<p>A few points to add…</p>
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<p>Yes, definitely don’t just apply to top med schools. Also, statistically speaking more than half of incoming freshmen premeds will not be premed anymore by the time it comes to apply to med school, and it’s not only because of bad grades in intro classes. Some people simply change their interests.</p>
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<p>Yes, generally true as long as you are from an U.S. MD med school. Keep in mind that you still have to get into a residency program following and med school and train for another 3-8 years before you practice, and your chances of matching residency drop a bit if you went to a DO school, especially for the more competitive specialties. They are even by far worse if you end up going to a Caribbean or other international med school. And some of the more competitive residency programs and specialties will take account the “prestige” or ranking of your med school.</p>
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<p>Not so much anymore, as physician salaries in the last 20 years haven’t kept up with inflation, and most people believe they will drop even more steeply as a long term result of the 2010 ACA, especially the salaries of high-paying specialties. Also, don’t expect to automatically enter a high-paying specialty after med school as those can be very competitive and people may change their interests once they do clinical rotations during their third year in med school. For example, if you went into pediatrics making about $140k to start but took out the full COA of a private med school costing $75k per year x 4 years = $300k, there’s no way you’ll be able to pay that off in 10 years without living like a resident after you have already completed your residency.</p>
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<p>While as mentioned full COA scholarships are very hard to come by outside military options, full tuition scholarships are offered more often. For example, MD/PhD programs offer it to all their students plus a stipend during your 4 years you do your PhD (if you wanna spend the extra 4 years doing a PhD and stay in academic medicine down the line), some special programs such as the Cleveland Clinic (at Case Western) will offer full tuition scholarships, and some mid-high to mid ranked public and private med schools will offer a few full tuition scholarships to their top students (so as to often draw them away from their Ivy acceptance school). There also a few private scholarship programs (like the Tylenol Future Care Scholarship) but those only cover a fraction of the cost. There are also partial scholarships (say in the form of $10k per year) for anyone who signs an agreement to go into primary care or practice in a medically underserved area (if you don’t go into one those fields the scholarship must be repaid as a loan), and also income-based loan repayment plans for those entering into public service.</p>
<p>Long story short, scholarships are generally available to either the best of the best med school students or only to those who want to pursue specialties or sectors in medicine that pay less, such as academic medicine, primary care, practice underserved areas or the military. (You probably won’t see a scholarship for those who want to enter into private practice or go into radiology…)</p>
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<p>Yes, be prepared to come up with another $4000 to $9000 on your own or with your family in addition to your school’s COA during your junior or senior year to cover the whole process. Your school certainly won’t help you here.</p>