Go to the website of your local hospitals and check out where the doctors are coming from. If it’s anything like the big hospital network in my metropolitan area, there will be few that are coming from expensive undergrads. (Not none, but few.)
I’ve never heard of people being denied shadowing opportunities because of where they attend college. And if you’re applying for a job in a medical/clinical setting, “name brands” don’t matter much either…it’s whether you have the necessary certifications.
Does that mean you should go to the cheapest school you can find? Not necessarily. You need to determine what is important to you in your college experience. Below are some potential factors:
- Distance from home
- Geography
- Type of housing
- Particular interests
- Appearance of campus
- Vibe of campus
- Peer group
- Size of classes
- Range and depth of classes
- Distribution requirements
- Flexibility to change majors
- Major requirements
- Study abroad options
- Climate
- Prestige
- Cost
Some things you may not care about at all, while other things might be low, medium, or high priority. If you could get your ideal college for $10k, super! But if maybe you get your ideal (or as close to ideal as any school can be) for $40k or $60k or $80k… Maybe Case Western at $80k isn’t worth it for you, but maybe it is worth it at $40k. That’s one of the reasons why people hunting for merit aid will apply to a larger number of colleges…they don’t know whether they’re going to get the right size merit package to make the college a sufficient value for them. But every family will value a particular school differently…this is very much an individual situation. And whatever you decide to pay extra for, you want to make sure that you’re paying for something you value.
This post from earlier today gave an example of a different student’s priorities: Parents of the HS Class of 2025 - #9032 by sbinaz and how the family uses this system for a student to help make choices between schools (and for this individual, cost was a factor of high importance).