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?

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.

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.

Snobby comment. I am standing in a hospital right now and I bet you $100 there is not a single doctor around me who would call a quarter million dollars of debt trivial. You sound like a fool with such a comment, but more importantly nobody voluntarily takes that much debt without a commensurate payoff, and when they do, the debt is still not trivial.

Yale w/o question.

Congrats OP - your DC has some good options.

One thing to keep in mind though is the mental and emotional makeup of your kid - that should have some influence. I went to school on a Regents' scholarship at a college similar to BU in profile. I had pressure to maintain the scholarship but it was not that difficult to maintain. I also got opportunities to work with professors and other perks. DH went full freight to an Ivy (not Yale). It was a severe stretch for him and his family but they sucked it up because it was Ivy. We are going through college exploration with our oldest and DH often talks about the pressure he had to succeed knowing all that his family was sacrificing financially. Sure, it kept him motivated but it also made him miserable. Looking back, he has very few fond memories of undergrad. He has done well enough financially to pay back his parents and to pay off the loans, but it seems to have left some scars.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd say Yale except that my sibling was pre-med at Yale and my parents say they wish they'd saved the money and sent him to our state school. The pre-med classes are big lectures.

If your son might consider other majors, then Yale.

FWIW, though, my sib is a big fan of Yale and is glad he went though.

With one exception, everyone I know who went to Yale is a big fan and glad they went.

+1

We faced a similiar decision. Princeton or a full ride at a good state school. My daughter took the scholarship. She graduated a couple of years ago. No regrets. Turning down $60,000 and paying for a name would have been really stupid for undergrad.

Undergrad? Opt for FREE unless money is NO object. Grad? Different story.

Anonymous wrote:Oh and I'm a previous poster about Princeton and I'm applying to med school, it helps a lot as well to be premed and have the name of Princeton (and I'm sure this works for Yale), I actually decided later in life to go and the Princeton name is really the only reason it has worked out for me. Going to Ivy League gives you wiggle room in case orgo doesn't work out or if you want to go at it later.

You are young and clueless my fellow Tiger. Once you have a serious job -- or a Ph.D or JD or MA -- it is all about your performance.

Nobody will care where you went undergrad. 98% of my professional colleagues don't know where I went undergrad -- but they all know where I went to law school.

-signed (older) Princeton grad

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.

Yeah 250k in debt from medical school is manageable.

250k on debt from med school and 250k debt from undergrad is 500k that is s huge burden on even the most highly paid doctor. And what, most specialities you get 200 k on graduating? Not everyone goes to plastic surgery, dermatology or orthopedic surgery. I just went to a party where the doctors wife I knew told me how they could not afford a house in a relatively high cost of living area. And I am a doctors wife myself so I know some aspects of our acquaintances financial situations and undergrad did not matter.

Now as a finance professional if ops kid wanted to go into finance I would say Yale all the way.

Anonymous wrote:The question is, is money no oject or not? If yes, yale. If no, b.u.
If you don't know, then find out the answer to "is money no object?" first.

I have the same advice. If the kid will have to take loans to go to med school and undergrad, go with BU. It is not like an undergraduate degree from anywhere is a lottery ticket these days. Graduating debt free from undergrad would allow your child lots of options in terms of work if they change their mind about med-school as well. Plus, Boston is way more fun than New Haven.

OP, we cannot make this decision in a vacuum. Without knowing finances, it's really hard.

For instance, if you had to pay $60K each year for Yale, but do not have money saved and only earn $150K, BU is the clear way to go.

But if you have $200K in a 529 for your child, then Yale would be the winner.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd say Yale except that my sibling was pre-med at Yale and my parents say they wish they'd saved the money and sent him to our state school. The pre-med classes are big lectures.

If your son might consider other majors, then Yale.

FWIW, though, my sib is a big fan of Yale and is glad he went though.

With one exception, everyone I know who went to Yale is a big fan and glad they went.

BU Save the loans for graduate school.

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.