You are a HS junior. Right now, your goal is to prep for the PSAT which I think you will take in October. Your score on this test will be the determining factor for being a national merit finalist. So…prep!
Agree…take any CA public universities off of your list.
There is no such thing as a “likely” BS MD program. They are as competitive or MORE competitive for admissions than the elite colleges. They should all be high reaches on your list.
So…as a HS junior, get the very best grades you can. And do the very best you can on that PSAT. You need to also prep for the SAT or ACT…as many merit awards do require these scores.
I think at some point, you need to have a serious discussion with your parents about your undergrad college costs. Hopefully they will at least help pay for a community college near where you live.
Re: medical school…for now, please put that on the back burner.
Needs a test score - if they get a 36, with the 4.0, Bama would be overall inexpensive - not free - and has the McCullough Pre Med Scholars program. A 32/1420 - not as good but still decent - but decent meaning like $25K. W Carolina is another low cost option and depending on test, schools like KU and Central Michigan can be as well - but this could be $20-30K a year.
If they become National Merit Semi finalist - then they can find free - not sure that’s a reasonable option.
But for now - schools like Providence (which has a full ride for a pre med aspirant, W&L, SMU - really anyone who offers a full ride and yes its a hail mary, but they will be the best plays with CC as a safeguard.
But OP should come back once they have a test score….that will be what guides next steps.
Might you consider nursing as an alternative to a doctor?
Due to underfunding of hospitals, nurse specialists are in many cases doing jobs that were previously done doctors. My daughter is one of those. As a nurse practitioner, experienced with pediatric cardiac intensive care patients, she received a promotion at a top, big city hospital into a job previously done by doctors. My dermatologist has a DNP (Doctor of Nursing Practice). She is in a large practice in which she carries the same patient load as any of the doctors and is treated as an equal.
The advantage of nursing is that you can get into your earning years a lot more quickly and advance through the steps a Loy more cheaply:
Step 1: Attend community college to get your RN in 2-2.5 years. Where I live, community college is free if you attend right out of high school. Almost anywhere, it’s much cheaper than college. Once you have your RN, you can immediately start earning money either full time or part time.
Step 2: Transfer to a 4 year college for your BSN. It should only take 2 years to complete this program. The beauty of this is that you can now make good money as an RN while you are going to school. You can work full time in summers and between semesters on winter break, and you can work weekends part time during the semester. Hospital shifts are 12 hours, so 13 days a month is full time and 6 days is half time.
Step 3: Work full time both to get a few years experience and to save money. It will help you decide what specialty you want to pursue. As a BSN/RN, you will now be eligible for higher paying jobs than when you were just an RN.
Step 4: Go to grad school to pursue a nurse practitioner (NP) or DNP degree. Many, many NP programs are offered on line. You have to arrange your own clinicals in many cases, which can be a blessing or a curse. Having a few years experience will make it easier to find doctors who will take you on. Again, you can continue to work as a nurse to put yourself through grad school.
Following this path will get you into patient care much faster than pursuing medical school with all the time in internships and residencies which follow. It will also leave you with a lot less debt - if any. In fact, shortages in the field have many employers paying bonuses to get nurses and/or NPs and there are some jobs which come with loan forgiveness benefits - more in some states than others.
One example of a nursing specialty is nurse anesthetist, which is the highest paid nursing specialty. To be accepted into an NP/nurse anesthetist graduate program, you must have a minimum of 3 years experience. Acceptance is very competitive. But so is med school. In some states, jobs in this field pay over $200,000 per year. Doctors make more, but they also typically have a lot more debt to pay off before they realize the benefits of their high paying careers.
You have a good GPA. I’m not sure of your community achievements but look into some of the very prestigious scholarlships such as Stamps and Jack Cooke Kent. Getting one of those is very hard and you will been competing against other great applicants. Are your first gen or low income or URM? Check out Questbridge or Posse.
I think UNM still offers full rides for,high test scores. You need a very high score. Study hard. Take the test innthe spring. Now is too early withiut proper prep. There are other schools that offer full rides. But NONE of these routes will be easy. Be prepared to work hard.
You cannot afford college without parental help except for CC. If you go the CC route, save time and money by submitting AP credits or take CLEP exams. Those are affordable and let you test out of 100-level courses.
Take med school out of the scene for now. You need to first work out how to get through four years. Have a hard conversation and ask your parents if they will help and explain the costs. If you are really on your own, now is the time to start doing research. Good luck.
