<p>OP, As I posted earlier, I personally did not look up their web sites. Since you raised this question, I look up one link as an example:</p>
<p><a href=“http://medfinaid.yale.edu/funding/index.aspx”>http://medfinaid.yale.edu/funding/index.aspx</a></p>
<p>Of course, they do not provide very black and white information on these sites (like a financial aid calculator.) They also do not specifically say that. as long as the parents’ income is less than $65K (it used to be $60K 4 years ago?) a year, there is no parents’ contribution, like in their college FA. But still, they did mention need based scholarship even for the medical school.</p>
<p>I think what they are trying to achieve is that, for most if not all students, they want their students’ debt at the graduation (from their med school) to be capped at a certain level (like barely above or below six figures.) If the school believes your parents could contribute in THEIR (not yours) judgement, the school is not shy about asking the parents to contribute their “fair share” (as defined by them). But if your parents are considered as not being capable of contributing anything, the school will give you more need-based grant. However, every students had to take out a certain amount of loans (called unit loans.) The main difference between the FA of these colleges and that of their affiliated med schools is the mandatory unit loan. Somebody showed me the amount of unit loan before, but I can not locate it at this moment. (Considering my age, my googling technique is not that great :))</p>
<p>I did see the FA letter from BCM (and UTSW) before. Although I could not recall the details as it was several years ago, my recollection is that it was also not a small amount even for the first year. (UTSW honestly told everybody that they sweetened their first year FA a little bit.) And unlike your family, our EFC is not zero. So, the FA for some of these need-based med schools may be even “better.”</p>
<p>I think that Curm, a long time CCer, once said there may be a dozen or so such need-based (but unit loans still required) med schools out of 130 (used to be 126?) med schools. </p>
<p>Also, those med schools tend to inbreed their own. Recently, it seems some CCer posted that Stanford med take over 20 percents of their class from their own college. If this is true, it breaks the record set by those comparable med schools on the other coast which tend to inbreed 10 to 13 percents of their own. (“inbreed” may not be as “damaging” /unfair to the students graduated from other colleges as “incest” among similar kinds of schools in the same region, I think.)</p>
<p>Come to think about this, UTD and UTSW, as well as Rice and BCM, have the somewhat similar “in the same region/status”, incest relationship. LOL.</p>