked at now expensive med school is ?

+1 four years of undergrad four years of med school three to four years of residency maybe one year of fellowship you seriously don't want to start off 250k in debt. As for those people saying he may change his mind about med school we don't know. OP knows her son, but starting off in debt after undergraduate is a recipe for disaster and BU is not a bad school no matter how magical Yale may be, and I say this as an Ivy League graduate.

All I know is the Harvard doctor got into the same competitive residency as the doctor from state school, a brand name undergrad gives you only a very slight edge up for med school.

If DC wants to be a community physician, there is no competitive advantage in going to a better college. But, if DC is interested in more than practice then college matters a lot. It's the same as law school. If all you want to do is be a lawyer, you can go anywhere and get into Suffolk Law and pass the bar. But, if you want to be a legal scholar, appellate judge, etc. going to an elite law school and an elite college matter a lot.

That's bs. In my DH dermatology class out of the whole group of over ten residents only two were from ivy leagues. Med school is seriously all about grades and MCATS, it's very different from law school.

[Anonymous]

It is simply amazing that someone can afford to turn down money and a free education to pay 1/4 million bucks to attend another school. OP, you are in an enviable position. One question and you many have mentioned it. What does your DC want to do? If he had the sole choice, which one would he choose?

[Anonymous]

I can't believe that this is seriously a question. Full scholarship at BU, of course. Why would you pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for something you could get for free? Oh, right, it's the name.

[Anonymous]

The evidence is VERY clear that those who get into Ivy Leagues but choose to attend elsewhere (for whatever reason) fare just as well as those who attend the Ivy school.

I'm a doctor. Medical school adcoms don't really care where you went. As long as you are at a competitive, well-respected, rigorous school, which BU most certainly is, it's all about grades and MCAT. Now, if this discussion were about say, Frostburg State and Yale (no offense Frostburg)...Yale would be an easy choice. But BU is a top-40, immensely well-respected institution. If your child goes to medical school, she will already be in a lot of debt - why pile on even more?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hi all. Thanks for your input. We have $120K saved in a 529/other savings vehicles, are comfortable paying $25K out of pocket, and the rest would need to be made up elsewhere- so about $15K/year. We are in that donut hole of no aid received, but can't pay full price. IF she goes to Yale, med school would obviously not be covered. BU, some of it would be covered.

She has took organic chemistry at Northwestern and liked it and is very certain pre-Med is the way she wants to go, but you're right...there is a chance that could change.

OP this is going to be us in a couple of years- ds might not get into Yale but has the stats for a top 20 college. We will (hopefully) have enough to spend around $55K a year for undergrad and unlikely to get much or any need based aid. We might be able to swing it by dipping into other savings but will not have any savings left for med school which is around $80K a year. Of course as other posters rightly point out a lot can happen in four years of undergrad (including organic chemistry!) and he might not make it to med school in which case would he have been better off going to the elite univ. which would presumably open more doors into top notch Ph.D programs. Hard to make these decisions without a crystal ball.
I hope you will come back and tell us what your child decides.

[Anonymous]

I came across this website that claims that 75% of the med school admits in top med schools came from one of the 20 schools listed here. Similar info for phD, MBA and law programs.

FWIW..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hi all. Thanks for your input. We have $120K saved in a 529/other savings vehicles, are comfortable paying $25K out of pocket, and the rest would need to be made up elsewhere- so about $15K/year. We are in that donut hole of no aid received, but can't pay full price. IF she goes to Yale, med school would obviously not be covered. BU, some of it would be covered.

She has took organic chemistry at Northwestern and liked it and is very certain pre-Med is the way she wants to go, but you're right...there is a chance that could change.

I went to BU and was not impressed by the professors but with these numbers, I'd go BU and save that money for medical school or graduate school. Best for her not to have debt. My sister is a doctor and makes about $180. Specialities can make a lot more but standard salary is around $200K. My parents paid for medical school. Where she goes to medical school is far more important.

[Anonymous]

Getting into Yale is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I attended an Ivy, and my med-school-bound friends all attend institutions of that caliber after. If my child were highly motivated and ambitious, for me it would be a no-brainer. I would only question the decision if DC seemed more likely to opt for a low-paying field in the end.

[Anonymous]

http://www.feinberg.northwestern.edu/sites/emergencymed/education/residency/current-residents.html

Here's Northwestern U's ER residents. A minuscule number come from Ivy League undergrad schools. The vast majority come from non-top 20 schools. Lots of schools DCUMs would turn their noses up at/much lower ranked than BU...Coastal carolina, U of Georgia, JMU, Marquette, St. Louis University, U of Florida, Texas A and M, Clemson, Vermont. And some I've never even heard of, like Elmhurst College.

http://www.pediatrics.northwestern.edu/education/residents/people/current.html
Same with pediatrics: we've got Canisius College, UMass, U of Miami, UMD, Wisconsin, Northern Illinois, Ohio State, St. Michael's college, Miami of Ohio, Indiana, Iowa State, U of Dayton. Again, very few top-20 grads and even fewer Ivy Leaguers...