I am a high school senior. I want to become a psychiatrist.
I wanted to go to university straight after, but even with financial aid, I might have 14k in loans.
However, I am currently doing dual enrollement at a community college, that also has an LPN program for one year. I think that job has a pretty good income right out of school.
I was thinking of living with a different family member for a year and doing it, then applying the next year for university, or ask for a deferral if I get accepted into schools this year.
So then once I’m done, I can have a job that pays more than minimum wage. I will likely be using FAFSA to pay for the program and it could cover most if not all of it.
I will have 12 credits by the time I graduate high school from the CC, so I might have to apply as a transfer.
The FAFSA will determine your eligibility for the Pell grant (about $7000), and the Direct Loan of $5500 for your first year of college. Will that cover the LPN program?
The community college -->state university route might be the most cost-effective way to attend college directly after high school.
If you are working full time as a nurse, you may find it difficult to enroll in and take college coursework you’ll need to apply for medical school.
Plus science classes you take for your nursing degree won’t be accepted as fulfilling med school admission requirements.
Psychiatry is medical specialty that requires completing a bachelor’s degree (plus all med school pre-req classes) plus 4 year of medical school, followed by 4 years of medical specialty training (called residency). It’s a long haul.
Consider becoming a psychiatric NP. You can do a 2 yr comm coll RN degree, then an RN to BSN degree, then a NP degree. You’ll be done more quickly, more cheaply, and be able to earn some decent money as soon as you get the RN.
There is a huge need for psych prescribers. You will have no trouble finding work as a psychiatric NP.
The LPN is kind of a dead end certification. I’d go with the comm coll RN instead. BTW, you can start getting the gen ed credits out of the way this year, by identifying the local comm coll RN program you want, and seeing which CLEP credits they’d take, prepping for the CLEP exam, and taking the CLEP exam for free with a voucher. Check out modernstates.org.
FAFSA doesn’t give any financial aid; it is just an application for federal student aid. It determines your eligibility for Pell grants (which per your other threads you will be eligible for) and subsidized student loans.
Please be aware that Pell grants and subsidized federal student loans have caps on the amount of credits that they can be used for. If you use your Pell and sub loan eligibility to pay for your nursing training, you will have less federal FA available to pay for your pre-med coursework and bachelors degree later on.
This is a decision you need to consider carefully. The need to support yourself near term vs achieving your long term goals. There are arguments to be made for both sides, but only you know your own particular situation and can decide what is best for you.
Good point. I think of CLEP only for basic gen eds, but one English class is usually accepted by schools that take CLEP - do you know if that would be an issue down the road when applying to med school, since most med schools do require English classes?
12 semesters, meaning 6 years of Pell grants are allowed for undergrad - very generous, certainly more than enough for a determined student to get an RN and then a BS with med school pre-reqs done.
CLEP credits are treated a lot like AP credits. An individual med school may or may not accept the credit even if it is reported on a college transcript. School policies vary. To even be considered as fulfilling admission requirements, any CLEP credit must be listed as equivalent to a class offered by the institution issuing the transcript.
And any CLEP credits (like AP credits) carry the expectation that an additional higher level course in the same discipline will be taken at a 4 year university to supplement the CLEP credits. (Med school want to see a university-level grade in the discipline–even writing skills.)
Usually people only get 3 first yr credits for AP english, even if they have done both lang and lit. Usually colleges will accept one english clep, but require a 200 level eng also. Obviously, a premed should not do clep for sciences.
Very college dependent. My son got a five on the AP Literature exam, and got 8 credits…two full courses. He still had to take the one required freshman writing course, but that was it. Boston University 2003 freshman.
Students need to check what their college gives. For my son, this meant only 6 core courses instead of 8. It really helped.