I was excited get my acceptance to Midd, but unfortunately my family received no financial aid. While my parents say we could make it work if I really want to go there, I would probably end up with more that $40,000 in debt and even that would still strain my parents finances. I received the highest merit scholarship at St. Olaf allowing me to attend for $30,000 a year, ($30,000 less than Midd). I could see myself being happy at both schools, but I am a bit attracted to Midd’s prestige. Finally, I hope to attend med school and become a pediatrician. Would Midd give me a boost when applying to med school or not?
No, take the scholarship. St. Olaf is a very fine school.
St. Olaf is classed as a “Top Choice” on an online list, “The Experts’ Choice: Colleges with Great Pre-med Programs,” should this be of interest to you.
I know a St. Olaf student who just got matched with Mayo Clinic for med school residency match day. Save the money and go to St. Olaf.
In terms of aesthetics, St. Olaf is recognized in this article: “The 25 Most Beautiful College Campuses in America” / Thrillist.
Hands down. St. Olaf.
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Since the prestige of your options is one of your stated criteria, one way to compare it would be through the substitution of other schools with similar statistical attributes. By standardized test scores, for instance, Middlelbury and St. Olaf would compare to Boston College and UNC-Chapel Hill, respectively. When choosing between the latter schools, I would think factors other than prestige would dominate. By analogy, the same could apply to your choices as well.
I would not want to get that deep into debt with med school yet to pay for. I’d opt for St. Olaf.
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As others have advised: St. Olaf.
St. Olaf easily.
@happy1 nailed it. Undergrad is just the beginning if you want to go to med school. Keep your focus on the longterm goal and what best gets you there. It sounds like St. Olaf
Last year a friend of my D’s turned down Dartmouth and Pomona for high merit aid at St Olaf’s. I’m a huge Middlebury fan but if you have a no debt option in St Olaf’s vs 40k debt at Midd I think the writings on the wall!
St. Olaf.
St. Olaf. You save $120K that you are certainly going to need for Med School.
Plus, Olaf has fantastic placement into Med Schools, with a strong pipeline into Mayo if you decide to attend there and are qualified.
Many questions on CC are tough. This one is easy, quite frankly. You are not “compromising” at all in your pre-Med education. Anyone with brains recognizes Olaf, especially for pre-Med.
Good luck and congrats on the nice scholarship!
Went to a graduation party for a family friend’s son who just finished medical school. He has classmates with $300K in undergrad/med school debt. Go to St. Olaf!!!
I am fairly sure that nobody on CC can produce reliable data comparing the admission rates to specific medical schools for St. Olaf students and Middlebury students with equivalent GPAs and MCAT scores. That’s the data you’d need to answer your question. Without that data, nobody can tell you that Middlebury (or any other school) can boost your admission chances.
Middlebury would boost your chances if you were aiming for foreign service or consulting. So. Middlbury with 40k debt would only matter for very specific fields.
For medical school, St Olaf is likely to get you where you want to go - excellent for math and science, ‘science conversation’, internships at Mayo… I don’t see a downside for you… And 120k saved toward medical school.
St. Olaf. Middlebury isn’t worth the extra price
Perhaps you’d also enjoy the Twin Cities being nearby.
@merc81 I appreciate your effort to compare prestige in a different way. Unfortunately, I don’t think test scores are a good way to do it. A better way (since we’re talking prestige rather than quality) is rankings. So comparing Middlebury to St. Olaf would be more like comparing Columbia, Stanford, or University of Chicago to University of Miami in terms of relative prestige. This doesn’t mean any of these schools would be worth paying $30K/year more.