CWRU= $93K fees, board, books - $33K Merit =$60 K per year
UT Austin = $35 K per year. Did not get Honors, Plan II or scholarships.
UT seems a no-brainer based on financials alone. But, I need help to dive a bit deeper.
I am struggling with comparing 2 very different schools (public instate vs private, far vs near, very large vs medium, lots of distractions vs career/study focused)
I have seen advice for a strong Plan B for Pre-med students. Difficult to change tracks at UT vs CWRU. Do you have any advise or experience on how to think about this?
Pre-med support (prep, advise, research, clinical opportunities, more professors or small classes for recommendations) at CWRU seems much stronger and I assume that helps students achieve long term goals. Can I get that from other sources at UT? Is it an uphill battle at UT to find the same resources?
I think you are right that among the pros of a college like Case is the ease of exploring and perhaps following very different paths from where you start, and then the amount of available personal support on any given path. Of course many kids are going to start premed at Texas, end up doing something else, and in most cases it will work out just fine. But I think it is true that Case makes things like that very easy and indeed expected.
Is that worth another $100K or so total? That’s a very personal question. But I note some families can comfortably afford that out of savings or cash flow. Others would have to take out a bunch more in loans. I tend to think the loan approach is not so good, because it can really limit your options in the future if you have so much in loans to service.
And the whole point (at least in this case) was to make it easier to explore other options. Taking out a bunch of loans that close off options instead is really undermining that goal.
Anyway, that’s my two cents. If your family can comfortably afford the difference without much more in loans, then I think you could reasonably go either way. If it would take a bunch of loans to send you to Case–eh, I would not personally advise that.
If you can, are your parents willing to afford it?
If so, choose where you feel is best. If not, go to UT.
Don’t worry about pre-med and letters. If you’re great academically and decide to stay on that path, you can. And if you find another path, you will.
Both are great schools - but obviously different schools.
Budget first. If that’s not an issue, then choose the right one for you outside of the med school equation.