It looks like they have two that are listed as covering “base tuition, fees, and housing”: Regent’s (approx 12 awarded annually, requires additional application) and National Merit. https://scholarship.unm.edu
For automatic full rides, you may have to look at places like Prairie View A&M, Alabama A&M and Troy, if you get a high enough SAT or ACT score to go with your 4.00 GPA.
Competitive full ride scholarships are more common, but should generally be considered reaches for the scholarships, even if admission to the school is likely or assured.
Sometimes, parents are more willing to subsidize live-at-home and commuting costs (even though they are not $0) than they are to subsidize housing and food costs living at the college. This can make commuting range colleges appear less expensive than they actually are from the student’s point of view.
UAH direct costs are $39,576. You are using indirect which as you know are often puffed up by schools. But direct costs are $39,576 so with a solid score can be under $20k.
As OP said the parents may reconsider, it’s a lower cost option.
but nothing matters until OP revisits with a score.
Presumably your parents want you to go to college or they wouldn’t have cared enough that you’re now enrolled in a STEM magnet. They may be under the impression
1/ that you can get loans → you can only get 5.5k for freshman year. Anything higher has to be taken by your parents. In addition, a new law has been passed and there’s now a lifetime cap on student loans which will make paying for med school very difficult even if you “only” take the 5.5k federal loans.
2/ that you can “work your way through college” the way it was possible in the 1990s → college costs have so ballooned it’d require you finding a part time job paying $40-50 an hour for you to “work your way through college” at a public university in a state you’re resident of, and forget private universities. Needless to say, unless your dad is CEO of a company that will hire you at that rate, that’s not happening.
Would they be willing to run the NPC for your flagship and for another university nearby, without you? It’s anonymous and it’d give them a sense of net costs.
The net price calculators are currently set for students starting college fall 2026, and that is not this student. They will be starting fall 2027…and that year will use 2025 income tax year information. And yes, financial aid policies could very well change. Please view the NPCs as rough estimates only.
Yes, the idea would be information for the parents - so they have a better idea of how much college costs nowadays, vs. in the 1990s or in another country.
(In the mid 90s, in state tuition at UMDCP was about 4k.)
Not to be a downer, but OP is from one of the most difficult states to become an NMSF. This year Maryland is tied with VA, WA, and CA with a qualifying index score of 224. Only NJ, MA, and DC were harder at 225. Even a great PSAT score of 740 (out of 760 max) in math and in reading, which translates into a 222, would miss the cut this year at all these states. OP has a chance, but the margin of error is unfortunately razor thin in Maryland.
I would suggest the OP have another discussion with her parents about the realities of college costs. Waiting until the ED date is too late in the game to understand what, if any, budget she will have for college. I assume they want her to attend college but at their income level the refusal to contribute (I read the refusal as a “don’t want to” as opposed to “can’t”) is going to be a major deterrent to doing so. Even if the student spends two years at CC (pretty low cost and can probably be financed through part time/summer work), how is she going to fund 2 years at a 4 year school? This student’s parents may be under the misapprehension that there is a lot more “scholarship” money out there than there actually is - often times kids on generous need-based financial aid refer to it as “scholarship” money and her parents may think that a student of her caliber will be able to finance her college costs that way when in actuality their income is what will be holding her back. In the meantime, OP should focus on any school that offers a true free ride (many good ones are outlined above) - the Johnson should receive particular focus as they award it to more students than some of the others.
If the OP can achieve NMF status, University of New Mexico offers a true full ride–tuition, fees, housing and meals are covered. If the OP’s parent will cover transportation costs, @lov.e should be able to attend UNM. There is an international airport in Albuquerque and it’s 20 minutes from campus.
The further good news is that starting in 2024, UNM’s School of Medicine expanded those who it will consider for admission to include all graduates of UNM even if they are OOS residents. (Before only NM state residents were eligible for admission.)
I know a young man from CA, who did exactly what I’m suggesting for the OP. He went to UNM for free on the NMF scholarship, graduated, worked for a few years [in CA] to save some $$, then applied to med school. He got passed over by every CA public and private he applied to but was accepted at UNM SOM and now happily attends there. He even got the OOS portion of his first year of med school tuition waived.
UNM is among the least expensive medical school in the country. With very, very careful budgeting, @lov.e may even be able to avoid taking out private loans to cover their med school costs even under the new lower student loan limits
UNM is a fine med school which sends grads into competitive specialties and places grads into highly ranked residency programs all across the US. (Yale, Stanford, Mass General, Mayo, UCSF, UCLA, Johns Hopkins, WashU, Vanderbilt, Columbia …..)
UNM SOM also has a special full tuition scholarship for med students who agree to specialize in a primary care field and work in a medically underserved area of New Mexico for 5 years.
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